"Devilment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... go a little slow, until we find out what it is," cautioned Thure, as he quickly fell in by the side of Bud, his own rifle held ready for instant use. "It might be Indian devilment of some kind. You know dad's last letter from the mines said that the Indians were getting ugly; and if it is hostile Indians, we want to see ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... drove rudely against them, slapping their faces and blinding their eyes with eddies of dust; on the contrary, after he had swept forwards like a tornado for a matter of fifty yards or so he paused, as if in search of some fresh devilment, and espied a girl beating her way up the street and carrying a roll of music rather loosely in the crook of her arm. In an instant he had snatched the roll away and sent the sheets spread-eagling up the street, looking like so many big white butterflies as they flapped and ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... reactionary? Look at that square of ground, that space of God's earth that was once sweet and fair, torn, desecrated, disembowelled! Those sheds! That great wind-wheel! That monstrous wheeled machine! Those dykes! Look at those three monsters squatting there, plotting some ugly devilment or other! ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... the mason explained with pride. "I reckon not to make a hog of myself, but when you've been off on a job for months, working all day long six days in the week in the heat and dust, you accumulate a thirst and a devilment in you that ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... replied the captain, "we'd put in to water at a place south of the line—Palm Tree Island we whalemen call it, because of the tree at the break of the lagoon. One of my men brought it aboard, found it in a shanty built of sugarcanes which the men bust up for devilment." ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... my news. Besides, I fancy I shall see the thing clearer, after I have told it all out straight. I must tell you this, though, at the beginning—up to the present moment, I have been utterly and completely 'stumped.' I have tumbled upon one of the most peculiar cases of 'haunting'—or devilment of some sort—that I ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... and when I made my confessions to you—told you about myself, things that at that time no one else knew! There I would sit and tell you of my escapades—my days and nights of devilment. Oh, Hedda—what was the power in you that forced me to ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... "What new devilment of thine is this?" cried Leo in a scared and angry voice. But Ayesha made no answer. I heard a noise behind me and looked round. The skeletons were springing upon our body-guard, who for their part, poor men, paralysed with terror, had thrown down their weapons ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... the Eel River country in '46," he answered. "They give us a lot of trouble in them days. They would steal cattle, and our boys would shoot. But we've never had much difficulty with them since the big fight we had with them in 1849. A good deal of devilment had been goin' on all roun', and some had been killed on both sides. The Injuns killed two women on a ranch in the valley, and then we set in just to wipe 'em out. Their camp was in a bend of the river, ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... it was any wonder we was gettin' discouraged," said another now resuscitated voice. "Zely had the last one, and Fluke for devilment gets a lot of the Artichokes over early ter help the cause. Wal, you might know there wa'n't no beans left for the Capers and Basins, and Zely was dreadful mortified, for ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... cursing, snarling, foaming maniac, and stopped at nothing to make me a spectacle and a byword. Again and again she chased me out with an ax; she would fling into the store with nothing over her but a single dirty garment, and pull down whole shelves of stuff out of sheer devilment, screaming with rage. She slandered everybody, and reflected on every woman who was unfortunate enough to know us, so that I was sued twice for defamation—or rather she—with verdict and damages, all that I could do being to hold up my hands and tell the judge she wasn't ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... one day—pore Jinny! I can see her face light up now when she said it—sez she, 'I'm ac-chilly most afeerd to see you converted, less'n you'll break out in some devilment you hadn't never thought ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... she's black at all," declared one, after Frank's brief explanation. "This nigger has a bad eye,—he's up ter some sort of devilment. ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the other men demurred; they would have nothing to do with me. And at this Grindhusen changed front; for sheer devilment he fell to again about the engineer and his cousin, knowing it would ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... there's any joke about a bunch of bronchos," she said. "They like to kill just for pure devilment, and when they can make it without risk, their choice of game ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... a white preacher. De colored would go to church de same as de whites. He give de colored instructions on obeying Masters. He say, "while your Master is going f'om pillar to post, looking after your intrusts, you is always doing some devilment." I 'spect dat was jest ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... berth and went about his business profoundly mystified, but not downhearted. Beyond shadow of fair doubt Dupont was up to some new devilment, but Lanyard would be surprised if its nature failed to develop on the train or at latest upon its arrival in Paris the next morning. For the present he was weary of the sight of the fat Apache, glad to believe he had seen the last of him ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleamings on the trees and fields. It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... head as though he thought them d—-d Rebs ain't evacuating Atlanta so mighty sudden, but are up to some devilment again. I ain't sure but he's right. They ain't going to keep falling back and falling back to all eternity, but are just agoin' to give us a rip-roaring great big fight one o' these days—when they get a good ready. You ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... sugar-coated promises entice when the rod should quell and blister. Meanwhile the refractory urchin, with no fear to stimulate his sluggish conscience, chuckles, rejoices and is glad, and bethinks himself of some uninvented methods of devilment. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... Pocahontas, as very ancient, but a pedigree of only five hundred years wouldn't entitle a family to enter good society over here. But though only five hundred years in power, this recent dynasty succeeded in doing about as much devilment and as little good as many dynasties much older in years. One of the missionaries explained to me yesterday that it was only when the King got very mad that he would order heads cut off without reason—but then the Koreans are very lazy and his inactivity at other periods ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... niggers sometimes, but 'twarn't hard. You know, de nigger gits de devilment in de head, like folks do, sometimes, and de marster have to larn 'em better. He done dat hisself and he have no overseer. No nigger tried run away, 'cause each family have a cabin wid bunks for to sleep on and we'uns ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... scratching her head with the long teeth of her tucking-comb, "you're too old to be made a tool of. Let old Bradley Gaither do his own buyin' and sellin'. That old scamp is deep as a well. Them that didn't know him'd think he was sanctified; yit he's got devilment enough in him to break the winders out 'n the meetin'-house. Well, he needn't pester wi' Jack and Rose," Miss Jane went on; "Jack'll never marry Rose whilst old Billy Carew is hoppin' along betwixt the grocery and the graveyard. Lord, Lord! to think that sech a no-'count old ereetur ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... swerved round and came right in under the rock on which Lionel was standing, where they could see him lying perfectly still in the deep, clear water. He neither tugged nor bored; that olive-green thing (for so he appeared in these depths) lay perfectly motionless—no doubt planning further devilment and only waiting to recover his strength. Meanwhile Lionel had scrambled a bit higher up the rock, so as to get the rod ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... pure devilment, set fire to the leaves, and to-night the forest was illuminated. The flames advanced so rapidly that, at one time, we feared they might get beyond control, but the fire was finally whipped out, ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... was Indians at all who did the thieving," remarked Harris; "there are always a lot of scrub whites ready to take advantage of war signals, and do devilment of that sort, made ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... and reached the depth of its knees, when, from the intenser cold, or from coming sharply against a submerged stone, or from indignation at the fiddler's prod, or from the occult cause known as pure devilment, it shied up its back legs, and tossed down its tousled head, and pitched the musician head-foremost ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... I speck I is a gittin' mo frailer dan I wuz 'fo' de fahmin days wuz over, but I sees wid my eyes an' I years wid my year, same ez enny er dese yer young bucks w'at goes a gallopin' roun' huntin' up devilment, an' w'en I sees de limberness er dese yer cullud people, an' w'en I sees how dey er dancin' up, den I gits sorter hopeful. Dey er kinder ketchin' ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... Irish blood in me, old chappie," said he, "and that means a natural taste for amateur conspiracy and general devilment. But don't let's stay jawing here any longer. We're both due for a good jaunt ashore, and there's a bran-new tick here to guarantee us every mortal thing (bar one) which we want. And for that one, which is almost always ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... leetle preety poosee pet." When I roused, it was Kitty's voice at the piano, but no change in the quality of the song or the thumping; and Hortense was stepping on deck. She had a cigarette, her beauty flashed with devilment, and John followed her. "They are going to have an explanation," I thought, as I saw his face. If that were so, then Kitty had blundered in her strategy and hurt Charley's cause; for after the two came Gazza, ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... so long, and in his worldly matters prospered so much, there was so little sign of devilment in the accomplishment of his wishes, and the increase of his prosperity, that Simon, at the end of six years, began to doubt whether he had made any such bargain at all, as that which we have described at the commencement ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "What devilment you up to now, Sal?" Ware was asking of the other man, a tall, loose-jointed, freckle-faced and red-haired individual with an ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... my mind, my heart, de truth en I gwine tell you it just like I see it. Since de colored peoples got de law, dey get in all kind of devilment. Dat how-come if I had to go back, I would go back to slavery en ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... the explosives of mingled fun and devilment that proceeded from a group of ragged urchins, who were busily employed in pelting with hard mud, sods and other missiles, an old and decrepit woman, whose gray hair and infirmities ought to have been her protection, but whose reputation as an evil disposed witch proved quite the contrary. ...
— Ellen Duncan; And The Proctor's Daughter - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... "We will do what we can where Brocky is. But that isn't all of the devilment to-night. Galloway got Florrie away somehow; she was the one riding with him toward the crossroads. It's up to you to ride on and ride like the devil and tell John Engle. . . . Come ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... of your mind to talk to me like this," says Lady Rylton at last. Something in the girl's air tells her that there is some little touch of devilment in it, some anger, some hatred. "But, naturally, I make allowances for you. Your birth, your surroundings, your bringing up, all preclude the idea that you should know how to manage yourself in the world into which you have been thrown by ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... 'gainst dis chile? (Gestures towards Jim. Dave shakes his head and starts to deny the charge but Simms hurries on.) Wait a minute now! Wait till I git thru. Didn't y'all used to run around everywhere playin' and singing andeverything till you got so full of envy and malce and devilment till y'al broke up? Now, Brother Mayor, make him ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... for a moment. "For one cent, Bill," said he, "I'd wring your cussed green neck for you. I'll bet a hundred you're the feller that's been a-doin' all this devilment. Here you,—Susy—Airey,—have you seen Bill a-eatin' the ornyment?" Both the young ladies solemnly and truthfully declared that they had never noticed any such thing; and pointed out that parrots, in their belief, ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... and lip! The General, followed by the Brigade-Major and an orderly, came trotting down the road. A few hasty commands were thrown at the Adjutant, accompanied by gesticulations towards the road leading out of the town. Assuredly some fresh devilment was rife, and for the moment, anyway, the cup had slipped. An attack on the town was expected by a large detachment of cavalry. The wretched men had to be hurried out, to line a row of hedges to the west of the ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... it if you like. When you've had enough of this just-friend business, I'll show you how I dig dollars outa wolf-dens." He grinned at the puzzled face of her. It was a riddle, and he had practically put the answer before her, and still she could not see it. There was a little streak of devilment in Ward, and ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... guard at each door, while the other four went through the house; they could hear them yelling and shouting to one another, pulling the furniture about, and every now and then firing off a shot in simple devilment, as if to show their prisoners that they had made sure of their prey and feared no interruption. The baby cried on, and the sunshine stole gradually up the wall; up and up it crept to the ceiling, and the clock ticked noisily on the mantelshelf—but ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... walked with a shuffling, half-apologetic sort of a gait, and who, when his countenance was in repose, resembled an idiot. For hours he would sit in his chair, twisting his hair in little ringlets. Then I used to say, "Bill is studying up some new devilment." His clothes were always several sizes too large, and his face was as smooth as a woman's and never had a particle of hair on it. Canada was a slick one. He had a squeaking, boyish voice, and awkward, gawky manners, and a way of asking fool questions and putting ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... anyone knows where their hang-out is—no one seems to know anything about them, except that they're on hand when there's any devilment ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of great grey eyes. What eyes they were! They made the man of wealth bolt his rusk. There was one mouthful he only chewed fifteen times instead of the customary thirty-two. They contained all Heaven, and they contained all Hell; in them lay the glory of a God, the devilment of a Siren, and the peace of a woman . . . . And just once she looked at him during dinner—the look of a stranger—cool and self-possessed. Just casually she wondered whether it was worth while to buy money at the cost of a rusk diet; then she turned to ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... he's got parents in the stage, and has been playing truant here," he mused, lazily. "Looked as if he'd been up to some devilment, or more like as if he was primed for it. If he'd been a little older, I'd have bet he was in league with some road-agents to watch the coach. Just my luck to have him light out as I was beginning to get some talk out of him." He paused, looked at his watch, and straightened himself in his stirrups. ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... back. They had a tough job, but at midnight of the second day they succeeded in getting them to retrace their way to the ship, the plan being to get aboard when nobody was about. Munroe was a typical sailor, full of devilment, especially when he had had a few glasses of grog. The two "plants" trudged their way conversing with great animation of what they had seen and done and what they intended to do. Ralph was ready to acquiesce in all his officer said as to future exploits. Their shipmate reminded ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... was a class of fairies who acted a friendly part towards their human neighbours, helping the weak or ill-used, and generally busying themselves with acts of kindness; these were called "brownies." The fairies proper were a merry race, full of devilment, and malicious, tricky, and troublesome, and the cause of much annoyance and fear among the people. Besides these supernatural beings—brownies, fairies, &c.—there existed a belief in persons who ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... it's impossible to do any serious work here. Lady Gertrude fairly radiates disapproval whenever I spend an hour or two at the piano. Oh!"—her sense of humour rising uppermost for a moment—"she asked me to play to them one evening, so I gave them some Debussy—out of sheer devilment, I think"—smiling a little—"and at the end Lady Gertrude said politely: 'Thank you. And now, might we have something with a ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... resolves itself into a problem for Washington to solve," said De Soto darkly. "Nothing local about it, take my word for it. These men were up to some international devilment. I'm not saying that Germany is at the back of it, but, by Jove, I don't put anything beyond the beggars. They are the cleverest, most resourceful people in the world, damn 'em. You wait and see if I'm not right. There'll ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... 'piscopalium preacher, an' one time that Vil Holland an' him come ridin' 'long, an' they stopped in fer dinner, an' that Vil Holland, he's allus up to some kind o' devilment er 'nother, he says: 'Ma Watts, why don't yo' hev the kids all babitized?' I hadn't never thought much 'bout hit, but thar wus the preacher, an' he seemed to think mighty proud of hit, an' hit didn't cost nothin', so I tol' ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... as though she was steppin' over a hot griddle. Purty soon it's dizzle-dazzle an' flippity-floppity an' splendiferous and sewperb, an' the first thing ye know ye ain't knee-high to a grasshopper. Sam he comes back an' tells Ed all about the latest devilment. You hear of it; then, mebbe, ye begin to limber up an' think ye'll try it yerself. An' some morning ye'll wake up an' find yer moral character has scooted. You fellers that go t' meetin' here an' talk about resistin' temptation—if you ever git t' goin' it down there in ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... he wouldn't entertain among the lodges of his people. The Uncapapas were of Sitting Bull's own tribe, malcontents almost to a man, "mouth-fighters" who, like some recent exponents of Southern oratory, were far more conspicuous after than during the battle days, and between these breeders of devilment and the renegade Brules, there lay the village of Red Dog's reviving band,—three gangs of aboriginal jail-birds who looked upon Red Dog's release as virtual confession on part of the White Father that he dare not keep him, and they were only waiting until the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... mentally braced for devilment, but his arch-enemy, Fay, was not in sight. To his surprise, he got to the post office quite without molestation. There he was handed two letters. One was from his parents. The other, his first business document, proved to be from the ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... when I wanted it. The sneaks were outsiders, and although we did not reckon them when we spoke of "the school," it must not be imagined that we forgot to bring them into our calculations in each conspiracy of devilment, nor to fasten upon them the consequences of our ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... successfully one or two small affronts from the passing Orangemen, because he was promise-bound and sober; but when one of the enemy, a boon companion on any other day, sought him out in the stable yard and, with the light of devilment in his eyes, walked up holding out a flask of whiskey and said: "Hartigan! Ye white-livered, weak-need papist, ye're not man enough to take a pull at that, an' tip the hat aff of me head!" Hartigan's resolutions melted like wax before the flare of his anger. Seizing the flask, he took a mouthful ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... my Joe—always full of his devilment, and up to every kind of mischief, but he was just as unselfish and kind as he could be—and laws bless me, to think I went and whipped him for taking that cream, never once recollecting that I throwed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mistress' sister), I heard her say, 'Well, you let em beat you' and started cryin'. I cried too and mama said, 'What you cryin' for?' I said, 'Miss Judy's cryin'.' Mama said, 'You fool, you is free!' I didn't know what freedom was, but I know the soldiers did a lot of devilment. Had guards but they just run ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... surprised to see no one make a motion at him, but he sunk all the same. "We never waste effort," sed Satan to me; "he carries enough natural cussedness about him, all the time, to sink him, without pilin any devilment on his shoulders wich is ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... offended you," she added hastily; "but I didn't think anything wrong of Bessie—you know I didn't. Only I've watched the boss following her around with his eyes ever since we came here to work. You didn't see, for you don't know as much about their devilment as I do; but I tell you, if anything was ever to happen that poor little girl through any man, I'd choke him to death ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... skinnywoppers (high-legged moccasins of sealskin, hair-side inward) were glistening with moisture of melted snow, and his face was red from the rasp of raw wind. He looked as if he had slept in his clothes—which was, undoubtedly, the case. He glared straight at the skipper with a dancing flame of devilment in ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... his glasses. Many a man knows that attitude and that look, and so many a man has been as uncomfortable as I began to be, and has felt as keen a sense of impending trouble. I began immediately searching my memory for some especial brand of devilment that I'd been sampling, but there was nothing doing. I had been losing some at poker lately, and I'd been away to the bad out at Ingleside; still, I looked him innocently in the eye and wondered what ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... any associates except dancing attendance upon this tall, imperious beauty, who, for her part, seemed now to accept his devotions as a matter of course, and to be regardless of public opinion. Begun in pique, or vanity, or devilment, whatever it may have been at the start, her indifference at first, her coquetry, her wiles, her defiance of his powers had spurred, fascinated and finally maddened him. Then, when she would have drawn back, his apparent, his acted or his actual desperation ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... wink. It's they children overhead: they 'm up to some devilment, I know, because Matthew Henry isn't snoring. He always snores when he's asleep, and it shakes the house. I'll ha' gone to see, only I was afeard to disturb 'ee. I'll war'n' they 'm up to some may-games ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Adrian. "It's Madame Torrebianca that you 've been raving about. Ah, yes. Oh, I concede at once that Madame Torrebianca is very nice too. None readier than I to do her homage. But for fun and devilment give me Peebles. Give me old ladies, or give me little girls. You 're welcome to the betwixts and the betweens. Old ladies, who have passed the age of folly, or little girls, who have n't reached it. But women in the ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... fate had cast him. To sleep with such a slovenly man as the doctor shocked James, who was a bit of a dandy. The doctor seemed perfectly contented with the arrangement; and as he bade Murphy "good night," a lurking devilment hung about his huge mouth. All the men staggered off, or were supported, to their various beds, but one—and he could not stir from the floor, where he lay hugging the leg of the table. To every effort to disturb him he replied with an imploring grunt, to "let him alone," and he hugged the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Frenchman, and French ships as an Englishman. That explained to the full the sinking of the Swallow and the extermination of her crew. It was to him a matter of life or death. If one escaped with knowledge of the facts, the devilment must end. And I ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... does she let him hang around for? I always hated the sight of his black face and infernal grin, but somehow, I thought she rather liked him. I wonder if he can be there now! If he is, then he and Fagin are up to some devilment." ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... fellers that started it ever think the Bald Knobber's would get to be what they did. We began it as a kind of protection, times bein' wild then. But first we knowed some was a usin' the order to protect themselves in all kinds of devilment, and things went on that way, 'cause nobody didn't dare say anything; for if they did they was tried as traitors, and sentenced to ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... need of a sheriff, if we get down to the bottom of this devilment? We have got to put it down, and that's all there is to it, as you know very well. There's no two ways about it. These disturbances, most of them due to politics, have upset our whole country. ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... on, "the devilment was done. Just like it allers is when people gits smarter than the blessed God. The Dwarfs crost over an' rid the horses in the night an' sucked the cows, an' made faces at the women so the children was cross-eyed. An' the folks ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... am not seeking a money reward, but I want to know what I am about. I am a pretty old man, and sometimes there is great devilment going on in will cases. I do not want to aid the wrong side; I'll do all I can to ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... jails in dem days. Dey had a gyuard house what dey whupped 'em in, and Mondays and Tuesdays wuz set aside for de whuppin's, when de Niggers what had done wrong got so many lashes, 'cordin' to what devilment dey had been doin'. De overseer didn't do de whuppin', Marster done dat. Dem patterrollers wuz sompin else. Mankind! If dey ketched a Nigger out atter dark widout no pass dey'd most nigh tear de hide ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... open cigarette-case that he proffered as he spoke. Our eyes met; and in his there was that starry twinkle of mirth and mischief, that sunny beam of audacious devilment, which had been my undoing two months before, which was to undo me as often as he chose until the chapter's end. Yet for once I withstood its glamour; for once I turned aside that luminous glance with front of steel. There was no need for Raffles to voice ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... tea and sugar candy were sold, as well as whisky and emigration tickets. I also remembered my father's opinion of Gorman, old Dan Gorman, the father of the man beside me. He was "one of the worst blackguards in the county, mixed up with every kind of League and devilment." Those were the days when the land agitation was at its height and Irish gentlemen—they were fighting for their existence as a class—felt rather strongly about ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... shook his head: "I am glad I came out here to-day—if for nothin' else to warn you to let that Biggers boy alone. He don't study nothin' but fast horses an' devilment." ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... blink. But no man might have charge of the Happy Family for long without attaining that state of mental insulation which renders a shock scientifically impossible. The Old Man wrote a check, twisted his mouth into a whimsical knot and inquired mildly: "What's the brand of devilment this time, and how long's it going to take yuh?" With a perceptible emphasis ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... Thursday before St, John's day, at three after midnight, two Englishmen came knocking at my door. Not knowing but they had come to rob me or break up my chests and coffers out of mischief, or do some other devilment, I shouted to them from my window to go their ways, that I did not know them and I was not going to open the door. But they only hammered louder, swearing they were going to break in the door and come in and cut off my nose and ears. To stop their uproar I emptied a crockful of ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... mythical "bogie" is to England; mothers threaten undutiful daughters, fathers unruly sons, and everybody their enemies generally, with the Circassian, who, however, unlike the "bogie" of the English household, is a real material presence, popularly understood to be ready for any devilment a person may hire him ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... told, means the land of Ire; And why she's so, none need inquire, Who sees her millions, martial, manly, Spat upon thus by me, Lord Stanley. Already in the breeze I scent The whiff of coming devilment; Of strife, to me more stirring far Than the Opium or the Sulphur war, Or any such drug ferments are. Yes—sweeter to this Tory soul Than all such pests, from pole to pole, Is the rich, "sweltered venom" got By stirring Ireland's "charmed pot;" And thanks to practice ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... ready for it. Better leave them night-gowns an' corsets an' such like here. You ain't goin' to find no use for 'em out there amongst the prickly pears an' sage brush. Law me! I don't envy you your trip none! I'd jest like to know what for devilment that Tex Benton's up to. Anyways, you don't need to be afraid of him—like Purdy. But men is men, an' you got ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... however. Then she played "Smiles," and the sweet commonplace air said all sorts of things to me—Desire to live again, and dance, and enjoy foolish pleasures—How could this little iceberg of a girl put so much devilment into the way she touched the keys? If it had not been for the interest this problem caused me, the longing the sounds aroused in me to be human again, would have driven ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... were almost all young bucks out for a frolic, but quite ready, officers say, for any kind of devilment. They rode around the post three or four times at breakneck speed, each circle being larger, and taking them farther away. At last they all started for the hills and gradually disappeared—all but one, a sentinel, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... accidentally jostled him upon the deck. Once, too, when there was some grumbling and talk of a mutiny over the state of the provisions, he was of opinion that they should not wait for the dogs to rise, but that they should march forward and set upon them until they had trounced the devilment out of them. "Give me a knife and a bucket!" he cried with an oath, and could hardly be withheld from setting forth alone to deal with the spokesman ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... offence is intended; the men jeer out of mere harmless devilment. The new churn's got so much to learn here, he can't help looking a born ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... Devilment; the Rock Battles; I Hunt Rabbits in My Shirt Tail; My First Experience in Rough Riding; a Question of Breaking the Horse or ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... ridiculous creatures. They will eat all sorts of things, even wood, mud, and pieces of coal, as if from sheer cussedness. It can't be because they are hungry, as they get plenty to eat in the way of oats, hay, dry clover, etc. Sometimes, as if from devilment, they will roll in the mud a few minutes after they have been nicely groomed. Some of our regiments have a lot of mules, which are given to fearful brayings—a sound which is a cross between a horse's whinny, a donkey's hee-haw and an elephant's trumpeting. Mules bite and kick each other ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... you won't be mixed up in all this devilment," he said; and then, as though he had found more light in the gloom: "Hit's a comfort to know the new rider air shorely a-preachin' the right doctrine, 'n' I want ye to go hear him. Blood for blood-life fer a life! Your grandad shot ole Tom Lewallen in Hazlan. Ole Jack ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... as soon think of deserting as you would,' said he. 'No; he's either fallen into a mischief among the villagers—and yet that isn't likely, for he'd blarney himself out of the Pit; or else he is engaged on urgent private affairs—some stupendous devilment that we shall hear of at mess after it has been the round of the barrack-rooms. The worst of it is that I shall have to give him twenty-eight days' confinement at least for being absent without leave, just when I most want him to lick the new batch of recruits ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... "Don't come to this shop for information about what goes on in Khandawar. I doubt if there's another Resident in India who knows as little of the underhand devilment in his State as I do. His Majesty the Rana loves me as a cheetah loves his ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... listen to me," he said. "This thing is partly my fault. I could have prevented it, maybe, if I hadn't been so taken up with my own affairs. Old Peppajee told me Baumberger was up to some devilment when he first came down here. He heard him talking to Saunders in Pete Hamilton's stable. And the first night he was here, Peppajee and I saw him down at the stable at midnight, talking to someone. Peppajee kept on his trail till he ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... to deal with was a wooden-legged cripple who came hobbling down the path, so weak and so old to all appearance that a child need not stand in fear of him. Yet when Alleyne had passed him, of a sudden, out of pure devilment, he screamed out a curse at him, and sent a jagged flint stone hurtling past his ear. So horrid was the causeless rage of the crooked creature, that the clerk came over a cold thrill, and took to his heels until he was out of shot from stone or word. It seemed to him that in this country ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tear down the beehives and break up the smoke houses. They wasn't tryin' to git nothin' to eat. They was just destroying things for devilment. They pulled all the stoppers out of the molasses. They cut the smoked meat down and let ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... many a "bawling out" because the officers respected the father's long years of faithful service and did not want to humiliate him. He knew that his boy flew high occasionally, but that was because he was "jess nachally sprightly and full o' devilment." No one could deny that Private Wilson was one of the finest animals, physically, that ever wore the uniform; or that he had gained a wide reputation among his comrades and the Filipinos on account ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... something that's not too unpleasant at first,' says he. 'We'll take him and hold his head under the water, and see will that drive any of the devilment out ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... he was only to see one of them fine gentlemen in Augusty, with his fine broadcloth, and bell-crown hat, and shoe-boots a-shinin' like silver, he'd take to the woods and kill himself a-runnin'. Bob Smith! That's whar all your devilment comes from, Simon." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... in our last scrimmage, and they must fit some one over that. It's only natural. He was rash, or Starlight would never have dropped him that day. Not if he'd been sober either. We'd been drinking all night at that Willow Tree shanty. Bad grog, too! When a man's half drunk he's fit for any devilment that comes before him. Drink! How do you think a chap that's taken to the bush—regularly turned out, I mean, with a price on his head, and a fire burning in his heart night and day—can stand his life ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... creek," it said, "creep up on the scamps, and bag the whole bunch. If they resist, boys, don't hesitate to fire. This gang has bothered us long enough. I'm tired of their bold devilment." ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... year was one dollar for a library ticket—the best dollar I ever spent in my life! Good books, and there are plenty of them free in all cities, are the best things in the world, anyway, to keep a boy out of devilment. The boy who will put into his head what he will get out of good books will win out over the one who gets his clothes full of chalk from billiard cues. One day the "Old Gentleman" saw me at the noon hour as I was going to the library with a book under my arm. ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... from a wild scrape I beat the sheriff in Colorado into Utah. Then I went home to England in 1908 and took over the title of the estate, and I made the occasion simply one drunken spree. I was out for all the devilment I could get into. I hated the Church. I hated religion. I hated anything good. When I went down to the old church which is in the grounds of the estate, they said to me, 'What will you do about the minister?' I said, 'I would kick the fool out, but the law would ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman
... (promptly washing her hands of his interests). Oh, very well. Tell the story yourself, in your own clever way. I only proposed to tell the exact truth. You call that devilment. So it is, I daresay, from a lawyer's ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... said Archie to himself, as he continued his walk toward Lake Thun. "I wonder if it is pure devilment that induces her to lead people on to a proposal, and then drop them. I suppose Charley will leave now, and we'll have no more games of billiards together. I wonder why they all seem to think it the proper thing to go away. I wouldn't. A woman is like a difficult peak—if you don't succeed the ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... needn't name 'em to ye,—have trespassed agin us; ye and me know it, for we've ketched 'em in their devilment, and, what is more to the p'int, the Lord knows it, too, for He's had His eye on 'em, and there's one up in the north country that wouldn't git an invite to this dinner, Bible or no Bible. But, barrin' this knave, who is beyend the range of our trails, there is not ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... actually a Dalmatian and on the right side, a fact which she proclaimed at the top of her voice on the promenade dock, though, as she added, it meant death if discovered. In New York the Kiraly appears in Kit's bed-bathroom in the early morning, for devilment; to our loud enjoyment, for the great bath joke has an assured immortality. The Kiraly's husband appears too. Fat in fire. When Kit goes to the hyphenated's flat to exchange fake papers in his belt for letter acknowledging Kiraly's innocence, an agitated Hun appears with the news ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... three or four men just now, but there's quite a few uh the boys stopping here; the Cross L's a regular hang-out for cow-punchers. You're a little early for the season, but I'll see that yuh have something t' do—just t' keep yuh out uh devilment." ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... woven tie with the horse-shoe scarf-pin of diamonds, his fine white teeth, his trim mustache. He looked a man of iron will and unswerving decision, destined from birth to take control of crises and to shoulder responsibilities. As a last humanizing touch, there was a hint of cavalier devilment about him, of the gambler who was ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... had told the uneventful story of his life, in which his mother, of course, was the central figure, Bill sat a few moments in silence, and then began: "Well, I never knew my mother. My father was a devil, so I guess I came naturally by all the devilment in me, and that's a few. But"—and here Bill paused for some little time—"but I had a sweetheart once, over forty years ago now, down in Kansas, and she was all right, you bet. Why, sir, she was—oh! well, 'taint ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... slaves would dig deep holes along the route of the "Patrollers" and their horses would fall in sometimes breaking the leg of the horse, arm or leg of the rider; some slaves took advantage of the protection their masters would give them with the overseer or other plantation owners, would do their devilment and "fly" to their masters who did not allow a man from another plantation to bother his slaves. I have known pregnant women to go ten miles to help do some devilment. My mother was a very strong woman (as I told you she helped build ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Yasmini's face framed in the opening, and he thought there was more devilment expressed in it, for all her loveliness, than in her voice that never quite lost its hint of laughter. He did not answer, and the ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... the blanket with which he had covered himself and thoroughly examined him, at the same time feeling him to make sure that he had no fever. He pretended to be desperately ill and again asked for dawa; but having finally satisfied myself that it was as the jemadar had said—pure budmashi (devilment)—I told him that I was going to give him some very effective dawa, and carefully covered him up again, pulling the blanket over his head. I then got a big armful of shavings from a carpenter's bench which was close by, put them under the bed and set fire ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... beginnin' it was Jim Barrett's plan, and it had jest enough risk and devilment in it to suit a harum-scarum young feller like me; so we got five of the boys who had good horses, lumped together all of our money, and rode out ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... that means, Bolton," he said softly, "but I don't like the looks of it. Stanesky is up to some devilment or other. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out that he knows all about your pickets and is ready for ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various |
