"Entertainer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Flossy turned to her brother; but it was club night to him, too, and while he had not the excuse that the entertainer of the club certainly had, it served very well as an excuse, though he was frank enough to add, "As for that, I don't believe I should go if I hadn't an engagement; I won't be hypocrite enough to go to the prayer-meeting." ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... considered, and when she proceeded to offer to go and sit with the old dear or bring her game board and play with him Steve released a broad grin as he pictured Constantine in his helpless captive state welcoming Trudy as an entertainer about as much as he would have begged for a tete-a-tete with a lady major bent ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... profound loyalty You have sent Us tribute from afar, and We are delighted at this admirable token of Your sincerity. Our health is as usual, notwithstanding the increasing heat of the weather. Therefore We have sent Pei Shieh-ching, Official Entertainer of the Department charged with the Ceremonial for the Reception of Foreign Ambassadors, and his suite, to notify to you the preceding. We also transmit to you the products of which a list is ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... might be easily inclined to discover genuine wit in any repartee which came from the Prince Regent, but it is certain that some at least of the men who surrounded him were not likely to have been betrayed into admiration merely because of the rank of their royal entertainer. Burke was held to have spoken disparagingly of George when he described him as "brilliant but superficial." To one of Burke's deep thought and wide information a man might well have seemed superficial in whom others ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... followed, which served to explain the position of all of them with reference to one another. Claude was the virtual master of the schooner, since he had chartered it for his own purposes. To all of them, therefore, he seemed first their savior, and secondly their host and entertainer, to whom they were bound to feel chiefly grateful. Yet none the less did they endeavor to include the honest skipper in their gratitude; and Zac came in for a large share of it. Though he could not ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... different parts of the village. For half an hour or more we were actively engaged in passing from lodge to lodge, tasting in each of the bowl of meat set before us, and inhaling a whiff or two from our entertainer's pipe. A thunderstorm that had been threatening for some time now began in good earnest. We crossed over to Reynal's lodge, though it hardly deserved this name, for it consisted only of a few old buffalo robes, supported on poles, and was quite open on one side. Here we ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... amiability, and courage that appeared upon his features, fitted very ill with the Lieutenant's preconceptions on the subject of the proprietor of a hell; and the tone of his conversation seemed to mark him out for a man of position and merit. Brackenbury found he had an instinctive liking for his entertainer; and though he chid himself for the weakness, he was unable to resist a sort of friendly attraction for ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... place of gathering for our Telugu missionaries, even though most of them live and work much farther to the north. The principle of home rule requires such gathering, and the missionary at Madras, without seeking it, naturally becomes a sort of secretary and treasurer and entertainer of the whole body of Telugu workers. No one could be better adapted to this position of responsibility than is Doctor Ferguson. His abounding hospitality and his command of the whole situation make him sought as a counselor and as a leader. As the older men, like ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... essential part in the drama of La Misere: he would play that part to the utmost of his ability; the cap-and-bells should not grace a head unworthy of their high significance. He would be a great fool, since that was his function; a supreme entertainer, since his duty was to amuse. After all, men in La Misere as well as anywhere else rightly demand a certain amount of amusement; amusement is, indeed, peculiarly essential to suffering; in proportion as we are able to be amused we are able to suffer; I, Surplice, am a very ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty. ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... no answer. She might have been stone deaf, and as dumb as the hearthstone bricks. Mrs. Mitchell cast an alarmed glance at her entertainer. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Choo agree that this ode was composed in honor of the officer who narrates the story in it, although they say it was not written by the officer himself, but was put into his mouth, as it were, to express the sympathy of his entertainer with him, and the appreciation of ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... Celebration of Mr. Robert Dover's Olympick Games upon Cotswold Hills, 4to. 1636. This consists of ten stanzas, of eight lines each, "To the noble and fayre Assemblies, the harmonious concourse of Muses, and their Ioviall entertainer, my right generous Friend, Master Robert Dover, upon Cotswold." Basse was also, as Mr. Collier remarks, the author of a poem, which I have never seen, called Sword and Buckler, or Serving Man's Defence, in six-line stanzas, 4to. Lond., imprinted ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... host's fault, nor Mr John Randolph's, who acted as joint entertainer, if their guests did not make a hearty tea. The meal concluded, Mr Tankardew requested his young friend to bring out some of his curiosities. These greatly interested all the party—especially Mrs ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... treacherous half-breeds send a chill through the listener, it is all the same: at its close the judge's amiable features wear the same belief-compelling smile. Under its influence we sit for hours while our entertainer ranges through the stores of his memory, pulling out much that is dust-covered and ancient, but quickly renovated for our use by his ready imagination and occasional wit. With a feeling akin to reverence we listen—a reverence due ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... scene of which is laid in Japan, one of the most famous stories is Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti, a cynical sketch of the Japanese geisha, or professional entertainer. Another good story which lays bare the ugly fate that often befalls the geisha, is The Lady and Sada San by Frances Little, the author of that popular book, ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... hate a Docker.' BLAKEWAY. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 118) says that Reynolds took Johnson to dine at a house where 'he devoured so large a quantity of new honey and of clouted cream, besides drinking large potations of new cyder, that the entertainer found himself much embarrassed between his anxious regard for the Doctor's health and his fear of breaking through the rules of politeness, by giving him a hint on the subject. The strength of Johnson's constitution, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Lane! The American husband must be a good provider, but it doesn't follow that the wife must be a good cook. Say a good entertainer, and there you have a complete formula of matrimony: PROVIDER (Hustler, Money-getter, Liberal) and ENTERTAINER ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... vocal talent for this occasion only, and a screaming display of conjuring tricks by an amateur of legerdemain who had forgotten the art, if ever he had mastered it. At every new mistake or blunder, and with each fresh change of expression on the entertainer's streaky face, conveying the idea of his being under the influence of a bad dream, and hoping to wake up in his own quarters by-and-by, to find that he had never really undertaken to make a pudding in a hat, and smash a gentleman's watch ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the ladies are the cause!" says her entertainer. "Madam, is Dick a good swordsman? How charming the 'Tatler' is! We all recognized your portrait in the 49th number, and I have been dying to know you ever since I read it. 'Aspasia must be allowed to be the first of the beauteous order of love.' Doth not the passage run so? 'In this ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Here our entertainer gave out, and had to rest; and while resting he went to sleep, so that he did not take up his story ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... hours he was still alone, but a little table, upon which was a good dinner, had been drawn up close to him, and as he had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours he lost no time in beginning his meal, hoping that he might soon have an opportunity of thanking his considerate entertainer, whoever it might be. But no one appeared, and even after another long sleep, from which he awoke completely refreshed, there was no sign of anybody, though a fresh meal of dainty cakes and fruit was prepared ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... her none too immaculately shod feet ceased their pilgrimages to the agencies. She did apply one sultry morning in answer to an advertisement for a "refined indoor entertainer, city work," only to find the usual fee exhortation thinly backed by promises. For the most part she marked off at her breakfast table in the adjoining Swedish lunch room, under the newspaper heading, "Help Wanted, Female," ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... for any hospitality offered to him when visiting another city, if the entertainer visit ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... smoothly ignoring the pocket entertainer, said: "So glad to see you, Miss Winslow. I think this ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... it became apparent even to Lawless himself that the visit could not be protracted longer, and we accordingly rose and took our leave, our host (I will not call him entertainer, for it would be a complete misnomer) preserving the same tone of cool and imperturbable politeness to the very last. On reaching the hall we encountered the surly old footman, whose features looked more than ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... charming characteristic of the Young Amateur Entertainer that—whether he possesses or not the smallest acquaintance with any language beyond his own—he is always prepared to impersonate a foreigner of any given nationality at a moment's notice; and Mr. Punch is confident that the most backward of his Pupils will be perfectly at home (and how ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... far-reaching. Lectures would be given all over the areas occupied by British troops. Every base would be organised in such a way that such lectures and even detailed courses of study should be available for everyone. Every chaplain, hutworker, and social entertainer must do his or her bit. They must know how to speak wisely and well—not all in public, but, everyone as the occasion offered, privately, in hut or camp, to inquiring and dissatisfied Tommies. They would doubtless feel themselves ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... the neighbouring gentry were in attendance, not disdaining to wear, out of grace and courtesy to Sir Richard Hoghton, the livery of their thrice-honoured entertainer. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... and to enjoy, after this feverish revel, the cool summer evening, attended the party. But when they arrived at Luckie Macleary's, the Lairds of Balmawhapple and Killancureit declared their determination to acknowledge their sense of the hospitality of Tully-Veolan, by partaking with their entertainer and his guest Captain Waverley, what they technically called DEOCH AN DORUIS, a stirrup-cup, to the honour of the Baron's ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... garden were hardly out of flower when I lunched with her at her pretty villa at Putney. There I met Mr. Browning, Mr. Holman Hunt, Mrs. Ritchie, Miss Anna Swanwick, the translator of Aschylus, and other good company, besides that of my entertainer. ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... a bore to the handsome girl, and the change was now suggestive. The two sat together, after they had risen from table, in the apartment in which they had lunched, making it thus easy for the other guest and his entertainer to sit in the room adjacent. This, for the latter personage, was the beauty; it was almost, on Kate's part, like a prayer to be relieved. If she honestly liked better to be "thrown with" Susan Shepherd than with their other friend, why that said practically everything. ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... scarlet letter. In her lonesome cottage, by the sea-shore, thoughts visited her, such as dared to enter no other dwelling in New England; shadowy guests, that would have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have been seen so much as knocking ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... that he was asked to a wine-party; and putting his speculations aside for a moment, with the full intention nevertheless of clearing up the mystery as soon as possible, he betook himself to the rooms of his entertainer. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... do no such thing," rejoined Frank, "as no words I can employ would do justice to our honest entertainer, who is without exception the happiest and merriest little fellow I ever met with, possessing a countenance full of mirth and good-humour, and a heart overflowing with benevolence—a downright ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... satisfied with mere gregariousness, the sight and sound of other figures. They like to produce the same stock of ideas, the same conclusions. "As I always say," was a phrase that was for ever on my entertainer's lips. I suppose that probably my own range is just as limited, but I have an Athenian hankering after novelty of thought, the new mintage of the mind. I loathe the old obliterated coinage, with the stamp ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... vehicle. The landlord of the inn, too, and his ostler, were there; and Wilton failed not to pay them liberally for the services they had rendered. He then briefly gave his own address, and that of the Duke to his reverend entertainer, and entered the carriage beside the Lady Laura, with a heart beating high with the hope and expectation of saying all and hearing all that the voice of love ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... young entertainer, Magic at Home, translated by Professor HOFFMAN, will be a source of delight, and if some of the experiments should lead to slight temporary inconvenience, it will only help to pass a more ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 29, 1890 • Various
... Portuguese woman named Blavary, who, being in necessitous circumstances, was engaged by the Count as interpreter. She was constantly admitted into his laboratory, where he spent much of his time in search of the philosopher's stone. She spread abroad the fame of her entertainer in return for his hospitality, and laboured hard to impress everybody with as full a belief in his extraordinary powers as she felt herself. But as a female interpreter of the rank and appearance of Madame Blavary did not exactly correspond ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... to know you before he can call you 'Jack'?" When Jerrold first saw Smith's initials, he had said that he believed they were "only two-thirds of the truth"—and he continued to act upon the assumption until Smith left Punch and had become a successful "Entertainer." Then a truce was called, for his Mont Blanc ascent and the "Entertainment" he made out of it (of which Leech himself said, "It's only bad John Parry") had made of Smith one of the lions of the day, and ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Buds, having disposed of the feast, and having yet half an hour of the birthday party left on their hands, decided to hold what they called a "Mixed Recitation Stunt." They sat in a circle on the floor and counted out till the lot fell upon one of them, whose pleasing duty it became to act entertainer for the next five minutes, when she was entitled to hand the part on to somebody else. Fate, aided perhaps by a little gentle maneuvering, gave the first turn ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... were speaking, the waitresses brought in fish and wine, and Jiurozayemon pressed Chobei to feast with him; and thinking to annoy Chobei, offered him a large wine-cup,[23] which, however, he drank without shrinking, and then returned to his entertainer, who was by no means so well able to bear the fumes of the wine. Then Jiurozayemon hit upon another device for annoying Chobei, and, hoping ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... greater in Fay, because possibly Fay was the greater student of emotion. Fay had the undercurrent, and Irene has perfected the surface. If Irene did study Fay at any time, and I say this respectfully, she perhaps knows that Fay went many times to Paris to study Rejane. The light entertainer is, as we know, very often a ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... the gliding seductive measure of the various waltzes played in quick succession by the band, created a vague impression of confusion and restlessness in the brain, and David Helmsley himself, the host and entertainer of the assembled guests, watched the brilliant scene from the ballroom door with a weary sense of melancholy which he knew was unfounded and absurd, yet which he could not resist,—a touch of intense and utter loneliness, as though he were a stranger ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... woke up and found himself famous, Haydn was that man, although he had been in the way of having his compositions played and sung before most of the important personages in Europe for years, Prince Esterhazy being a royal entertainer. It was for Madrid that Haydn composed his first Passion oratorio, "The Last Seven Words." This work, by a curious chance, he made over into an instrumental piece for his London concerts, the prejudice against "popery" preventing its being given there ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... My entertainer received me with more civility than I had expected. He was almost fashionably dressed; his grim features were smoothed into an elaborate smile; and he repeated his gratification at seeing me, in such variety of tones that I began to doubt the cordiality ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... repast was over, Burnett desired that the horses might be brought up, and declining the pressing request of their entertainer that he would hunt for a short time while his friend rested in a tent, he rode off with Reginald, the natives being compelled to follow. Well accustomed to traversing a wild country, even without a guide, Reginald had taken careful note of the way they had come, and was ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... them to proceed very cautiously, after leaving the hospitable cabin of their sable entertainer. But they had not gone far before they met an unexpected and vexatious obstacle, a river or creek, the Diascon, as the negroes named it. They crossed it at length, but not without great trouble and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... corrected the manuscript of the Analysis of Beauty for the press, Hogarth was on such friendly terms that he was admitted into one of the private theatrical exhibitions which the doctor loved, and was appointed to perform along with Garrick and his entertainer, a parody on that scene in Julius Caesar where the ghost appears to Brutus. Hogarth personated the spectre, but so unretentive—(we are told)—was his memory that though the speech consisted only of two ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... land." And there the matter rested. Only, when we separated that night, each of us carried a sealed envelope containing a numbered slip, which decided the question of precedence, and it was agreed that no one but the story-teller should know who was to be the evening's entertainer, until story-telling hour arrived with the coffee ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... Harleian MSS. at the British Museum is the account of a supernatural visitation to Rye in 1607. The visitants were angels, their fortunate entertainer being a married woman. She, however, by a lapse in good breeding, undid whatever good was intended for her. "And after that appeared unto her 2 angells in her chamber, and one of them having a white fan in her hand ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... interests. All this is most just; the occasion for such a strain of remark, though so apposite on one side, is hardly well chosen to impress us. We wonder, as we watch the boy complacently hoodwinking his entertainer, what has become of the Roman severity of a few months back. This nervous eagerness to please, however, was the complementary element of a character of vague ambition, and it was backed by a stealthy consciousness of intellectual superiority, which ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... posting her accounts, receiving payments, and regulating the complex affairs of her menage. She would shake a cocktail, make a gin-fizz or a Doctor Funk, chop ice or do any menial service, yet withal was your entertainer and your friend. She had the striking, yet almost inexplicable, dignity of the Maori—the facing of life serenely and without reserve or fear for ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Nigel Olifaunt, Lord Glenvarloch, being again hollowed into his ear, he drew up, and, regarding his entertainer with some austerity, rebuked him for not making persons of quality acquainted with each other, that they might exchange courtesies before they mingled with other folks. He then made as handsome and courtly a congee to his new acquaintance as a man maimed in foot and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... but my sovereign logic for regulating public opinion—which means commonly the opinion of half a dozen of the critical gentry—is the following: Major proposition. Oysters au naturel. Minor proposition. The same "scalloped." Conclusion. That —— (here insert entertainer's name) is clever, witty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... Texan went on, after a short pause. "I've got a pot of coffee bilin' an' a mess o' bacon fryin'. No?" He grinned sardonically. "How'd you like me to give you some o' this here cabareet stuff, while you're waitin'? I ain't no great shucks as a entertainer, but I'll do what I can. Mebbe, you'd like to know how I happened to catch you that clump on the head ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... prefer a funeral and black kid gloves. It is a tragedy played off at the expense of the few for the gratification of the many—a costly luxury, of which it is pleasanter to be the spectator than the entertainer. ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... hour before bedtime, David was entertainer. Polly had promised the children delightful stories from him, and now he made good her word. He chose for his recital something of his aunt's that Polly had never heard, the true account of how some little trickey Southern boys obtained a pet ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... of it," laughed Toinette, shaking her finger at Miss Preston, as the latter said: "I leave you to a livelier entertainer, now, Mr. Reeve, while I go to look after some of my guests who may not be so fortunately situated," and she slipped away, Toinette calling after her: "You are responsible for most of the nice things which ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... no light upon his remark that he had been expecting the arrival of a friend who, it would appear, had been dead two years. Helwyse himself may have been puzzled by this; or, being a quick-witted young man, he may have divined its explanation. He looked at his entertainer with critical sympathy not ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... and superstitiously silent; the vocations of the gardener and muleteer made any intrusion from them impossible. A breakfast of fruit, tortillas, chocolate, and red wine, of which Hurlstone partook sparingly and only to please his entertainer, nevertheless seemed to restore his strength, as it did the Padre's equanimity. For the old man had been somewhat agitated during mass, and, except that his early morning congregation was mainly composed of Indians, muleteers, and small venders, his abstraction would have been noticed. ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... that both he and mother should try to entertain the people who came to eat at our restaurant. I cannot now remember his words, but he gave the impression of one about to become in some obscure way a kind of public entertainer. When people, particularly young people from the town of Bidwell, came into our place, as on very rare occasions they did, bright entertaining conversation was to be made. From father's words I gathered that something of the jolly inn- keeper effect was to be ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... also, while thus agreeably employed, could do no otherwise than discover that the countenance of his entertainer, which he had at first found so unprepossessing, mended when it was seen under the influence of the Vin de Beaulne, and there was kindness in the tone with which he reproached Maitre Pierre, that he amused himself with laughing at his ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... be a poor conversationalist, and her success in fellowship lay in drawing out the interests of others. She was a good listener, rather than an entertainer. Humility was one of her greatest charms and she had no hesitation in confessing her limitations. 'I enjoy the fun, but I can't make it; do help me,' she said to a comrade, when once she found herself responsible for guiding the conversation of ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... pensionnat, and "wholly at our service." In response to our apologies for the intrusion and explanations of the desire which had prompted it, we received complaisant assurances of welcome; yet the manner of our kind entertainer indicated that she did not appreciate, much less share in, our admiration and enthusiasm for Charlotte Bronte and her books. In the subsequent conversation it appeared that Mademoiselle and her family hold decided ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... windows, and a piece of Turkey carpet lay upon the floor; those windows were two in number, looking out, through the trunks of the trees close to the house, upon the lake. It needed all the fire, and all the pleasant associations of my entertainer's red nose, to light up this melancholy chamber. A door at its farther end admitted to the room that was prepared for my sleeping apartment. It was wainscoted, like the other. It had a four-post bed, with heavy tapestry curtains, and in other respects was furnished in the same old-world and ponderous ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... day to a literary dinner at the Marquis D'Al—; and as I knew I should meet Vincent, I felt some pleasure in repairing to my entertainer's hotel. They were just going to dinner as I entered. A good many English were of the party. The good natured (in all senses of the word) Lady—, who always affected to pet me, cried aloud, "Pelham, mon joli petit mignon, I have ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... invited to lunch at a town on my way to La Panne, but the luncheon was deferred. When I passed through my would-be entertainer was eating bully beef out of a tin, with a cracker or two; and shells were falling inhospitably. Suddenly I was not hungry. I did not care for food. I did not care to stop to talk about food. It was a very small town, and there were bricks and glass and plaster in the ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... little dialogues between them which I always expected to end, and which I dare say would have ended under other circumstances, in some violent explosion on the part of our host. But he had so high a sense of his hospitable and responsible position as our entertainer, and my guardian laughed so sincerely at and with Mr. Skimpole, as a child who blew bubbles and broke them all day long, that matters never went beyond this point. Mr. Skimpole, who always seemed quite unconscious of having been on delicate ground, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... ago. On some occasions you are absurdly simple. But look what he said: "I am the guest of Diapontius, from beyond the seas; here do I dwell; this has been assigned me as my abode; for Oreus would not receive me in Acheron, because prematurely I lost my life. Through confiding was I deceived: my entertainer slew me here, and that villain secretly laid me in the ground without funereal rites, in this house, on the spot, for the sake of gold. Now do you depart from here; this house is accursed, this dwelling is defiled." The wonders that here take place, hardly in a year could I recount ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... to offer them, they don't care about me!" she thought bitterly. "They'll hunt about till they find somebody else who's likely to act entertainer." ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... night and succeeding day,—when, the lakes having become frozen over sufficiently strong to make travelling on the ice as safe as it was convenient and easy, they, on the second morning after their arrival at his house, bade their entertainer good-by, and set out for their homes in the settlement, which they respectively reached by daylight, to the great relief of their anxious and now ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... great account of your father's eloquence in comparison of his own." At which Cicero, being suddenly nettled, commanded poor Cestius presently to be seized, and caused him to be very well whipped in his own presence; a very discourteous entertainer! Yet even amongst those, who, all things considered, have reputed his, eloquence incomparable, there have been some, who have not stuck to observe some faults in it: as that great Brutus his friend, for example, who said 'twas ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... other, with simplicity, almost in spite of herself; "it does one so much good to sit by a warm fire!" Then, fearing, in her extreme delicacy, that she might be thought capable of abusing the hospitality of her entertainer, by unreasonably prolonging her visit, she added: "the motive that has brought me here is this. Yesterday, you informed me that a young workman, named Agricola Baudoin, had been arrested ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... was over, Mr Marshall repaired to the White Bear, and Aubrey was left to Agnes as entertainer. She was sewing a long seam, and her needle went in and out with unfailing regularity. For a few minutes he watched her in silence, discovering a sunny gleam on her hair that he had never before noticed. Then he suddenly spoke ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... have not an undoubting belief, you may carve out your sentences as curiously as you will; deliver them with the voice of music, and yet be nothing but an entertainer. Speaking as one of the "men of the street," as one of the millions, I think that the best thing for you to attend to is this question ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... re-entered the apartment with a light but tasteful supper. They sat down, accordingly, to table, the cats with savage pantomime surrounding the old lady's chair; and what with the excellence of the meal and the gaiety of his entertainer, Somerset was soon completely at his ease. When they had well eaten and drunk, the old lady leaned back in her chair, and taking a cat upon her lap, subjected her guest to a prolonged but evidently ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Nigel ventured as far as politeness permitted—indeed a little further, if truth must be told—to inquire into the circumstances and motives of his entertainer in taking up his abode in such a strange place, but he soon found that his eccentric friend was not one who could be "pumped." Without a touch of rudeness, and in the sweetest of voices, he simply assumed an absent manner and changed the subject of discourse, when he did not choose to reply, ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... on well. The doctor was surprised to find in the frowning banker, who had repulsed him so sternly from his desk, the hospitable entertainer; and Varhorst's honest and manly friendship was gratified by the approach of my release from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... now, to the grief of his kind entertainer, "Shure an' she'd fix him up something to stringthen him," and Yan had hard ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... message from His Majesty to the effect that he would be glad to see me and Herr VON KLEVERMANN again, on the condition that nothing objectionable should be produced from the Magic hat. Herr VON KLEVERMANN once more gave a seance. The eminent entertainer extracted from the Gibus a portmanteau, a soup-tureen, and a lady's watch. His Majesty greatly delighted. He signed the Treaty, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... life, her father had lived in it, and so also had her grandfather. She had gone out, to take tea, from its doors two or three times a week, ever since she had been twenty; and she had had her little tea-parties in its front parlor as often as any other genteel Slowbridge entertainer. She had risen at seven, breakfasted at eight, dined at two, taken tea at five, and gone to bed at ten, with such regularity for fifty years, that to rise at eight, breakfast at nine, dine at three, and take tea at six, and go to bed ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he was obliged to fetch paper instead. After Sir Walter had come back, his fellow-shooter chanced to look at the succedaneum, and was not a little astonished to see it formed part of a tale written by his entertainer's hand. By his friend's urgent inquiries, the Scotch romancer was compelled to acknowledge himself the author, and to save the well nigh destroyed manuscript ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... has been stated that Mark Twain loved the lecture platform, but from his letters we see that even at this early date, when he was at the height of his first great vogue as a public entertainer, he had no love for platform life. Undoubtedly he rejoiced in the brief periods when he was actually before his audience and could play upon it with his master touch, but the dreary intermissions of travel and broken sleep were too ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in her perturbed mind that Winterborne was ill, or had been so, and that he had carefully concealed his condition from her that she might have no scruples about accepting a hospitality which by the nature of the case expelled her entertainer. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... first with meal, into the fire. The rest they slash'd and scored, and roasted well, And placed it, heap'd together, on the board. Then rose the good Eumaeus to his task Of distribution, for he understood The hospitable entertainer's part. Sev'n-fold partition of the banquet made, 530 He gave, with previous pray'r, to Maia's son[63] And to the nymphs one portion of the whole, Then served his present guests, honouring first Ulysses with the boar's perpetual chine; By that distinction just his master's heart He gratified, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... once despise and fear the great cayman. I once spent a month at Caicara, a small village of semi-civilised Indians, about twenty miles to the west of Ega. My entertainer, the only white in the place, and one of my best and most constant friends, Senor Innocencio Alves Faria, one day proposed a half- day's fishing with net in the lake—the expanded bed of the small river on which the village ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... general invitation. They may feel ever so keenly the omission, but it should never betray itself in a shadow of change either in look or in tone. If the invitation is not a general one, why should any one feel hurt by being omitted? No one but the entertainer can know all the motives that influence her in her selections. And here might be mentioned several reasonable points of etiquette which may control her. When a first invitation has not been accepted, it is to be supposed that no other will be expected ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... gentlemen was a middle-aged hard-featured man, attired in the livery of King George, whose countenance emulated the scarlet of his coat, and whose principal employment, at the moment, appeared to consist in doing honor to the cheer of his entertainer. ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... received and entertained visitors with great ceremony. As a sign of fidelity, the right hand of fellowship was given to a stranger, to whom salt was presented, in token that his person would be safe under the entertainer's roof. A stranger's bottle was kept, and when a visitor arrived at the door the head of the family and he joined feet together on the threshold. A cup of wine was drunk to an unknown person before his name was asked. To return respect to those in the house, the stranger did reverence ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... head, and drew the loaf towards him in silence. Then, considering that some apology was due to his entertainer, he said,— ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and we were left to feed without a host. The grandees, meanwhile, remained outside, and still enjoyed the dances, ranging themselves upon their haunches in front of the rows of chairs which not one among them would have dared to trust himself in for either love or money. Considering that our entertainer was a Hindoo, and that his dinner-giving appliances were limited, each person having to bring his own knife, fork, spoon, and chair, we fared very well, and after having drunk his health, again assembled in the court, where we found Rumbeer Singh still ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... and defy the foul fiend; but the tone of his exhortations found no sympathetic chord in the mind of my patron. He had not the skill to carry conviction to an understanding so well fortified in error. In a word, after a thousand efforts of kindness to his entertainer, he drew off his forces, growling and dissatisfied with his own impotence, rather than angry at the obstinacy of Mr. Falkland. He felt no diminution of his affection for him, and was sincerely grieved to find that he was so little capable of serving him. Both parties in this case ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... by his hospitable entertainer, Herbert sat down on the grass just outside the cabin, and watched lazily the smoke which issued from Ralph's pipe, as it rose ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... and a rat to come forth when the daily meal was brought, to share it with his fellow prisoner!—How delightful to have vermin for your guests! Aye, and when the feast fails them, they make a meal of their entertainer!—You shudder.—Are you, then, the first prisoner who has been devoured alive by the vermin that infested his cell?—Delightful banquet, not 'where you eat, but where you are eaten'! Your guests, however, will give you one token of repentance while ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Alice more and more took Ruth's place as his entertainer, and read to him by the hour, when he did not want to talk —to talk about Ruth, as he did a good deal of the time. Nor was this altogether unsatisfactory to Philip. He was always happy and contented with Alice. She was the most restful person he knew. Better informed than Ruth and with a much ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... with his entertainer and came upon an entirely different scene. De Bleury's spacious attic was appropriated to the rough and ready convenience of himself alone, and there was something quizzical about its expanses of brown dimnesses and darknesses, the cobwebby ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... comedian, born in London; abandoned his father's trade of bookseller for the stage in 1794; appeared in Dublin and York, and from 1803 till 1818 played in Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Lyceum; the rest of his life he spent as a single-handed entertainer, charming countless audiences in Britain and America with his good singing and incomparable mimicry; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... took his own time about coming back; so long a time that Blount forgot that it was past midnight, that he was a guest in a strange house, and that he still had not learned the name of his entertainer. For all this forgetfulness the little lady with the dark-brown eyes was directly responsible. Almost before he realized it, Blount found himself chatting with her as if he had always known her, making rapid strides on the way ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... breathe a word of what had happened, and I was miserably anxious about the effect that a dinner in a restaurant en vogue might have upon the nerves of my poor patient. Strange to say, he bore it very well, and played his part as entertainer quite merrily. But after dinner I longed to get him away, and proposed to take an open carriage for a drive in the Champs Elysees. This was accepted, and I believe he ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... companions was one towards whose mind he affected the benevolent and encouraging attitude of a father to a budding child. He was asked by this friend to describe a certain quaint and highly successful entertainer. This was the response: 'The gentleman of whom you speak has the habit of coming before his audience as an idiot and retiring as a genius. You and I, sir, couldn't do that; we should sustain the first character consistently ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... to be up-to-date—there's no reason why the Westmore mills shouldn't do as well by their people as any mills in the country," he affirmed, in the tone of the entertainer accustomed to say: "I want the thing done handsomely." But he seemed even less conscious than Mrs. Westmore that each particular wrong could be traced back to a radical vice in the system. He appeared to think that every murmur of assent to her proposals ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... does not seek to cause an illusion, or any play which formally admits the existence of the audience. A workable distinction may be found in using the terms "drama" and "entertainment," "actor" and "entertainer." ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... farmer, who appeared to be a jovial, warm-hearted, humorous, and withal a shrewd old man, passed several hours in conversation with his guest, who seemed to be very ill at ease, both in body and mind; yet, as if desirous of pleasing his entertainer, he replied courteously and agreeably to whatever was said to him. Finally, he pleaded fatigue and illness as an excuse for retiring to rest, and was conducted by the farmer to an upper chamber ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... good for a score of years yet," jovially remarked Major Hawke, as he gazed at the well-preserved outer man of his uneasy entertainer. "The harpoon is deeply fixed in the old whale," mused Hawke, as he followed Hugh Johnstone. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... first hearing the report, basted to the dead-room in the Guard-house, where the corpse had been deposited, and soon discovered the body to be that of their friend and late entertainer, George Colwan. Great were the consternation and grief of all concerned, and, in particular, of his old father and Miss Logan; for George had always been the sole hope and darling of both, and the news of the event paralysed them so as ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... His entertainer had a plate of meat in one hand and a jug of wine in the other. He set down the plate upon the table, motioning Villon to draw in his chair, and going to the sideboard, brought back two ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... 'Thank'ee. Well, Mr. Harthouse, I hope you have had about a dose of old Bounderby to-night.' Tom said this with one eye shut up again, and looking over his glass knowingly, at his entertainer. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... guests, "the history of the country" was taking its leave in phrases more or less memorable and characteristic. Some of these valedictory axioms were clever, some witty, a few profound, but always left as a genteel contribution to the entertainer. Some had been already prepared, and, like a card, had served and identified the guest at ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... who had been all day silent, abstracted, and unlike his usual self, this joyous influence acted like a tonic. As entertainer, he was bound to exert himself, and the exertion did him good. He threw off his melancholy; and with the help, possibly, of somewhat more than his usual quantity of wine, entered thoroughly into the passing joyousness of the hour. What a recherche, luxurious extravagant little dinner it was, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... and entertainer; and whilst he had always been, known for charities, he was now no less distinguished for religion. He was busy, he was much in the open air, he did good; his face seemed to open and brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for more than two ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... stigmatised by the snarling Frenchman as the land of canards, canaux, and canaille, to receive cash in the busy counting-house, and hospitality the princely mansion of one of its most respected bankers. None, I am well assured, will discern in their amiable and exemplary entertainer any vestige of the disreputable impulses and evil passions that sullied the early life of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... entertainer was loyal from conviction and feeling, as well as from the nature of his pecuniary interests, Mr. Vosburgh spoke quite freely of the dangerous elements rapidly developing at the North, and warned his host that, in his opinion, the critical period of the struggle was approaching. Merwyn's grave, ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... could collect for liquids (he never wasted money upon food; he knew where to go for crusts of bread and broken meat; the back doors of restaurants have their pensioners), and if invited to drink as the guest of another, he would drain tumbler after tumbler continuously, until his entertainer stopped him, and would appear no further over-seas at the end than at the outset. There was something pathetic in his comparative sobriety, like ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... lecturing for two seasons all over the country, but finding that the Institutes made huge profits out of his efforts, and that his anecdotes and mimicry were the parts most relished, he abandoned the role of lecturer for that of entertainer with "The Humours of Parliament." As soon as he had crushed the idea that it was a lecture, people flocked to hear his anecdotes and to watch his acting, the result of his first short tour resulting in a clear profit of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... always a task and a duty. I do not feel now that I ever sought to be an entertainer. I am sure I would have been an utter failure but for the feeling that I must preach some gospel truth in my lectures and do at least that much toward that ever-persistent "call of God." When I entered the ministry (1879) I had become so associated with the lecture ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... companion-way to the cabin. It will not be locked this afternoon early, but doubtless there will be a servant or two making ready for the sail. Provisions will be boarded this afternoon, as Senor Rey is a bountiful entertainer. It may happen that the Chinese, in loading the provisions, will be a considerable distance off, or even up the steps to the cliff, for moments at a time. This is the random chance I ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... dancers hurrying over got quite a different impression of the invader from that of the ladies by the door; in fact, the young people immediately suspected that it was a stunt, a hired entertainer come to amuse the party. The boys in long trousers looked at it rather disdainfully and sauntered over with their hands in their pockets, feeling that their intelligence was being insulted. But the girls ran over with much handclapping and many ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... for?" said the ungrateful beast, springing to his legs, and eyeing his entertainer with one of his ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... if you will kindly give me your attention for a few moments I will be happy to introduce to your favorable notice an entertainer of world-wide fame who will, I am sure, not only mystify you but, at the same time, interest you. You have witnessed the death-defying dives of the Demon Discobolus; you have laughed with the comical clowns; you have thrilled ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... was an English woman, famed as a whip, a golfer and an entertainer. Her salon was one of the most interesting, the most delightful in Brussels; her husband and her rollicking little boys were not a whit less attractive than herself, and her household was the wonder of that gay, careless city. The baron, ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... A far-too-fat entertainer out on the floor was writhing in the pangs of an Hawaiian dance. It took the attention of the crowd. I watched the face of my companion for a ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... a more devoted friend. The company expressed themselves fully restored to confidence in his character and purposes, and the burgomasters, having exchanged pledges of faith and friendship with the commandant in flowing goblets, went home comfortably to bed, highly pleased with their noble entertainer ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... after a pause, "what makes you think I couldn't settle down with him? I never figured to be an ... entertainer ... all my life. With the stake I already got together, we could start something. A mine, maybe, or a tractor service like yours. Mars ...
— Fee of the Frontier • Horace Brown Fyfe
... it was a favorite haven; the more so, doubtless, from the congenial character of its frank, fearless, patriotic, but blunt and unpolished landlord, whose substantial cheer and hearty welcome, money or no money usually caused him to be looked upon as a friend, as well as a good entertainer. To this then widely-known establishment we will now repair, to note the occurrences next to be related in ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... part, we are quite satisfied with the bare contemplation of the fare. Our readers, also, we suspect, have long ago been satiated. They have dropped off, one by one, and left us alone with our kind entertainer. What more we have to say must therefore be bestowed upon his private ear. We shall speak with the greater freedom. We know the exquisite pleasure we have given him. We are sure that he is not ungrateful. When his book comes to a second ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... made a light which contrasted strangely with the artificial lights within; spears, banners, and armour were intermixed with the pictures of old, and the whole had a singular mixture of baronial pomp with the graver and more chastened dignity of prelacy. The conduct of our reverend entertainer suited the character remarkably well. Amid the welcome of a Count Palatine he did not for an instant forget the gravity of the Church dignitary. All his toasts were gracefully given, and his little speeches well made, and the more affecting that the failing voice sometimes ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... to be entertainer, Monsieur Loring, you must submit to being entertained," she said, pleasantly; "shall I sing to you, read to you, ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... development of the theatre after the Restoration, came a movement toward greater naturalness in the conventions of acting. The player in the "apron" of a Queen Anne stage resembled a drawing-room entertainer rather than a platform orator. Fine gentlemen and ladies in the boxes that lined the "apron" applauded the witticisms of Sir Courtly Nice or Sir Fopling Flutter, as if they themselves were partakers in the conversation. Actors like Colley Cibber ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... and published writings scarcely give a hint of his humour, which was lambent and sometimes almost boyish. He loved to be amused, and he repaid his entertainer by being amusing. I suppose that after his return from Cairo he allowed this feature of his character a much freer run. The legend used to be that he was looked upon in Egypt as rather grim, and by no means to be trifled with. He was not the man, we may be sure, to be funny with a Young Turk, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse |
