"Take a chance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he returned to the boat-deck that afternoon for tea (which, by the way, he never drank, being a thorough-going coffee merchant), he said to Kitty: "You win on points. If Webb doesn't pan out, why, we can discharge him. I'll take a chance at a man who isn't afraid to look ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... one of us wounded—you see—what chance we've got against the North. If we had the grizzly flesh, we could stay here till my sight returned—and still, perhaps, get you out in time to save you from the injury. If you knew the way to the settlements, I might haul you on the sled—you guiding me—and take a chance of running into some meat on the way down. But none ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... on a beautiful doll, only ten cents. Won't you young ladies take a chance?" said a boy, stepping up to them and waving a ...
— A Day at the County Fair • Alice Hale Burnett
... are right. The difficulty is that we have only four bars left—enough to stop us and a little to spare, but not nearly enough to get back with, even if we could take a chance on drifting straight that far without being swung off—which, ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... was no coward, but neither was he a fool. He knew when not to take a chance. Promptly his arms shot up. But even while he obeyed, his eyes were carrying to his brain a classification of this man for future identification. The bandit was a stranger to him, a heavy-set, bandy-legged fellow of about forty-five, with a leathery ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... violence, except murder. Women steal and poison and blackmail and extort money and lie and slander and gossip, and probably cause as much unhappiness as men; but their crimes, like their lives, are not on so large or adventurous a scale. They do not so readily take a chance; they lack the imagination that makes big criminals or lays broad schemes. In many of their crimes they are often the accomplices of men and take rather a minor part, although sometimes a quite important one. For this reason they are often not detected and frequently not prosecuted, ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... missions were no good. They were all so starved and pinched-looking there I couldn't tell what they'd be like if they got proper nourishment. And I didn't want to take a chance. So I ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various
... know, and holler: "Hello, Murk!" and shake hands with symptoms of surprise and familiarity. Then I take the capper aside and tell him you all are Jenkins and Brown of Grassdale, groceries and feed, good men and maybe willing to take a chance while ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... a barber shop conducted by one of his Irish parishioners to get a shave. He observed the barber was suffering from a recent celebration, but decided to take a chance. In a few moments the barber's razor had nicked the father's cheek. "There, Pat, you have cut me," said the priest as he raised his hand and caressed the wound. "Yis, y'r riv'rance," answered the barber. "That shows you," continued the priest, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... but the prospect of the salvage heartened him. "I don't give a hoot," he declared. "I'll take a chance." ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... safe conclusion," Casey agreed. "I don't think you need worry about that, though. The only point is whether the company will be able to keep an agreement to supply you with water. I can't tell you whether they will or not. If you buy you take a chance. If you bought from me, you'd take almost ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... to take a chance." Garson spoke his decision curtly. He went to the desk and put ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... in surrender. "I'm not. I can't take a chance of getting the federal government into the act. Gosh, I'd have the FCC, the FBI, and maybe a dozen others on my trail. I quit. The Megabuck Mob is ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... cadets looked at each other and secretly vowed never to take a chance of doing anything that would send them ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... take a chance on me I'll certainly take one on you," I replied, and told him who I was, and that the Ward-line agent and American consul would ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... three jet boats to send out the emergency signal that you picked up." He turned to face the little man with the glasses. "I had a choice of either saving about fifteen passengers on the jet boats, and leaving the others, or take a chance on saving everybody by using the power to ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... be represented, I did not wish him to be treated with any lack of courtesy, and hoped he would not make copy out of any foolish thing I might have said. He was particularly nice and, although I shall probably never see what he has written about me, I am willing to "take a chance"—as ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... your advice. Shall we make a sure catch of two hired assassins who don't amount to much, or take a chance at ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... stand the disgrace. But what if the truth were to leak out through Mary—that would be infinitely worse. Her thoughts went around in a torturing circle and brought her to no decision. Should she make a clean breast of it now and have nothing more to fear, or should she take a chance on Jo's ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... trail up here that gets anywhere. If he left this one for a short cut he'd know, if he knows anything, that he'd have to take a chance every ten steps of breaking his neck in the dark. Now," and she rose swiftly, confronting him, "the thing for you to do, Bud Lee, is to get back to your horse, take the road, make time getting to the Upper End and see ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... a new experience, thought I, as I hid under the dining-room table and watched. My mind acted quickly and I decided to take a chance, run upstairs and give the alarm. Dodging out of the dining-room, I ran into the hall and swiftly up a long stairway and found the master And mistress sound asleep in a large room. I went up to the bed, gave the Bed ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... ain't made no mistake. You may be lyin' an' you may be tippin' me the straight. But he is a pal of mine an' a damn decent little pal, an' I'll take a chance." ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... I know," said Frank. "The valve must be stuck and they have decided now that as we are so near they will take a chance and open it and risk a drop into the sea rather than have ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... tackle The Kingfisher? If you'll read to the bottom of page 51, I'll take a chance beyond that. Read that far and then, if you stop there, I've ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... no life-rafts,' I told him, 'and the ship is going to sink. I am going to jump overboard and take a chance on swimming out and being picked up by one of the boats. Better ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... of extreme peril. Sam brought the automobile to a stop. Had the roadway been wider he might have sheered to one side, but the highway was too narrow for that, and with a ditch on either side, to carry off rain water, he did not want to take a chance of going over. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... me that you don't mean all you say," said Jimmy suspiciously. "Just the same, I'll take a chance and give you another one. They won't last long at the rate they're going; I can tell that without ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... determined to ride boldly out of the gate and away, hardly convinced that even those seasoned ruffians would take a chance of hitting her by firing at her horse. None of the imported shooters was in sight as she mounted before the barn door, but two of them lounged casually at the gate as ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... it's Ordinance 147. It's so old it's toothless. The City Council doesn't quite dare to repeal it—nobody's sure enough, these days, to get up and take a chance—but they don't want it enforced, and they haven't ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... horrifying ideas, and with a quick action of his resolute will applied himself to the present situation. "Oh Betty, you don't know what you're missing! It's a sight you'll never forget as long as you live... oh, come on! Be a sport. Take a chance!" ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... up, chief," he called through a tube to the engineer. "We'll get forty feet down until the mosquitoes get by. I'd like to take a chance at them but there are too ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... morning? Forget it. Tear it up. I've been thinking and I'm going to take a chance. I've decided to back you boys, and I know you'll make good. I'm speaking from a road-house in the Bronx; going straight from here to the bank. So you can begin to draw against us within an hour. And—hello!—will three millions see ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... now. But say, I got respect fur Nate since readin' that piece. There's a good deal of a man about him, or about any common burglar or sneak thief, compared to this duck. They take chances, say nothin' of the hard work they do. This fellow won't take a chance and won't work a day. Billy, that's the meanest specimen of crook I ever run against, bar none, and that crook is produced and tolerated in a place that's said to be the centre of 'culture and refinement and practical achievement.' ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... faster along the road he speculated on the best method of entering camp. He had been late several times recently, and he knew that were he caught again his name would probably be stricken from the list of officer candidates. He wondered if he had not better dismiss the taxi and take a chance on passing the sentry in the dark. Still, officers often rode past the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... take a chance and tell me what you think. I have no doubts. My whole nature goes out to this girl; but I can't help knowing that if we go on feeling like this till we die, we shall be the exception. Love's a miracle. How much ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... Hell-Bent Wade, I'll take a chance on you," boomed the rancher's deep voice, rich with the intent of his big heart. "I've gambled all my life. An' the best friends I ever made were men I'd helped.... What wages ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... rule of the scouts to stop and think was not in Hervey's line. But he would do the next best thing—a thing very characteristic of Hervey Willetts. He would take a chance and start running. Yes, that would be better. There would be just one chance in four of his going in the right direction. But he had taken bigger chances than that before. Anyway, the rain was ceasing. And he soon overcame the sentimental ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... number of black seamen in the ship's complement every time it returned to home station. Skinner, promoted to lieutenant commander and made captain of the Sea Cloud on his second patrol, later decided that the commandant had "figured he could take a chance on me and ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... given in aid of the seamen's orphans and widows, and, after one has been present at a few of them, one seems to feel that any right-thinking orphan or widow would rather jog along and take a chance of starvation than be the innocent cause of such things. They open with a long speech from the master of the ceremonies—so long, as a rule, that it is only the thought of what is going to happen afterwards that enables the audience to bear it with fortitude. This done, the amateur talent is ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... take a chance. Every ship that's torpedoed doesn't sink, and we may be one of the lucky ones. And if I should happen to get some views of a destroyer sinking a submarine—why, I'd have something that any camera man in the world ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... feathers, not the ladies. Honora had a hand in it. I think she pulled off one marriage. She seemed to think there were arguments in favor of the wedding ceremony. But, mind you, she didn't want any of the poor women to go because they were bad. We are sinners all here. Stay and take a chance, that's our motto. It isn't often you can get a good woman like Honora to hang up ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... out. "It's a thing I've never told any one else. But you fellows have been so white to me, to say nothing of one of you having risked his life for mine, that I'm going to take a chance. Perhaps it will be a relief anyway. Brooding over it so long and not confiding in any one, I've been afraid some time I might ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... told me that monsieur is reckless, that he has the temperament of the gamester, that he is bored; in a word, that he would, as the Americans say, 'take a chance.' Is he ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... hed been crawlin around the woods tryin to find somebody till he saw me duck behind a bush. Hed been layin there ever since tryin to decide wether to shoot me an take a chance on missin or lay there till I died a natshural death. It was easy to see tho that we wouldnt win anything but a wooden cross hangin round there so we walked thru the woods till we ran into about twenty doboys. One of them said they was after a machine gun nest that was holdin ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... not going to take a chance on his pulling through, in the face of the advice of the doctors that only the girl's presence can stimulate him to a desire to live. I tell you, Hector McKaye, man, he's dying because he is ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... had no shillings. This, of course, is the chronic condition of all users of the slot-meters, and she accepted the discovery with the calm of the fatalist. She considered. Should she go out and get change from the obliging tobacconist at the corner or should she take a chance? ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... over again, no school or education for me! Not with all this beautiful mud and these tar-paper shacks and corner lot fruit stores lying round! I'd buy out the whole United States and take a chance, a sporting chance, on the rise ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... you, Dwindle," Jones said to his clerkish aide, "where, in this worldful of specialists, am I going to find someone with a well-rounded education? Much less one who'll take a chance ...
— Master of None • Lloyd Neil Goble
... you haven't. When you stop to think it over, you see it's a fellow's plain duty to take a chance when it's necessary, but it's downright foolish to do it on a dare. One thing about Bob's live-wire adventure I don't believe even he realizes," added Sure Pop. "It was that hurry-up patrol of small boys ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... pull off in about as spectacular a fashion as I—as you know how. I want to make good, conspicuously good, at the start—understand? Maybe I'll be 'broke' for it and sent to pounding the pavements of Dismissalville, but I don't care, I'll take a chance. On the level, Kennedy, it's a big thing, and it ought to be done. Will you help me put ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... than I did. I knew we would have to take a chance and there was no one I would have selected for the job quicker than Arthur Poe. How we needed a touchdown or a ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... the sisters; two are out; three remain," said his counsellor. "Let all your sisters take a chance; this will be best; perhaps you are too hasty in going home; when you reach Keaau and say you have not succeeded, your other sisters will say: 'If you had let us try, Laieikawai would have consented;' so, then, they get something to talk ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... Braceway decided to "take a chance." He had a great respect for his intuitions. These "hunches," he had found, were sometimes of no value, but they had helped him often enough to make the ideas that came to him in this way worth trying. He ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... don't 'run you in,' as you put it? Suppose I take a chance and lend you five shillings, will you do some work and pay it back to ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... known territory, and long and tiring waits for the invader that never came, had dulled his senses of apprehension. He had to take a chance. The Administrator's office would warn him from time to time, and ask him conventionally to make his arrangements to meet all contingencies and Sanders would as conventionally reply that the condition of affairs on the Ochori border was engaging ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... very snug fortune in the next day or two. There appears to be more gold than quartz in this rock—some indeed, is the pure quill. All hands, including the jacks, will go on a short ration of water from now on. Of course we're taking chances with our lives, but what's life if a fellow can't take a chance for a fortune like this? I'd sooner die and be done with, it than live my life without a thrill. That's why I've degenerated from a perfectly matriculated mining engineer into a wandering desert rat. Would you ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... "Loan premium? That's a true fantasy if you've been job hopping. None of the companies will take a chance on a man with an in and out record. Oh, I tried...." That memory arose to the surface, clear and very chilling. Yes, he had tried to break out of the net the law and custom had put around him from the day he had been made a state child. "No—it ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... for, as his good angel had prophesied, his one word of English met every requirement and he got the assignment. Since that time, I might add, he has acquired a fluent command of the English language. Francqui has always been willing to take a chance and lead ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... are, eh?" asked the burglar calmly. "Well, all I've got to say is that you have grit. Go ahead. I'm caught good and proper. I was foolish to come in here, but I thought I'd take a chance." ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... "I ain't attempting," says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we're dealing with humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge the ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... I'll wait downstairs, sir. I hope you'll bring me a good account of him, Doctor." So he left Mary to make her examination; going downstairs, he shook his head once, pursed up his lips, and then smiled doubtfully, as a man may do when he has made up his mind to take a chance. ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... to take a chance: and he failed miserably. As I was on the green with my third, and, unless I putted extremely poorly, was morally certain to be down in five, which is bogey for the hole, there was not much practical use in his continuing to struggle. But he did in a spirit of pure ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... take a chance now," mused the captain, rather moodily; and the talk descended to mere monosyllables on the part of both of them. "I must see Carwell and have it out with him about that insurance deal. Maybe he holds that against ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... closeness of a forty below zero climate in the dead of winter, the silent stream of white clad figures creeps over the icy mountain passes, in groups of tens, twenties and fifties, seeking a new world of subsistence, willing to take a chance of life and death in a hand-to-hand struggle with the stubborn soil of Manchuria's wooded and stony hillsides. Here, by indefatigable efforts, they seek to extract a living by applying the grub axe and hand hoe to the barren mountain sides above the Chinese fields, planting and reaping ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... cereal coffee-substitute had been thoroughly discredited by governmental analysis, although even today newspaper publishers are to be found here and there who are willing to "take a chance" with public opinion and who will admit to their advertising columns such misleading statements for the substitute, as "it has ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... you can't remember the new address tell me one of the old ones," he pleaded. "I'll take a chance on writing there and ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of the officer's unwillingness to take a chance on injuring her, leaped through a gap in a wall and sprinted through a garden smothered with thick, leathery-leaved weeds, some of them higher than her head. She almost laughed with relief, but as she flitted around the corner of a house toward the street she saw the gorilla faced giant ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... me that about three or four times and I'd start believing it," he said. "And Dr. Harnosh of Hosh would believe it the first time; he's been talking to himself ever since the Lady Dallona started her experimental work here. Lord Virzal, I'm going to take a chance on you. The Lady Dallona is still carnate, or was four days ago, and the same for Dirzed. They both went into hiding after the discarnation feast of Garnon of Roxor, to escape the enmity of the Statisticalists. Two days after they disappeared, Dirzed called Assassins' Hall and reported this, but ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... folded up all right, but they unfolded in chips of scaled-off paint. In the excitement, or the desire to "take a chance," I had not given a thought to the plain fact that the drops were not aniline. They were doomed to chip in time anyway, and folding only hastened their end. Still, we received just as much money ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... fifteen, with the average run of players. Oh, by the way, one more thing. That lead block up there—" The man motioned with his head toward a one-foot cube suspended by a thick cable. "It's rigged to drop every now and again. Averages five minutes. A warning light flashes first. You can take a chance; sometimes the light's a bluff. You can set the clock back on it by dropping another chip—or you can let ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... just what Mortlake was afraid of. But, as has been said, he was the sort of man who, in sporting parlance, was willing always "to take a chance" to beat any one he considered his rival. He was taking a desperate chance now. Under the artificial means he had used to increase the speed of his engines, the motor was "turning up" several hundred more revolutions a minute than she had ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... it's going to rain soon—and hard, too, if I'm any judge," Tom said. "I don't believe I'll take a chance trying to get the machine going again. We'll make for that farmhouse and stay there until after the storm. Looks as if we could get shelter there, and perhaps a bit to eat. I'm beginning to ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... affect a signature in this way is to call attention to the fraud instantly. A man may make a shaky mismove of the pen somewhere in the body of the check, and if it is not too prominent a teller may take a chance and pass it; but he will shy at a signature which isn't what it ought to be—that subtle sixth sense of the old teller prompts him to it before he knows why, and a ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... slide ahead a ways," Racey shouted to the girl. "She's nearly a quarter-mile wide, and over two miles long, so we'll have to take a chance ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... pack of the law to his hiding place. On the other hand if Cullison thought they intended to keep her prisoner he would have to compromise. He dared not leave her in the hands of Lute Blackwell. Fendrick decided to take a chance. At the worst he could turn them both free and ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... moment. Was it a burglary, a domestic row, or perhaps a murder? The position of the shot was hard to locate, for it had been but the sound of a moment on the still night. Murphy, however, decided to take a chance, and started stealthily north on Sheridan Road, keeping within the shadow that ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... you done it in the beginning, darlin'. Remember that night, even when I was strong enough to move a ox team, I told you there was bum lungs 'way back somewhere in my family? I never ought to let you take a chance, Vi-dee—I never ought!" ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... and take a chance for it," whispered a third, "but I wouldn't let such a thing as ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... chew tobacco," Connie grinned, "but seeing you've gone to all the trouble of slicing the meat up, I'll take a chance." ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... if you will take a chance," Olga said. "Give me your arm, my dear doctor, and we will walk together ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... the burned strip, he explained. It would bother a man to get down there now. But he offered to try it, if he might be excused from the station for a few hours. He said he would be willing to go down and tell them she was all right, or, a little later, he might even take a chance of getting her across. But it would take some time, he ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... watching and worrying before he made up his mind to go to the rescue. There were plenty of idle cars, but it was not easy to hire one, as they were mostly guarded by chauffeurs with no right to rent or lend them. At last a man was found who was willing to pick up $10 and take a chance that his master would not ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... she smiled. "I didn't think it mattered until you asked me to marry you. Then I knew it did. It was game of you to offer to take a chance, but I'm not that game. I couldn't marry a strange man. I like that man a lot, but I don't love him—and you don't want me to marry you if I don't love you, do ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... rather take a chance of breaking through near some star than spend time just barreling through normal space, but apparently Tech knows this, too. They had a safety factor built into the computer so you couldn't end up inside a star no matter how hard you tried. ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... pilot us to the Fenachrone system now without any trouble. You also absorbed some ethnology and kindred sciences. What d'you think—with Dunark and Urvan, do we know enough to go ahead or should we take a chance on holding things up while we get acquainted with some of the other peoples of these ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... rained | |again. The good old golosh was brought out of the | |spare bedroom closet and placed upon even the | |fairest of feet. The old brown raincoat was dragged | |forth into the light of day and placed above the | |gayest of garments. | | | |No girl was so foolish as to take a chance on the | |ruin of her apparel by doing without a moisture | |shedder of some sort. And not a general or admiral | |or member of a governor's staff or other person | |holding the right to wear a uniform ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... day was fine and hot. Leighton decided to take a chance on innovation, and revisit a quiet stretch on the Marne. It was rather a journey to get there, but from the moment the three were settled in their third-class carriage time took to wing. As he listened to Lewis's and Cellette's chatter, the years rolled back ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... know. Not a high price, I believe, for motor-boats are so new on our lake that few persons will take a chance on them. But if Mr. Hastings is getting another, he will not be so particular about insisting on a high price for the old one. Then, too, the fact that it is damaged will help to keep the price down, though I know I can easily put it in good shape. I would like to make a bid, if you think it's ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... of farmers. A man born in a farmhouse never thought of anything else but farming, and waited and waited, perhaps till he was grey, to get a farm; now there are few who have such fixed ideas, they are ready to take a chance at home or abroad. Yet it is the same old country, and with the new ways and science, and learning, and civilisation, it is as with the machinery, they are all sunk and lost in the firm old lines. It is all changed and just the same. What a clamour there used to be ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... Hardly know whether to take a chance with the worms or try the apricots. Ain't no worms in them, anyhow. But when am I going to get my cayuse? I've got a long way to go, an' delay is costly—how much did you say these yaller fellers cost?" he asked significantly, ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... this assurance—that Broxton Day was practically helpless physically—led the lawyer to take a chance in the living room. But he was manifestly very ill at ease from the moment he heard ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... without imagination—much of their weirdness and glamour with which they are inseparable to the idealist and the impressionist. Each of these upsets could have been avoided by a portage had we desired to make one, but success in other rapids made us a little reckless and ready to take a chance. ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... made a clean job of it. And yesterday morning the girl played into my hands. She rode over to the Sawtooth, and I got her at Thurman's place, on her way home, and figured I'd marry her and take a chance on keeping her quiet afterwards. I'd have been down the Pass in another two hours and heading for the nearest county seat. She'd have married me, too. She knows I'd have killed her if she didn't—which I would. ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... tests we can," said Holden comfortingly, "and decide for ourselves. We can take a chance. We're ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... least, sir, provided your life were at issue," Harleston answered. "For my part, I think it isn't even seriously threatened. If Mrs. Spencer will shift her aim to me, I'll take a chance." ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... thing first as last. I've told you what I am,—and almost who,— and I know who and what you are. You don't suppose for an instant that I, with a record for having made fewer blunders than any man in the service, could afford to take a chance with you unless I was absolutely sure of my ground, do you? You ask me what I take you for. Well, I take you for a meddler who, if given a free rein, may upset the whole pot of beans and work an irreparable injury to an ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... her. "Say it anyway and take a chance," he urged, and his voice was like a kiss, whether he knew it or not. He did know that she caught her breath at the words or the tone, and that the color flamed a deeper tint in her cheek and then faded to a ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... "Are you going to take a chance in a dark park?" Helene asked him, as they sat within the car, while the chauffeur cranked. Shirley was sharply observing the man. A pedestrian crossed directly in front of the machine, brushing against the driver, as he fumbled with the lamp. If there ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... it is necessary to take a chance," she answered. "You've got to catch Mascola's bunch red-handed. When we round the 'bull-nose' we'll be right on ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... little less than hell. Yet, he dreaded that suffragette business. If she would only break loose and let him see how bad she was liable to be he could easily make up his mind. He was almost ready to take a chance, to ask Ophelia to marry him and settle ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... of you ever in Langtry, Ohio? Well, never take a chance on it if there is anywhere else to go. It's a tank town with a community of seven hundred of the tightest wads that ever sunk a dollar into the toe of a sock. There was a fair going on in the place, and I blew in there one September ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... camp quick, we'll be caught in the cold and frozen. If I was alone, I'd try to make some Esquimo hut or die, but havin' you I can't take a chance.' Hal's manner of speech had improved a great deal during his intercourse with cultured men, and I took note of it as he spoke—such queer things will impress one when a sudden ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... "here is our Unknown Knight, the first to come back with his tribute! Let's see, what was it you said you were going to do? Oh, I know—take a chance on ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... so, it is a quality that makes for victory. The average Canadian is always willing to "take a chance" because he has confidence in himself. And the Corps Commander is very much of ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... should drink to that or not," Broderick ruminated, smiling. "May get after me. I'll take a chance, though. King's straight. I can always get on with a straight ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... a chance on a bowie knife,' says Moon to Dan Boggs,— Dan, bein' a sympathetic gent an' takin' nacherally to folks in trouble, has Moon's confidence from the jump; 'I'll take a chance on a bowie knife; an' as for a gun, I simply courts the resk. But then ants dazzles me—I lay down to ants, an' I looks on it as no disgrace to a gent to say so.' "'Ants shorely do sound poignant,' admits Dan, 'speshully them big black an' red ants that has stingers like hornets an' pinchers like ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... my head." As at that she felt a swift little thrill of surprise and liking for Joe, he continued, "I've been a fool. You're always a fool when you take a chance and aren't able to get away with it. You're a fool—because you missed out. I'm a fool—because I missed out. We both of us took chances. And I got very badly stung. We've got to be poor for a little while." Joe drew ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... for the silver screen, Jack could not help thinking while he drew his automatic and kept tabs on that open door, more than half expecting to see Oswald Kearns dash wildly out with some sort of machine-gun in his hands, ready to take a chance in the game, knowing that the attack must have everything to do with ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... until the records of our work could be made complete it was a wise precaution not to take a chance on both of us getting killed at the same time. We never flew together but once. From 1900 to 1908 the total time in the air for both Wilbur and myself, all put together, was only ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... always, even when the ice is in poor condition, to cross it and "take a chance," which usually means a considerable risk, rather than travel the long course around shore. Long experience at dog travel, instead of breeding greater caution in the men of the coast, leads them to take risks from which the less experienced man ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... Creation to the Day of Judgment; I'd gamble a golden harp against another man's halo; I'd toss for pennies on the front steps of the New Jerusalem or set up a faro layout just outside the Pearly Gates; but I'll be everlastingly damned if I'll gamble on love. Love's too big to me to take a chance on. Love's got to be a sure thing, and between you and me it is a sure thing. If the odds was a hundred to one on my winning this flip, just the same, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... said Old Mother Nature. "And you forgot to say how fond of salt you are, and how often this fondness gets you into trouble around the camps of men. Your fear of Pekan the Fisher we all saw. I might add that Puma the Panther is to be feared at times, and when he is very hungry Buster Bear will take a chance on turning you on your back. By the way, don't any of you call Prickly Porky a Hedgehog. He isn't any thing of the kind. He is sometimes called a Quill Pig, but his real name, Porcupine, is best. He has no near relatives. Tomorrow ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... looked up from a frowning contemplation of the maps. "And if you'll take a chance I'll show you how you can drill one well and cost them three—that is, provided you hit." As the others leaned over his shoulder he explained: "Here's a square block of four twenties—separate leases, all of 'em—and the Nelsons own three. You can cop the fourth twenty, drill right at the inside ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... they're not here. They've probably gone on. I'll have to take a chance and show the ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... admiringly. "He makes his way over everything and everybody. He is ruthless in going after what he wants. He fears nothing above or below. I honestly believe that if the arch demon were to block him on the trail, Bully Presby would take a chance and try to throw him over a cliff. I don't suppose he ever had a vice or a human emotion. I believe I'd like him better if he had a little ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... her nephew are goin' to take a chance," said Sandy. "Me an' my two partners are lookin' for claims located by the man who first discovered the camp. They can't get away an' we'll see Miss ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... poisoning had set in and that to save the arm an operation was necessary without loss of time. He called a sergeant and sent him out to consult with an ambulance-driver. "This officer ought to go out at once. Are you willing to take a chance?" asked the sergeant. The ambulance-driver took a look at the chalk road gleaming white in the sun where it climbed the ridge. "Sure, Mike," he said, and ran off to crank his engine and back his car out of its place of concealment. ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... second the youth and maiden, close together, hung on to this natural shelf, gaining strength to pull themselves up on to the ground. He realized how disastrous it would be to injure the daughter of the Powhatan. Nevertheless, he determined to take a chance. ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson |
