"Booby" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no pity in Jennings' breast, so he ordered Dauss to the booby hatch for a spanking and sent Coveleski to ladle out the pitch stuff. The young southpaw was equally generous in intent and would surely have forced in enough runs to give the Sox the game, but two of the visitors absolutely refused to accept that kind of a gift ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... and his fifteen black boat's crew as much as they could handle. She was sixty feet over all, and the cross beams of her crown deck had not been weakened by deck-houses. The only breaks—and no beams had been cut for them—were the main cabin skylight and companionway, the booby hatch for'ard over the tiny forecastle, and the small hatch aft that let ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... uneasy conscience, menaced danger. At length it occurred to him that the applicant might be Louis, whom he had sent with the message to the Porte Neuve: and he took the lamp and went to admit him, albeit reluctantly, for what did the booby mean by returning? It was late, and only to open at this hour might, in the light cast by after events, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... he, who based his whole life and his whole reputation on the theory that nothing ever could induce him to make himself ridiculous or to become bad form, might turn out to be the ludicrous hero of a country-house 'booby-trap.' To do him justice, he feared this result much more than the other. But he wanted to test himself—to find himself out. All this thinking had not as yet delayed his movements by a single step, but now he paused for one short second, and he felt his pulse. It beat steadily, ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... stopped only when he saw her on the point of hurling at him the chamber utensil which she had just seized. "If it is the devil who has offended thee with his words," she said, "resent the insult with words likewise, jackass that thou art, but if I have offended thee myself, learn, stupid booby, that thou must respect me, and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "Speak out, you booby. Cornichon! Where did you find it? Let me see it—at once." All fire and imperiousness, she held out grasping fingers. He shook. And then carefully he drew from the inside pocket of his coat, the purse. She snatched it. Yes—it was her purse. And yet there was ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... protesting against the profane interruption to Mr. Crewe's speech, bent her head to enter Mr. Crewe's booby sleigh, which had his crest on the panel. Alice was hustled in next, but Victoria avoided his ready assistance and got in herself, Mr. Crewe getting ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... girl over there just last week and put her in the 'booby' house on bread and water for ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... her a simple little letter, telling her that he was leaving Ireland because he had suffered a great deal, and would write to her from New York, whereas he had written her the letter of a booby. And feeling he must do something to rectify his mistake, he went to his writing-table, but he had hardly put the pen to the paper when he heard a step on the gravel outside ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... all right it would not be a private wedding. What fools women are! And Fanny, whom I always thought so entirely able to take care of herself, turns out to be the greatest fool of all! This fellow's a booby, I believe, Mrs. Newt. I think I have heard even you make fun of him. But to be poor, too! To run away with a pauper-booby, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... two or three thousand years of this sport, I suppose Blackstick grew tired of it. Or perhaps she thought, 'What good am I doing by sending this Princess to sleep for a hundred years? by fixing a black pudding on to that booby's nose? by causing diamonds and pearls to drop from one little girl's mouth, and vipers and toads from another's? I begin to think I do as much harm as good by my performances. I might as well shut my incantations up, and allow things ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Go, booby; do you think I am a child?" his master retorted angrily. "I've my sword and can use it. I shall not be long. And do you hear, men, keep a ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... continued Mr. Silton, "there are two distinct sorts of what we call bashfulness; this, the awkwardness of a booby, which a few steps into the world will convert into the pertness of a coxcomb; that, a consciousness, which the most delicate feelings produce, and the most extensive knowledge ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... the angling clubs which encourage prize-taking offer booby consolations for the smallest fish, but I have known exceptions, especially at the holiday competitions by the seaside. The biggest fish are another matter altogether. Sooner or later the world is bound ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... quiet creature as a rule," said the horse—"very patient with people—don't make much fuss. But it was bad enough to have that vet giving me the wrong medicine. And when that red-faced booby started to monkey with me, I just ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... on brutish cunning, or midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and that the Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse character, who ambitiously claims to act the leader, under the unmanly disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat heros. The "Rebecca" seems no more than a living figure to give effect to the drama, as boys dress up an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... he passed along the gangway towards the bridge which he was about to mount to have a look at the standard compass and see what course the helmsman was steering, on his way from the poop, where I had noticed him talking with the skipper as I came up the booby-hatch from below. "Hullo, Haldane!" he cried, shouting almost in my ear, and giving me a playful dig in the ribs at the same time; this nearly knocked all the breath out of my body. "Is ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... have been in the Eton expedition, tell him, and to have heard a song (by-the-bye, I have forgotten that) sung in the thunderstorm, solos by Charley, chorus by the friends, describing the career of a booby who was plucked at college, every ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... yer great cowardly booby, will yer? So you thought you was coming hout to frighten a little lad, did ye? And you met with one of your hown size, did ye? Now will ye get hup and take it like a man, or shall I give it you ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... looking, overgrown young person. To get anything out of him I alternately prodded and fondled; he was a cross between a big booby and a sullen animal. ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... 4th we inspanned and continued our march for Booby, a large party of savages still following the wagons. Before proceeding far I was tempted by the beautiful appearance of the country to saddle horses, to hunt in the mountains westward of my course. I directed the wagons to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... wears Lady Booby's cast-off livery, is, I think, to the full as polite as Tom Jones in his fustian suit, or Captain Booth in regimentals. He has, like those heroes, large calves, broad shoulders, a high courage, and a handsome face. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... friend booby Grafton I'll e'en let you keep, Awake he can't hurt, and is still half asleep; Nor ever was dangerous, but to womankind, And his body's as impotent now ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... Blasco Nunez characterized the four judges of the Audience in a manner more concise than complimentary, - a boy, a madman, a booby, and a dunce! "Decia muchas veces Blasco Nunez, que le havian dado el Emperador, i su Consejo de Indias vn Moco, un Loco, un Necio, vn Tonto por Oidores, que asi lo havian hecho como ellos eran. Moco era Cepeda, i llamaba Loco a Juan Alvarez, i Necio a Tejada, que no sabia Latin." ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... piteous wretch, with his fatuous airs of sharpness, was exactly the kind of game that the bookmakers cared to fly at; he was cajoled and stimulated; he was trapped at every turn; the vultures flapped round him; and there was no strong, wise man to give the booby counsel or to drag him by main force from his fate. There was no pity for the boy's youth; he was a mark for every obscene bird of prey that haunts the Turf; respectable betting men gave him fair play, though they exacted their pound of flesh; the birds of Night gave him no fair ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... booby! He must fall in love, indeed! And now he's naught but sentimental looks And sentences, pronounced 'twixt breath and voice! And attitudes of tender languishment! Nor can I get from him the name of her Hath turned him from a stock into ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... danced airily, but with perfect modesty, to the sound of viols and the clanging of tambourines. It is needless to say that Passepartout watched these curious ceremonies with staring eyes and gaping mouth, and that his countenance was that of the greenest booby imaginable. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... that the Kremlin would brook no interference in its treatment of the Ukrainians, jokingly referred to the flying bread as a farce perpetrated by mad internationalists inhabiting Cloud Cuckoo Land, added contradictory references to airborne bread booby-trapped by Capitalist gangsters, and then fell moodily silent ...
— Bread Overhead • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... trees because they had no joints in their legs. The inhabitants, cunning fellows, sought out the favoured trees and sawed them nearly through; so that when the unfortunate elks settled themselves to sleep, the booby-traps came into operation. Having no joints in their legs, the poor beasts were unable to rise, and so became an easy prey to the savage Teuton. Herodotus, too, was somewhat credulous in the matter of animals; Sir John Mandeville was not always to be trusted; and ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... advised earnestly, "you'll get him out of London. He's restless. You may have noticed that yourself. He's spoiling for an adventure, and Dagger Rodwell is just the man to make use of him and then leave him high and dry—the booby for us to save our bacon with. I don't wish any harm to Mr. Bundercombe, sir—and that's straight! Until the day I met Mrs. Bundercombe at Liverpool I am free to confess that I was feeling sore against him. To-day that's all wiped out. We had a pleasant little time at the Ritz that afternoon, ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... header with it into a bog, out of which pony and boy rolled and struggled indiscriminately, boy none the worse, pony lamed for life. He played billiards with the Duke, and told the Duchess all his school adventures, practical jokes, fights, apple-pie beds, booby-traps, surreptitious ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... appears to expect equal oblivion on the part of his readers, of the fact that nearly two generations had passed. Henry is Joseph; Susan May is a much more elaborate and attractive Betty; the doctor's wife a vulgarised and repulsive Lady Booby; Ezekiel Daw, whom Scott admired, a dissenting Adams—the full force of the outrage of which variation Sir Walter perhaps did not feel. There are some good things in the story, but, as a whole, it is chiefly ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... of Maugerville. Others of the party were Daniel Leavitt, William McKeen, Elijah Estabrooks, Edward Burpee, Nathan Smith, John Pickard, Edmund Price, Amasa Coy, John Mitchell, Richard Parsons, Benjamin Booby and John Whitney. The rest of the party lived in Maugerville but their names are ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... and leave him to travel along the mire and beneath the clouds? For some weeks Summer was sulky—and sullenly scorned to shed a tear. His eyes were like ice. By-and-by, like a great school-boy, he began to whine and whimper—and when he found that would not do, he blubbered like the booby of the lowest form. Still the Sun would not look on him—or if he did, 'twas with a sudden and short half-smile half-scowl that froze the ingrate's blood. At last the Summer grew contrite, and the Sun forgiving, the one burst out into a flood of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the sheriff, "you're an idiot! This overgrown booby needs a horsewhipping, and that's the sort of an answer I'd like ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... The poor Booby frightned out of his Wits, jumped out of Bed, and, in his Shirt, sat down by my Bed-Side, pale and trembling, for the Moon shone, and I kept my Eyes wide open, and pretended to fix them in my Head. Mrs. Jervis apply'd Lavender ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... we find tedious people interrupting the course of our pleasures! You see me enraged on account of a splendid hunt, which a booby ... It is a story I ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... you have got my Lord of Cork.(530) He is, I know, a very worthy man, and though not a bright man, nor a man of the world, much less a good author, yet it must be comfortable to you now and then to see something besides travelling children, booby governors, and abandoned women of quality. You say, you have made my Lord Cork give up my Lord Bolingbroke: it is comical to see how he is given up here, since the best of his writings, his metaphysical divinity, have been published. While he betrayed and abused every man who trusted him, or ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... telegraph to the devil as to an old booby and a damned scheming young widow. I very much question if we shall do anything in the matter, even if we get there. But I suppose we ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... please.' Rous'd by the news, behold him now expand, Like beaten gold, and glitter o'er the land. Well stored with nods and sly approving winks, Now first with this and now with that he thinks; Howe'er opposing, still assents to each, And claps a dovetail to each booby's speech. At random thus for all, for none, he lives, Profusely lavish though he nothing gives; The world he roves as living but to show A friendless man without a single foe; From bad to good, to bad from good to run, And find a character ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... haven't spent a nickel on the play, you blundering booby," cried Mr. Bingle heartily. "That is still to come. I want ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... my dear. There is nothing so ungracious as a refusal, and no mark of high breeding so rare as the art of gracious acceptance. Any booby can give a present; but to receive a gift without churlish reticence or florid rapture is no easy accomplishment. I am always pleased to see you well-dressed, my love"—Diana winced as she remembered her shabby hat and threadbare gown at Foretdechene—"and ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... chance ever invented at which it is possible for both players to lose. Too often, after much sugar-coated deception, and many premeditated misdeals on both sides, one draws a blank and the other a booby. After patient angling in the matrimonial pool, one lands a stingaree and the other a bull-head. One expects to capture a demi-god who hits the earth only in high places; the other to wed a wingless angel who will make his Edenic bower one long-drawn sigh of ecstatic bliss. ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Wilmot would bring the tears into her eyes and she would wonder why it was she could not behave and make Mr. Wilmot like her as well as he did Julia. Then she would resolve not to make any more faces at that booby, Bill Jeffrey, for the girls to laugh at, nor to draw any more pictures on her slate of the Dame Sobriety, as she called Julia, and lastly, not to pin any more chalk rags on the boys' coats. But she ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... had two milk-white rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... ambition," replied Pigoult. "But we must first of all consult the Comte de Gondreville. Look, look!" he added; "see the attentions with which Simon is taking him that gilded booby, Beauvisage." ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... woman's ability to analyze the most subtile of human emotions. Mme. de La Fayette was, also, the first to elevate, in literature, the character of the husband who, until then, was a nonentity or a booby; she makes of him a hero—sympathetic, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... conceited, booby lord, and rejected lover of Imogen, though not very agreeable in itself, and at present obsolete, is drawn with great humour and knowledge of character. The description which Imogen gives of his unwelcome addresses to her— 'Whose love-suit ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... Torres Strait, which he called Endeavour Strait, discovered and named the Wallis Islands, situated in the middle of the south-west entrance to Booby Island, and Prince of Wales Island, and steered for the southern coast of New Guinea, which he followed until the 3rd of September without ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Harlowes took great pains, some time ago, to endeavour to get to the bottom of that story. But now the foolish devils are resolved to do something in it, if they can. My head is working to make this booby 'squire a plotter, and a clever fellow, in order to turn his plots to my advantage, supposing his sister shall aim to keep me at arm's length when in town, and to send me from her. But I will, in proper time, let thee see Joseph's letter, and what I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... as the "booby-trap" loaded with a millstone, which slays a hateful and despised tyrant, imposed by a foreign conqueror; evasion by secret passages, and concealment in underground vaults or earth-houses. The feigning of madness to escape death occurs, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... booby, why do you wander about and make a noise during the night? I have been working all day, and now they ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... what a penitentiary's like? Did you ever hear the clang of a celldoor as the turnkey slammed it behind him and left you to think and stew and weep in a silence accented and made more wretched by a yellow electricbulb and the stink of corrosivesublimate? Back to the cityroom, you dabbling booby, you precious simpleton, addlepated dunce, and be thankful my boundless generosity permits you to draw a weekly paycheck at all and doesnt condemn you to labor forever unrewarded in the subterranean vaults where the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... we can protect Handlon," one of the sleuths ruminated, half to himself. "No judge would ever believe a word about this de-astralization business. The chances are we would all go to the booby hatch and Handlon would go to prison for ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... the core two kernels now I take, This on my cheek for Lubberkin is worn, And Booby Clod on t'other side is borne; But Booby Clod soon falls upon the ground, A certain token that his love's unsound; While Lubberkin sticks firmly to the last; Oh! were his lips to mine but ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... tight little body, with a face like a carrot! That's a beauty for my money! Honesty's stamped on his face, Mr. Tomlinson! I dare says" (and the officer grinned, for he had been a lad of the cross in his own day),—"I dare says, poor innocent booby, he knows none of the ways of Lunnun town; and if he has not as merry a life as some folks, mayhap he may have a longer. But a merry one forever for such lads as us, Mr. Pepper! I say, has you heard as how Bill Fang went to Scratchland [Scotland] and was stretched ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... desired time the sound of the bugle is heard and the skirmish is ended. The fort having captured the most flags gains the victory and each soldier should be awarded a suitable prize. The fort having the least number of flags may be given a booby prize in the shape of small toy drums for the ladies and toy fife or horn for the gentlemen. The "General" may then order the soldiers of this fort to serenade ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... the gunner's room; go and see what is the matter, but don't alarm any body, and come and make your report privately to me." In a short time he returned: "Sir, there 's nothing there, 'tis only the water washing up between the timbers that this booby has taken for a leak." "O, very well; go upon deck and see if you can keep any of the water from washing down below." "Sir, I have had four people constantly keeping the hatchways secure, but there is such a weight of water upon the deck that nobody can stand it when ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... to Paris to avoid being present at the great fete in honour of the peace. I know no sensation more painful than these public rejoicings in which the heart refuses to participate. We feel a sort of contempt for this booby people which comes to celebrate the yoke preparing for it: these dull victims dancing before the palace of their sacrificer: this first consul designated the father of the nation which he was about to devour: this mixture of stupidity on one side, and cunning on the other: the stale hypocrisy of ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... return to us again and again, as if seeking to solve the mystery of what strange beings were these that had invaded their retreat. In one rookery there were many varieties of these oceanic birds, and a species of booby that seems to be peculiar to Christmas Island. In size and colour they much resemble the ordinary gannet of our cold northern seas. Their plumage is of a wondrously bright snow white, with the exception of the primary and secondary feathers of the wings, and the retrices or tail ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... bobo" means much the same as our word "booby," therefore this was not a very soothing manner of beginning her information. To Isabelita's surprise, however, Timoteo answered only "Yes," and, coming in, put his one book carefully away, and then went forth for the cow, as he had been bidden. Isabelita stared after him. She had at ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... was no doubt sufficient for a light canoe, drawing some two inches of water. We therefore reluctantly turned away and resumed our uneasy coasting voyage, in the course of which we passed some nearly leafless trees, full of white patches, too large for flowers, which afterwards turned out to be booby-birds, who here find a resting-place. They are so numerous that it is hardly possible to walk beneath the trees ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... first to introduce it in Shannondale, she stood, flushed and triumphant, with the restored diamonds in her ears and at her throat, laughing merrily with the others at Judge St. Claire, who had won the booby prize—a little drum, as something he could beat—and who, with a perplexed look in his face, was staring at the thing as if he did ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... of Fairfield, the miller. An outlandish, ignorant booby, jealous of his sister, Patty, because she "could paint picturs and strum on the harpsicols." He was in love with Fanny, the gypsy, for which "feyther" was angry with him; but, "what argufies feyther's anger?" However, he treated Fanny ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... red, "If the booby thinks my money grows on every bush!... On top of the fact that my Indians are beginning to haggle over payments!" Fuming, and disregarding the excuses of Padre Irene, who tried to explain while he rubbed the tip of his ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... you owe all this!" she exclaimed, in an outburst of triumph. "If I hadn't looked after you, you would have been nicely taken in by the insurgents. You booby, it was Garconnet, Sicardot, and the others, that had got to be thrown to those ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... imperious guard; The GANDER;... spiteful, insolent, and bold, At the colt's footlock takes his daring hold: There, serpent-like, escapes a dreadful blow; And straight attacks a poor defenceless cow: Each booby goose th' unworthy strife enjoys, And hails his prowess with redoubled noise. Then back he stalks, of self-importance full, Seizes the shaggy foretop of the bull, Till whirl'd aloft he falls; a timely check, Enough to dislocate ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... piety's mighty strong in Spain." He swung on his heel abruptly, and strode back to the knot of men about his prisoner. "Here!" he shouted to them. "Bring him below." And he led the way down to the waist, and thence by the booby hatch to the gloom of the 'tween-decks, where the air was rank with the smell of tar and spun yarn. Going aft he threw open the door of the spacious wardroom, and went in followed by a dozen of the hands with the pinioned Spaniard. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Carry him all your poems to-morrow; there will be enough to make a volume. Massif will publish it at his own expense, and you will appear before the public in one month. You never will inveigle a second time that big booby of a Gaillard, who took a mere passing fancy for you. But no matter! I know your book, and it will be a success. You are launched. Forward, march! Truly, I am better than I thought, for your ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Field-Marshal?" said he one day—"in Karl's kingdom the shorter the service, the higher the distinction. If you and the Prince live long enough, I shall see you carry a musketoon yet, and not one of the latest pattern, either. You will be promoted down, like a booby who has been raised by chance to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... big and stout as father and mother put together, you can't find any expedient in your noddle? you can't plan any stratagem, invent any gallant intrigue to put matters straight? Fie! Plague on the booby! I wish I had had the two old fellows to bamboozle in former times; I should not have thought much of it; and I was no bigger than that, when I had given a hundred delicate proofs of ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... had sixty-eight questions which were booby- trapped in a couple of places to give us a cross check on the reliability of the reporter as an observer. We received quite a few questionnaires answered in such a way that it was obvious that the observer was drawing heavily ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... (d. 1742), actor, originally performed at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs. On 27 Oct. 1721 his name appears as Sir Epicure Mammon in the Alchemist at Drury Lane. Here he remained for eleven years, taking the parts of booby squires, fox-hunters, etc., proving himself what Victor calls 'a jolly facetious low comedian'. His good voice was serviceable in ballad opera and farce. On account of his 'natural timidity', according ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... a prodigious fellow! What do you think Booby says? He says that Foaming Fudge can do more than any man in Great Britain; that he had one day to plead in the King's Bench, spout at a tavern, speak in the House, and fight a duel; and that he found time for ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... and Anne and Colin, as they set the booby-trap for Pinkney. Very quiet as they watched Pinkney's innocent approach. The sponge caught him—with a delightful, squelching flump—full and fair on the top of ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... I hung about a few minutes for him, and then, as he didn't turn up, I left, and met that old booby just as I was coming out ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... know, cousin Wright, that I am in love, and never was I so happy or so miserable in my days. If I was not a farmer there would be some hopes for me; but, to be sure, it is not to be expected that such a lady as she is should think of a mere country booby; in which light, indeed, she was pleased to say, as I heard from good authority, she did not consider me; though my manners wanted polish. These were her own words. I shall spare nothing to please her, if possible, and am not wholly without hope, though I have a powerful rival; ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... asked me of whoever was old or ugly in the room. I made no sort of answer: and when he found that I was resolutely silent, and walked on as much as I could without observing him, he suddenly stamped his foot, and cried out in a passion, "Fool! idiot! booby!" ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... understand; you great booby," she said, "that I hate him just because he married me, because he bought me, in fact; because everything that he says and does, everything that he thinks, acts on my nerves? He exasperates me every moment by his stupidity, which you call his kindness; by his dullness, which you call his confidence, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... is Hardin, the hate of hell in his heart. A glass of neat brandy is tossed off. He throws himself heavily on the bed. The world is a torment to him now. "On to Sacramento" is his last thought. Money, in hoards and heaps, will drown this rich booby's vain interference. For, legislatures sell senatorial honors in California openly like cabbage in a huckster's ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... the usual way, and then I'll not deny that we had a trifle of a disagreement. But he seemed to simmer down all right, said he'd send along for you, and after a bit of time said you'd come, and wouldn't I walk through the house and see you myself. The crafty old fox had got his booby trap rigged in the mean time, and then I walked straight into it like the softest specimen of blame' fool ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... "I'll look at that wound of yours when I've seen to the door. No lock, of course." She pondered frowningly. "It's a childish thing at the best," she added thoughtfully; "but it may be a novelty in these parts. Have you ever arranged a booby ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... would ride there, and Dingley go in a coach. I have had no fit since my first, although sometimes my head is not quite in good order.—At night. I was this morning to visit Mr. Pratt, who is come over with poor, sick Lord Shelburne: they made me dine with them; and there I stayed, like a booby, till eight, looking over them at ombre, and then came home. Lord Shelburne's giddiness is turned into a colic, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... You ain't quite yourself, be ye? I knowed a feller once that thought he was the angel Gabriel and went around with a tin fish horn, tooting it at all hours of the day and night. But no graves opened for him and nobody was resurrected. They finally put him in the booby ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... he said coldly. "It took time to fix it the way it is. At a guess, the ship was booby-trapped at the time of its last overhaul. But it was arranged that the booby trap had to be set, the trigger cocked, by somebody doing something very simple at a different place and later on. We've been flying with that grenade in the ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... see nothing in all this to be frightened about," said Leopold, calmly. "That she has refused a booby who runs away for fear of a woman, only proves her to be a girl of character. I begin to think there will be something piquant in this adventure, and I prefer a lively young lady to ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... you say, benefactress? He's still a regular booby! What can you expect of him! He'll get wiser, then ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... which had come from Mr. Horsball, for Mr. Horsball had not been spiteful enough to call upon him. There came a knock at his door, and young Mr. Moggs was ushered into the room. Now Mr. Moggs was the son of Booby and Moggs, the well-known bootmakers of Old Bond Street; and the boots they had made for Ralph Newton had been infinite in number, as they had also, no doubt, been excellent in make and leather. But Booby and Moggs had of late wanted money, had written many letters, and ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... their heads,—and that, too, when on the point of death themselves, in articulo mortis, oh! it would be madness, waste, extravagance, impiety!—Thus worldlings feel and argue without knowing it; and while they fancy they are studying their own interest or that of some booby successor, their alter idem, are but the dupes and puppets of a favourite idea, a phantom, a prejudice, that must be kept up somewhere (no matter where), if it still plays before and haunts their imagination, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... feller-citizens contrive to du without,— Long 'z you suppose your votes can turn biled kebbage into brain, An' ary man thet's pop'lar's fit to drive a lightnin'-train,— Long 'z you believe democracy means I'm ez good ez you be, An' that a feller from the ranks can't be a knave or booby,— Long 'z Congress seems purvided, like yer street-cars an' yer 'busses, With ollers room for jes' one more o' your spiled-in-bakin' cusses, 290 Dough 'thout the emptins of a soul, an' yit with means about 'em ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... booby, fool, idiot, I am!" he cried, with a scornful laugh. "No, it is she who has been false and untruthful, she who must acknowledge it, she who is bound to give me, once for all, full explanation. Yes, it is she who must bend, and then she may have some claim to hear from me what I too ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... tattler screwed himself up to the widow insinuatingly, as if her understanding could only be seized at close quarters, "I make that observation, because poor Dick Boulby, your lamented husband—eh! poor Dick! You see, Missis, it ain't the tough ones last longest: he'd sing, 'I'm a Sea Booby,' to the song, 'I'm a green Mermaid:' poor Dick! 'a-shinin' upon the sea-deeps.' He kept the liquor from his head, but didn't mean it to stop down ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they have become the admiration of all for miles around. I told him he looked like a market gardener, collecting flowers from every place he went to. I dragged him away several times, and told him he would certainly be taken for a country booby, and scolded him for demeaning his rank with such ignoble pleasures, and what wise answer do ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Hermy was making a humourous allusion to Foljambe, who was the one person in Riseholme whom his two sisters seemed to hold in respect. Ursy had once set a booby-trap for Georgie, but the mixed biscuits and Brazil nuts had descended on Foljambe instead. On that occasion Foljambe, girt about in impenetrable calm, had behaved as if nothing had happened and trod on biscuits and ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... model. I will add that his eyes are very interesting, by turns grave, gentle, gay, or melancholy. I have nothing to say against his manners or his language; his address is excellent, and he is no booby—far from it. With all this there is something about him that shocks me—I scarcely know what—a mingling of two natures that I cannot explain. He might be said to resemble, according to circumstances, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... ago you would have walked over all our dead bodies, if necessary, to marry that noble booby. And you would have married him if it had not been for me! I would not permit you to wed him then, because you were in honor bound to Regulas Rothsay. I shall insist on your accepting him now, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... by the people in your kitchen. Your servants get saucy and negligent. If their newspaper calls you names, they need not be so particular about shutting doors softly or boiling potatoes. So you lose your temper, and come out in an article which you think is going to finish "Ananias," proving him a booby who doesn't know enough to understand even a lyceum-lecture, or else a person that tells lies. Now you think you've got him! Not so fast. "Ananias" keeps still and winks to "Shimei," and "Shimei" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... before he was eleven, and Archbishop Benson when scarcely older possessed a little oratory in which he conducted services and—a pleasant touch of the more secular boy—which he protected from a too inquisitive sister by means of a booby trap. It is rare that those marked for episcopal dignities go so far into the outer world as Archbishop Lang of York, who began as a barrister. This early predestination has always been the common episcopal experience. Archbishop Benson's early ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... and patriarchal simplicity—"Avarice and aversion from civilization." As it began to rain we entered a tavern, and ordered a fowl to be roasted, as the soup and stews of yester-even were not to my taste. A booby, with idiocy marked on his countenance, was lounging about the door, and when our mid-day meal was done I ordered the man to give him a glass of slivovitsa, as plum brandy is called. He then came forward, trembling, as if about to receive sentence of death, and taking off his greasy ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... in many of his dugouts, and by contraptions with objects lying amid the litter, he had left "booby traps" to blow our men to bits if they knocked a wire, or stirred an old boot, or picked up a fountain-pen, or walked too often over a board where beneath acid was eating through a metal plate to a high-explosive charge. I little ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... 'you never was caught out this way before in all your born days,' I says. She was fit to be tied. 'Laugh!' she says. 'You great booby!' 'Hat,' I says, 'I shall give up, I know I shall.' 'It's jest your ignorance,' she says. 'I know it,' I says, 'but I couldn't help it no more than if you had slid a knife into me.' And I out with another. 'Come down into my cabin,' I says, 'and I will give you a little something in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... said Elliott. "It would be altogether too tame. I'd qualify for the booby prize without trying. But the rest of you may ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... Fielding thinking and provoked him to the composition of the first of his three great novels. Pamela is only remembered nowadays as Joseph's sister: the egregious Mr. B—- has hardly any existence save as Lady Booby's brother. 'Tis an ill wind that blows good to nobody. There are few more tedious or more unpleasant experiences than Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded. But you have but to remember that without it the race might never have heard ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... gentlemen, permit me to wish you health and happiness, and may you grow better and wiser in advancing years, bearing in mind that outward appearances are deceitful. You mistook me, from my dress, for a country booby; while I, from the same superficial cause, thought you were ladies and gentlemen. The mistake has been mutual." Just then Governor Caleb Strong entered and called to Mr. Whitman, who, turning to the dumfounded company, said: "I wish you a very ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... century, through all the ages of the past, and through the vast creation of the imaginable future. We spurn at the bounds of time and space; nor would the thought be less futile that imagines to imprison the mind within the limits of the body, than the attempt of the booby clown who is said within a thick hedge to have plotted to shut in ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... Tona was kept posted on all his adventures, and was immensely flattered at the boy's popularity and "social position." A bit too fond of brandy, yes—and what a pity!—but a regular fellow, quite different from that big good-natured booby of a Pascualet, who wouldn't say a word if a cart ran ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... at recess, which was often very inconvenient when Elizabeth and Rosie wanted to teeter by themselves or stay indoors and tell secrets. Then, too, John and the Pretender teased her unmercifully. They called her beau "Booby" Oliver and said he should have been a girl. She took his part valiantly, but she did wish he wouldn't say "papa" and "mamma," it made ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... the pin in her hat band, intending to restore it on the way home. But in the next cafe they stopped in she picked a fight and left him in a huff. Would you believe it, that guy had the nerve to come around the next day and declare that she had pinched the bauble and threaten to land her in the booby hatch ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... replied, obstinately, "because you say to yourself: 'This is a booby whom I shall persuade to do anything I wish, by telling him that I love him; he will believe it, and I will take him away to be hanged.' Come; there is only one word which will serve if ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Between Booby Island and Cape Wessel, which we passed in sight of on the 3rd, we had thick gloomy weather, with the wind between South and East-South-East; and, after rounding the Cape had some heavy rain, in which the mercury, having previously ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... O yes! O yes! By command of her Highness! Lost, stolen, or strayed, Gone to the dogs or mislaid, Her Highness' splendid ruby. Whoso finds it—wit or booby, Tinker, tailor, soldier, lord— Let him ask what he will, he ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... political bagman to Germany to bring back the ashes of Papa Victory, as the Prince de Joinville brought back the dead Emperor from St. Helena. Carnot I., after all, was simply a good war minister, who loomed into greatness only in comparison with the rogue Pache and the phenomenal booby Bouchotte who preceded him. He was certainly no better than his successor Petiet, and it was Petiet, not he, who finally "organised victory" by sending Moreau to the Rhine, and Bonaparte to Italy. Napoleon, who knew them both, made Petiet governor of Lombardy, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... (Wanders up the room.) I came because the Spirit of Revolt has crept into my School. A Secret Society has existed for weeks in the Lower Third! To-day it has come to my knowledge that a booby-trap was prepared for me by the hand of my own son, LAURITS, and I then discovered that a hair has been inserted in my cane by my daughter HILDA! The only way in which a right-minded Schoolmaster can combat this anarchic and subversive spirit is to start a newspaper, and I thought that you, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... on Richardson's "Pamela" (see Vol. VII), which appeared in 1740. He described it as "written in the manner of Cervantes," and in Parson Adams there is the same quaint blending of the humorous and the pathetic as in the Knight of La Mancha. Although such characters as Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop are admittedly ridiculous, Parson Adams remains an admirable study of a simple-minded clergyman of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and unease you too. The idiot! the patch! the slave! the booby! The property fit only to be beaten For your morning exercise? your football, or Th'unprofitable lump of flesh, your drudge, Can now anatomize you, and lay open All your black plots; level with the earth Your ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... "Well, booby," sneered the bird, "and under the grass is wet moss, which, if you make a hole in it, will fill with water. Why, I'd do it myself, in a moment, only your claws are better suited for the purpose than mine. Set about it ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... or something like that." He passed his hand rapidly over the photoelectric eye of the commo box. "Get me Major Slater," he said; and, a little later, "Major, get a platoon out to Long Island, to Chester Pelton's home; have the place searched for possible booby traps, and maintain guard there till further notice. You'll have no trouble with the servants, they're all in our pay. That platoon must not, repeat not, wear uniform or appear to have any connection with the Fraternities. Put another platoon in Pelton's store. ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... all about that! You know, madame, he's still a booby at heart. You've no idea how stupid that uniform makes them all! That's the way he goes on with his comrades; but if I turned him out, you would hear him sobbing on the stairs. Oh, I don't care a fig for you, my lad! Why, whenever ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola |
