"Joke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vases made of cats; flower-arrangements shaped like cats; and a little gold cat with emerald eyes for each woman to take away with her, so she wouldn't forget the lunch in a hurry. And would you believe it, not one of them saw the joke till Smart Sayings got hold of it, and published an account of ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... "Uncle Cornie is a lively companion—isn't he? He cant even blunder through a Joe Miller without tacking a moral to it, and then trying to persuade you that the joke of ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... next night the stranger again stood opposite the Baron, piercing him through and through with his dark fiery glance. Then the Baron burst out still more angrily than on the preceding night, "If you think it a joke, sir, to stare at me, pray choose some other time and some other place to do so; and now have the"—— A wave of the hand towards the door took the place of the harsh words the Baron was about to utter. And as on the previous night, the stranger, after bowing ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... and angry hands after the second act; and I brought suit against the management for damages, basing my claim on the idea that they had spurned my dusky brother on account of his race, color and previous condition of servitude. The last clause was a joke. He had never done any work in his life, except for the state. He was a very sightly coon, too, now that I recall him. The show was, as I said, The Merchant of Venice, and I'll leave it to anybody if my client wasn't at least as pleasing to the eye as Sir Henry ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... the war broke out his whole instinct was against it: against war. He had not the faintest desire to overcome any foreigners or to help in their death. He had no conception of Imperial England, and Rule Britannia was just a joke to him. He was a pure-blooded Englishman, perfect in his race, and when he was truly himself he could no more have been aggressive on the score of his Englishness than a rose can be aggressive on the score of ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... forced him to a seat, and held him there, Despite his anger, while the hideous joke Was tossed from hand to hand. Franz poured with care A brimming glass of whiskey. "Here, we've broke Into a virgin barrel for you, drink! Tut! Tut! Just hear him! Married! Who, and when? Married, and out on business. Clever Spark! Which lie's ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... "it wasn't his threat that hindered me, goodness knows! A divorce would be a relief, after living forty years with him! Say, there goes young Doctor Worley. Speaking of divorce, he's just got one. It all came round through a joke. Billy Patterson dared him to exchange wives with him one evening when they were having a little too much gaiety at the Worley home, and the doctor took the dare. Ha! ha! The men swapped wives for two days. What do you think of that! And this divorce was the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... putting on the sheep's eyes?" suggested the Chairman, with a glance that admitted the court to the joke. ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... state this ultimate conviction as a 'theological superstition', or, as I should prefer to put it with a little more certainty, as a matter of faith. The alternative is to treat the world as a stupid, and possibly malicious, bad joke. ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... who have followed his glance break out into a cry of rage that rings far out over the placid waters of the bay, and makes the tough old British veterans chuckle grimly over the success of their little joke upon the Yankees; for there, high above the heads of the wrathful crowd, flaunting its scarlet folds over the roofs of the liberated city, floats ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... course, in the history of the Jew, and the fact that he came from the East. A Jew will sometimes complain of the injustice of describing him as a man of the East; but in truth another very real injustice may be involved in treating him as a man of the West. Very often even the joke against the Jew is rather a joke against those who have made the joke; that is, a joke against what they have made out of the Jew. This is true especially, for instance, of many points of religion and ritual. Thus we cannot ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... "That must be a joke," chuckled Hugh. "It was silly on the part of Chief Wambold. But then, of course, Nick has made him a whole lot of trouble in the past. So only one fellow has been taken, and he refuses to tell on his ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... there, and then came in here. It must have been about 5:27 by that time," he explained, with the meticulousness of a man on the witness stand. "I shouted, 'Hello, everybody! How's tricks?...' That's a joke, you know. ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... Clinch had uttered an exquisite joke instead of a very angry statement, it could not have been more hilariously received. He paused, grew confused, and then went ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... thoughts to things profane. My master was not tempted so, But once—don't let it out, you know— He squandered all his precious wits Making a titmouse trap for Fritz— Right here, and talked and had a smoke; To me, I'll own, it seemed a joke. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... snorting at, Goliath? Has a David at last sunk a joke into your head? Come, let us go ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... Sturgis. How are you?" Father Murray stopped to shake hands. Mr. Sturgis was a justice of the peace and the wag of the town. He always insisted on being elected to the office as a joke, for he was ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... a trump, sir. Him and me got all the big uns; and it's no joke ketching your first conger, as ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... on the coach and looks back at his father's figure as long as he can see it; and then the guard, having disposed of his luggage, comes to an anchor, and finishes his buttonings and other preparations for facing the three hours before dawn—no joke for those who minded cold, on a fast coach in November, in the reign of his ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... Miss Polly, gravely; "you shouldn't joke upon such serious subjects. Good by, children. Your house is full of company, and I didn't come to stay. Here's a bag of thoroughwort I've been picking for your grandmother; you may give it to her with my love, and tell her my side is worse. I shall ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... do common duties; being an excellent woodsman, he was his favourite guide; being an expert swimmer, he was generally by his side when swimming rivers, or paddled him over in a canoe if they had one; being a good fisherman, he often caught him fish; the general would laugh and joke with him, but with no other private. He did not however employ Bob in these small matters when he had any thing serious for him to do. Surprised at his exact intelligence from Georgetown and other places, the author asked him once "how he got it?" He related several interesting particulars, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... head with a grin. He was a good-looking, long-limbed youth with a notable blue eye, and a glance of mirthful sobriety. "No, thanks," he drawled. The others gathered from his tone that a joke was coming, and pricked up their ears accordingly. "No, thanks. You forget that Sarge Lambert up at the Crossing is my senior. When I drove up he'd say: 'What the hell are you doing up here?' And when I told him he'd ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... offer of fourteen pounds a month, to write and edit a new publication they contemplate, entirely by myself, to be published monthly, and each number to contain four woodcuts. I am to make my estimate and calculation, and to give them a decisive answer on Friday morning. The work will be no joke, but the emolument is too ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... spoke with an intermittent kind of splutter; indeed, one of his patients had observed that it was a pity such a clever man had a 'pediment' in his speech. But when he came to what he conceived the pith of his argument or the point of his joke, he mouthed out his words with slow emphasis; as a hen, when advertising her accouchement, passes at irregular intervals from pianissimo semiquavers to fortissimo crotchets. He thought this speech of Mr. Ely's particularly ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Ah, that was a joke indeed! Listen, O Holy Miriam and all saints! It was because one hot afternoon, at their Bible-class, he had kissed the pretty Sitt Hilda, who sat close to him, teaching. Forgetting he was no longer a child, she had caressed his hand approvingly; that was Hilda's tale. A likely ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... strange, seeing the delight we take in verses, that we can so seldom write them, and so are not ashamed to lay up old ones, say sixteen years, instead of improvising them as freely as the wind blows, whenever we and our brothers are attuned to music. I have heard of a citizen who made an annual joke. I believe I have in April or May an annual poetic conatus rather than afflatus, experimenting to the length of thirty lines or so, if I may judge from the dates of the rhythmical scraps I detect among my MSS. I look upon this incontinence ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... has not been as bountiful to Marcia in the matter of charms as to the others; she has stinted here and there, and it shows clearly as she grows older. But as she gives her head an airy toss and shakes the Skye fluff out of her eyes, he smiles. It would be an immense joke to marry Marcia Grandon; an immense mortification as well! To be Floyd Grandon's brother-in-law, to have the entree of the great house, to come very near Violet Grandon and perhaps drop a bitter flavor ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... as if he understood the joke. He closed his mouth and sighed deeply, as one who has just wakened ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... Tower," said his friend, half in a joke, "the rent will be nominal, and you'll have as much of the ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... that a rifle-ball as well as a charge of shot had struck the Pigeon. The gunners had fired on the same bird. Both enjoyed the joke, though it had its serious side, for food as well as ammunition was scarce in ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... they all required), Which seemed as if put for them—so precisely Was it the very thing that they desired; They were (or should have been) intensely tired, But luckily they had not far to go, A lot of pleasant matters had transpired, And all had cracked their lively joke or so; But now the day was o'er, the sun was ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... if it was a joke. "What nonsense! Your sister has told me quite a lot about you, Miss Vars, one time and another; that you write verse a little, for instance. Any one who can create is able to fill all the empty corners of his life. You know that as ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... tried to make myself believe that it was a joke; but, alas! he succeeded in convincing me he meant it seriously. So clearly and completely did he convince me of it, that, instead of being furious with him for such naive cynicism, I was filled with deep pity for him and incidentally for myself ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... neatly printed in English block capitals and caused much amusement. The whole day was in a way one great joke—the un-needed barrage, the empty trenches, these farewell notices, all combined to ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... to her mother for protection from a tyrant." So the letter ran; it was in her own graceful hand; her name was affixed. It was no cruel joke. She said, moreover, that it was evident that their tastes were not congenial; it was out of the question for her to be tied down to the sort of life he expected of her; that she had borne reflections on ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... A joke was being told as we sat down, and every one was taking a lively interest in it, the narrator was a bearded man of fifty, and he was telling to the delight of the others how his son had once got the better of him in Brussels before the war. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... my manners, and I have never asked after the Captain, though he is a prime favourite of mine. Oh yes, he always has his little joke. "What will you sell it for, O'Brien, just as it stands? Name your own price." Well, it is a snug little place; and if only my little woman were here and I had news of Mat——' And here Mr. O'Brien pushed his hand through his gray hair again, and sighed as he looked out ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... It was a good joke, such as Mark Twain loved—a carefully prepared, harmless bit of foolery. He wrote Robert Collier, threatening him with all sorts of revenge, declaring that the elephant ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... honest good nature and humour of the fellow, sent for him next morning to court. You may imagine his surprise, to see and hear that his late guest was his sovereign: he was afraid his joke on his long nose would be punished with death. The emperor thanked him for his hospitality, and, as a reward for it, bid him ask for what he most desired, and to take the whole night to think of it. The next ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... Saint Lawrence to the Campo Varano, there to wait many years perhaps for the pale and half sickly Ugo, of whom every one had said for years that he could not live through another twelve month with the disease of the heart which threatened him. Of late, people had even begun to joke about Donna Tullia's third husband. Poor ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... could only share the joke with some one!" she thought. "But I can't. Diana is the only one I'd want to tell, and, even if I hadn't sworn secrecy to Jane, I can't tell Diana things now. She tells everything to Fred—I know she does. Well, I've had my first ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... any one we are going, father,' I cautioned him. 'I want to surprise Kirke Connor. He is going to Burlington on that train himself, and it will be such a joke on him to find us there ready to be entertained. He is to be there several days, so he can amuse me while you are busy. Isn't it lovely? He really needs a little boosting now, and it is our duty, and—will you press my suit, Auntie? I must fly or I won't ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... its unreasonableness and untenableness. In addition to this, he has written a great number of books, in all of which Reason shines forth in all its peculiar excellence, and as the poor Doctor meant what he said in all seriousness, he was, so far, deserving of respect. But the great joke consisted precisely in this, that the Doctor invariably cut such a seriously absurd figure when he could not comprehend what every child comprehends, simply because it is a child. I visited the Doctor of Reason several times in his own house, where I found him in company with very ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and rare good sense Ruth controlled herself sufficiently to laugh, and the embarrassment vanished. There were splendid points about this girl's character, not the least among them being the ability to laugh at a joke that had been turned toward herself. At least the effect was splendid. The reasons, therefore, might have been better. It was because her sharp brain saw the better effect that her ability to do this thing immediately produced on the people around her. But I shall have ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... not refrain from laughter at Walky's crude joke. Nobody could be very angry with Walky Dexter, no matter ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... it demanded, "a bum joke you're trying to put over, or what? Come home at once!—Don't you know a packed house is waiting to see Miss Burton in her act? What do ye ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... with the Burnham Moores, the Henry Aldriches, and a score of other people whom he knew equally well. Apparently they all thought that he had married and settled down. They were interested to know where he was living, and they were rather disposed to joke him about being so very secretive on the subject, but they were not willing to discuss the supposed Mrs. Kane. He was beginning to see that this move of his was going to tell against ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... You will have your joke, eh? But the Lulu is no joke. Come, we will go to the bank; I want them to tell you how much she has yielded. You'll blame me for leasing her, but how was I to ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... only powder to make a noise and scare 'em. I wouldn't like to be in his place, though; father says you can never trust tigers as you can lions, no matter how tame they are. Sly fellers, like cats, and when they scratch it's no joke, I tell you," answered Ben, with a knowing wag of the head, as the sides of the cage rattled down, and the poor, fierce creatures were seen leaping and snarling as if they resented this display of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... and dolce-far-niente air of nature and society hint at infinite periods in the progress of mankind. The States have leisure to laugh from Maine to Texas at some newspaper joke, and New England shakes at the double-entendres of Australian circles, while the poor reformer cannot ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Kiddy, but that WAS rich. To think a chicken of your size sold them like that. It's the best joke I've heard for an age. Tell ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... but Raymond's presence helped her to rein in her temper; and she thought of Julius, and refrained from more than a "Very well. It was meant as a harmless joke, and—and if you—you did not take it ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... He reined in indignantly and stood up in his stirrups. Nothing was to be seen above the level of the grain. Beneath him the trailing riata had as noiselessly vanished as if it had been indeed a gliding snake. Had he been the victim of a practical joke, or of the blunder of some stupid vacquero? For he made no doubt that it was the lasso of one of the performers he had watched that afternoon. But his preoccupied mind did not dwell long upon it, and by the time he had reached the wall of the old ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... exclaimed Bartley. "He may be a sort of wandering joke to the citizens of this State, but he's doing what he wants to do, and that's more than I'm doing. Just fifty miles to Senator Brown's ranch. Drop in and see us. As the chap in Denver said when he wrote to his friend in ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the growing things into thinking spring has come, and the poor misguided plants begin to put out their leaves. Then, like a mischievous joker, old Winter comes back and nips the trusting little creatures. Cotton doesn't fancy that sort of joke. Nor does it like too much wet weather, for then the cotton gets damp and sodden and cannot be picked. Should it be gathered in this condition it would mold and mildew, and become ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... climbed for a long time. The rests were frequent, the course not of the straightest. For many years their recollection of that hill was as of a mountain. Finally the top sprang at them abruptly, as though in joke. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... departure to Mr. and Mrs. Christie, and then I went with Tom to my lodgings. He looked vastly amused when he saw Duncan's house, and when I told him that I had been there all the time he seemed to think it a capital joke. ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... only virtue, then, indeed, is my state pitiable, for talk I must, and G. is a delightful person to talk to. She listens to my tales of Peter and the others, and asks for more, and shouts with laughter at the smallest joke. I pass as a wit with G., and have a great success. She is going to stay with a married sister for the cold weather. Quite like me, only I'm going to an unmarried brother. I think we are both getting ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... man has a wholesome dread of laughter, as he is the only animal capable of that phenomenon—for the laugh of the hyena is pronounced by those who have heard it to be no joke, and to be classed with those [Greek: gelasmata agelasta] which are said to come from the other side of the mouth. Whether, as Shaftesbury will have it, ridicule be absolutely the test of truth or no, we may ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... what Doctor Hutchinson says, I contend that the slim man has all the best of it in this world. The fat man is the universal goat; he is humanity's standing joke. Stomachs are the curse of our modern civilization. When a man gets a stomach his troubles begin. If you doubt this ask any fat man—I started to say ask any fat woman, too. Only there aren't any fat women to speak of. There are women who are plump and will admit it; there are ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... a joke," was his quick thought, "if there were a way out for us here while Rios watches the ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... "What a joke!" exclaimed Nan. "Poor thing! She didn't see the parade after all, and I declare she deserved to. That was the time she was in it though, ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... liked a joke—or at least she thought so—as well as anybody; but like a too-humorous author, she found that to be as funny as possible was bad for business. Goodness knows there was enough in Littleburg to be solemn over, ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... commissariat there may be): a difficult march, to Amberg Country and the top of the Ober-Pfalz. After which are Mountain-passes; Bohemian Forest: and the Event—? "Cannot be dubious!" thinks France, whatever Maillebois think. Witty Paris, loving its timely joke, calls him Army of Redemption, "L'ARMEE DES MATHURINS,"—a kind of Priests, whose business is commonly in Barbary, about Christian bondage:—how sprightly! And yet the enthusiasm was great: young Princes of the Blood longing to be off ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Professor, being guileless and confiding, believed the tale, and he tried to oblige the bear-haunted miner by promoting an expedition of extermination. Seventeen men replied to his overtures with the original remark that they "Hadn't lost any bears." Since 1620 that has been the standard bear joke of the North American continent, and its immortality proves that it was the funniest thing that ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... me of a man I know who was made a G.B.E.; but that's another story, and Joan wouldn't see the joke of it anyhow, though I know she would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... explanation was demanded by Lady Fawn, but no explanation was forthcoming. When questions were asked about his silence, Lucy, half in joke and half in earnest, fired up and declared that everything had been as natural as possible. He could not have come to Lady Linlithgow's house. Lady Linlithgow would not receive him. No doubt she had been impatient, but then that had been her fault. Had he not come to her the very first day ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... would do something right funny. Our county election was coming on, and you know we have got about ten black voters to one white down there. Under the Constitution we couldn't elect a white man down there in a hundred years—not if we followed the Constitution. This time, just for a joke—but listen—do you know what ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... was sure that I was neither doing nor intending any harm; I thought the whole a mere ebullition of spite on the duenna's part to torment and frighten her emancipated victim, and I treated all as a joke to reassure Cecile, and even laughed at the Abbe for treating the matter more seriously, and saying it was always perilous to go out ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... preventives, and did not venture to say that he thought they tasted very badly. Occasionally the other professors were invited, and everybody drank the health of the little De Barancy, every one was enthusiastic over his sweetness and cleverness. The singing teacher, Labassandre, at the least joke made by the child, threw himself back in his chair with a loud laugh, pounded the table with his fist, and wiped his eyes with a ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... over seventeen stone," murmured Mr. Coyne, still with his eyes closed; "an' a weight like that is no joke." ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... their lodging, but nothing could damp for long her high spirits and girlish gaiety. We are told (not by herself, but by the arch-gossip, old Aubrey) that in the company of Lady Isabella Thynne, brightest star of the Stuart Court, "fine Mistress Anne" played a practical joke on Dr. Kettle, the woman-hating President of Trinity, who resented the intrusion of petticoats into his garden, "dubbed Daphne by the wits." The lady in question aired herself there in a fantastic garment ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... hang cages of all sorts of birds—a talking parrot, a whistling blackbird, goldfinches, canaries, linnets. Athos, the fat dog, who goes to market daily in a barchetta with his master, snuffs around. "Where are Porthos and Aramis, my friend?" Athos does not take the joke; he only wags his stump of tail and pokes his nose into my hand. What a Tartufe's nose it is! Its bridge displays the full parade of leather-bound brass-nailed muzzle. But beneath, this muzzle is ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... of playing a joke upon one's neighbor upon the First of April is of very ancient origin, dating so far back in the past that we are unable to tell just when or with what nation ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... gun? A lad from London town. Then let him go, for well we know The stuff that never backs down. He has learned to joke at the powder smoke, For he is the fog-smoke's son, And his heart is light and his pluck is right - The man who ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... head voice, or to that as using the vibrato, or to the other as dwelling on an upper note ("queer sort of existence," says PULLER, gradually coming up, as it were to the surface to open his mouth for breath,—whereat Cousin JANE smiles, and Miss CASANOVA lazily nods approbation of the joke—while the rest of us ignore PULLER, putting him aside as not wanted just now,—when down he goes again), we generally agree that GAYARRE is about the best tenor we have had in London for some time; that SANTLEY is still ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... who had treated me so ill. He took a fancy to me, which I encouraged to further my views. I became his confidant, he informed me of his amour with his cousin, adding that he was tired of the business, and wished to break with her; also, as an excellent joke, the punishment which he had inflicted ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... held more honourable than a shearer of men; and he who shirks the world's right labour will rank with the unranked lowest. The music-hall and theatre and unjustified fiction will have had their day. The little man with a little gift, that should be no more than an evening's joke or pleasure after real work, will exist no more. But we live under the rule of ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... looked at Tom as if they thought that he was making a joke at their expense. But ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... you will think her very silly to have imagined for a moment that her aunt's joke could be anything but a joke, especially as she had been so sensible about not letting Rex get anything into his head which could frighten him. But I am not sure that she was so very silly after all. She had read in her geography about the Lapps and Finns, the tiny little ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... under a log and died. At the door of the Major's tent I paused to learn and joy of one to whom comes reprieve when the rope is on his neck, I overheard Harry Helm, the General's nephew and aide de-camp, who had been with us, telling what a howling good joke Smith had just got ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... I've left my check-book, too—Polly says I ought to have a nurse—well, no matter. Let me have a dime, Washington, if you've got—ah, thanks. Now clear out, Jerry, your complexion has brought on the twilight half an hour ahead of time. Pretty fair joke—pretty fair. Here he is, Polly! Washington's come, children! come now, don't eat him up—finish him in the house. Welcome, my boy, to a mansion that is proud to shelter the son of the best man that walks on the ground. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... dies," remarked Mr. Jaffrey one night, rubbing his hands gleefully, as if it were a great joke, "Andy will find that the old man has left ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... mechanical mouse. Ridiculous misfits in the presents made the distribution all the funnier, and the rejoicing was great when Roger, who didn't believe in washing his hands without being told to do so, drew a wee cake of soap. He took it good-naturedly and considered as an added joke, Estelle's hasty and shocked assurance that it was not meant ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... English house of commons, in the early part of the year, which damaged the prestige of Smith O'Brien, and although O'Connell exerted himself in parliament on his behalf, the event gave the arch-agitator satisfaction. He had many a private joke at the expense of O'Brien, and few men could wound with a brighter point than O'Connell in his best moods of satire. Mr. O'Brien was nominated on a committee, and refused to serve, alleging that the affairs of his country ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... driving his horse across the square, stopped, lifted the boy, and said: "Don't cry, Peter. It is only a little joke. See, you're not dead—here, pick up your hat. See all the pigeons are around us—you're ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... shown up for his condemnatory predilections and inability to discern or appreciate beauties. The cream of the joke against him is, that being sent by Apollo to choose a lily in a flower-garden, he brings back a thistle as all he could find. The picture is a humorous one, but we are at a loss to conjecture who can have ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... general giggle at this, and many of the young swains took occasion to nudge the girls alongside them, ostensibly for the purpose of making them see the joke, but really for the pure pleasure of nudging. The Greeks figured Cupid as naked, probably because he wears so many disguises that they could not select a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... the old well, and after I've wished it, I'll work harder than ever so that my wish will come true. Well, why do you laugh?" she asked, looking not only amazed, but rather vexed at Betty, who could not stop laughing even when she saw that Valerie was far from thinking it a joke. ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... 1," shouted a fourth; and as No. 1 had been compelled to hold on for the want of water, which leaked from the boxes almost as fast as put in, the joke told hugely. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Am I likely to believe all that? Am I likely to believe such a story as that? Whoever you are, whoever you may be, is it likely? I am not in the least afraid. I thought at first it was some silly practical joke. I thought that at first.' She paused, but no answer came. 'Well, I suppose in a civilised country there is a remedy even for a joke as wicked ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... of him, and he began fighting and kicking, in stout shoes, whose thumps were no joke. She held fast, but she felt frightened, and doubtful of the issue of the struggle; and again there was ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beard, approach furtively, and assume a listening attitude. He had evidently just landed, and had put on his best clothes, to go up and see the town. The moment he stopped to listen, I assumed a tone of earnest badinage. Harrison, instantly seeing our intrusive and raw guest, and humoring the joke, responded in a like style. In effect we had a high controversy, which could only be settled by a duel, in which our raw friend must act as second. He was strongly appealed to, and told that his position as a gentleman required it. So far all was well. We adjourned ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... have the pull now; this is our cold season—October to March; but the hot weather is no joke; as for the rains, you might as well live in a steam laundry; we get a hundred inches ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... from strength, but from slothful tenderness. And thus they ruin their own tempers and natures, and consequently those of their offspring. Furthermore, if at any time a man is taken captive with ardent love for a certain woman, the two are allowed to converse and joke together and to give one another garlands of flowers or leaves, and to make verses. But if the race is endangered, by no means is further union between them permitted. Moreover, the love born of eager desire is not known among them; only that born ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... evidently thought they would spare me the mortification of a recognition under the circumstances. I couldn't help laughing within myself, though it was a bit embarrassing. Dick was hilarious over it. He evidently sees nothing improper in it, but a very good joke. He says he expects to hear me preaching there yet. I told him it might be to ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... think I am playing a joke again. What shall I do? I cannot save my sheep! I must run ...
— Children's Classics in Dramatic Form - Book Two • Augusta Stevenson
... many for them intirely." He received the information that the pilot's feet were "as his Creator made them," in respectful silence, and a few minutes afterwards asked me if I was aware of the "curious fact in physiology," that it took a surgical operation to get a joke through ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in his letters from Ashbourne, used to joke about Taylor's cattle:—'July 23, 1770. I have seen the great bull, and very great he is. I have seen likewise his heir apparent, who promises to enherit all the bulk and all the virtues of his sire, I have seen the man who offered an hundred guineas for the young ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... wash-leather bags, I gave George Bowring his choice of the two; and he chose the one with four figures of seven, making some little joke about it, not good enough to repeat, nor even bad enough ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... and eventually, in 1874, a book of "Songs for Music, by Four Friends,"[26] was published; the contents were written by my sister and two of her brothers, and the Rev. G.J. Chester. This book became a standing joke amongst them, because one of the reviewers said it contained "songs by four writers, one of whom was a poet," and he did not specify the one ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... nothing. That badly dressed man with long hair, who, under his dusty coat, resembled a clown, inspired so little confidence in him that he suspected a snare, perhaps a bad joke. ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... it had got about that any one was going to invest thirty thousand pounds—or pence—in Wildcat Reefs, the market would certainly have been convulsed. The House would have rocked with laughter. Wildcat Reefs were a standing joke—except to the unfortunate few who still held ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... in the matter; but the ceremony consists in sticking a curious sort of mitre, pointed and worked with hair, on the head of the candidate, and covering his body with a sort of Jack- in-the green wicker work of leaves, &c., and they joke and laugh about it, and attach, apparently, no religious significance to ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... being; that all his responses to the physical forces of his environment are motor; {illust. caption FIG. 26.—LAUGHING CHIMPANZEE. "Mike," the clever chimpanzee in the London Zoo, evidently enjoys a joke as well as any one else. (Photo by ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... were often inclined to push a joke to rudeness, and what began in fun often ended in a fight. Still, they were good-natured, honest people. They were kind to those needing assistance, and if necessity became common so did ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell
... simply trying to joke away the dismals! Why,"—he smiled persuasively—"if you only knew what a hard job it is." But the ludicrousness of her misconstruction took him off his guard, and in spite of the grimmest endeavor to prevent it, his smile increased and he ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... Arlotto and Gonnella were historical beings, colored and shaped by local influences. But if the comparison be allowed, and extended to the jests of the non-Italian nations, we shall find in general that the joke in the French fabliaux, as among the Germans, is chiefly directed to the attainment of some advantage or enjoyment; while the wit of Arlotto and the practical jokes of Gonnella are an end in themselves, and exist simply for the sake of the triumph of production. ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... joke, and she never tired of it; no more did Geoffrey. He entered the cool dim parlour, which smelt of red cedar; the walls were panelled with it. The floor was of polished oak, dark with age; the chairs and tables were of rare foreign woods, satin and leopard wood, violet-wood and ebony. The late ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... joke," said John solemnly. "We've just got to make them take us on board or help us ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... I try to keep mine clean," said Somerled. "I tell you that in earnest, not in joke, because for the present I've constituted myself your granddaughter's guardian. My plan is to take her in my motor-car to Edinburgh, where I shall deliver her safely to Mrs. Bal—Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald. In the car will be Mrs. West and her ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson |
