"Duffer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... natural instinct of self-protection. The pinnated grouse, sage grouse, Bob White quail and ptarmigan exercise but little keen reason in self-protection. They are easy marks,—the joy of the pot-hunter and the delight of the duffer "sportsman." ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... E. D. Ah, I saw how it was done—but it would take too long to explain it now. I have seen it so well performed that you couldn't spot it. But this chap's a regular duffer! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... earth has become of that duffer?" said Tom Holtum, when the Laulie arrived at the geo and no Yaspard appeared ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... the possibility that many a duffer was led toward the production of the homunculus by erroneous interpretation of the procreation symbolism occurring in the alchemistic writings. It was merely necessary, in their limitations, to take literally one or another of the methods. In this way there actually ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... "O ma! there was such a precious guy at the ball last night, and I had no end of a lark with him. Good gracious! here comes the duffer himself." ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... him. The dozen yards which separated us was one solid tangle of scrub-bushes interwoven with brambles. It would have taken at least forty seconds to tear through them, and in that time he could most assuredly snap off all six chambers, however big a duffer he might be. This would bring up some of the country people without fail; and besides, out of the six, he might fluke one shot into me. About that last possibility I didn't trouble my head much, as it was remote; but the other was a fatal objection. A good satisfactory row ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... thesis upon which I base my justification. My mediumship, I can assure you, is a particular instance of the general assertion. Were I not of a profoundly indolent, restless, adventurous nature, and horribly averse to writing, I would make a great book of this and live honoured by every profound duffer in ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... Cheats who travel the country, pretending to sell smuggled goods: they accost their intended dupes in a whisper. The goods they have for sale are old shop-keepers, or damaged; purchased by them of large manufactories. See DUFFER. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... I have it. I'll, yes—I'll do it—I'll break into his desk. There's no help for it. I know the drawer where he keeps his plunder, and I can buy a chisel on my way home. He will be terribly upset, but, you know, the dear old duffer really loves me. He'll have to get over it—and I, too. Kirylo, my dear soul, if you can only wait for a few hours-till this evening—I shall steal all the blessed lot I can lay my hands on! You doubt me! Why? You've only to ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... excitement. "It was the loveliest thing you ever saw, Anna. The princess was a beauty, and no mistake; even Charles thought so, and he has seen princesses by the score. I am glad I went; the boys won't think me such a duffer when I tell them. Don't shake your head, Anna; you are a girl, and you don't understand how much one has to put up with from the fellows. They call me the Puritan, and ask if I wear pinafores at home. But I stopped ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... out again. "I'll go t'ump hell outa deh mug what did her deh harm. I'll kill 'im! He t'inks he kin scrap, but when he gits me a-chasin' 'im he'll fin' out where he's wrong, deh damned duffer. I'll wipe up ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... purposes always treat a deficiency as if it were a gift. The G.E. was apparently a duffer at arithmetic, but she tells you so in a way that makes you admire her for it. All the same I wish I had been one of those factory-girls that she used to reclaim in their dinner-hour; I am fundamentally honest, but I never could miss a chance when ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... brother knows, I mean—for Von Holzen is clever. He is a cold, calculating man, who rules all who come near him. Your brother has only to do with the money part of it. They are making a great fortune. I am told that financially it is splendidly managed. I am a duffer at such things, but I understand better now how it has all been done, and I see how clever it is. They produce the stuff for almost nothing, they sell it at a great price, and they have a monopoly. And the world thinks it is a charity. It ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... tell ghost stories at night," came McKnight's voice from the doorway. "Really, Mrs. Klopton, I'm amazed at you. You old duffer! I've got you to thank for the worst ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Do as you're told. And don't look at me like that, you old duffer. It's a mean advantage to take of a sick man. Steady now, steady! Go slow! You mustn't slam a creaking gate. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... rest I was strong and fairly well—not much inclined to exercise, to be sure, but able, if occasion offered, to wield a tennis racket or a driver with a vigor and accuracy that placed me well out of the duffer class. ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... "Old duffer! you are one thing to-day, and another thing to-morrow: there's no knowing how to tyke you. You're such a sinful old 'ypocrite, that you play-act before yourself, I do believe. What is it you do ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... me. It was not the letter of a duffer or a swindler—the sort of thing you can tell by its ornate pompousness; and it just caught me when I was somewhat bored by things, so that I rather welcomed it as an excitement. I expected to find you lodging in some miserable cottage—a Chatterton ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... it was time to make my position clear. 'I'm an utter duffer at sailing,' I began. 'You'll have a lot to teach me, or one of these days I shall be wrecking you. You see, there's always been a crew—'Crew!'—with sovereign contempt—'why, the whole fun of the thing is ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Grandoken was a painter of houses!" Jinnie ruminated: "But that damn duffer back there says he's changed his work to cobbling. I'll go and see! I hope it won't be long before I'm as warm as can be. Wonder if he'll be glad ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... first thing, then, is for each man to peg off his claim. That done, you can work the properties conjointly under the supervision of a committee, pay the gross takings into a common account, and divide the profits. In this way the owner of a duffer claim participates equally with the owner of a rich one. In other words, there is less risk of failure—I might say, no risk at all—but also much temptation. Such a scheme would be quite impossible except amongst gentlemen, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... I've got it in little better shape, Rosie. You see, it's an awful mess now. I'm trying so hard to concentrate. It would be different if I were an experienced writer. But I'm a terrible duffer, you know. The least little thing throws ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... duffer! But suppose Hooker and Jo or some of that bunch should stumble onto him, Al! ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... you, then," he commanded Tarzan. "I ain't taking no chances with any duffer with a ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... round at Frank, whose head was nodding forward in an uncomfortable attitude, and whose deep breathing showed him to be asleep. "If only he warn't sich a duffer," said Barney to himself, "we might do it easy," then seeing that his partner was in danger of falling, he moved nearer to him, and placed the boy's head gently against his own shoulder so that he might rest easily. Meanwhile the old gentleman's pen went scribbling ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... wisdom. The King is determined that she shall wed Prince Ernst. He would take away her principality but for the fact that there would be a wholesale disturbance to follow any such act. If I ever meet that watch dog of hers, the Count von Walden, the duffer who gave me my conge, there will be trouble. The world isn't large enough for two such men as we are. By the way, I played roulette at the Casino last night and won 3,000 francs. Well, au revoir or adieu as the case may be. They sell the worst whiskey here you ever heard of. It's terrible ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... he retorts, amiably rubbing his hands together. "Anyhow, I won't, which means about the same thing. Where's the little duffer?" ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... only one as would come at the price. 'Tain't big wages; but I'm seein' loife. Lor', I come down here with Madame and Mounseer a fortnight ago, and Monte Carlo ain't got many secrets from me. I was a duffer, though, at first. When I 'eerd all them shots poppin' off every few minutes, up by the Casino, I used to think 'twas the suicides a shooting theirselves all over the place, for before I left 'ome, I 'ad a warnin' from my young man that was the kind of goin's on they 'ad here. But ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was of matters that most apprentices ignore. One night Jones heard them rotting about 'Great Circle sailing,' and 'ice to the south'ard of the Horn,' and subjects like that, when, properly, they ought to be criticising their Old Man, and saying what an utter duffer of a Second Mate they had. Jones was wonderfully indignant at such talk, and couldn't sleep at night for thinking of all the fine sarcastic remarks he might have made, if he had thought ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... if I catch my death of cold; I've got to go on a Christmas dance when I deposit you on your doorstep," grumbled Sidney. "Catch! There, you duffer! It's gone into the mud. Sure you won't jump in? Plenty of room. Addie can sit on my knee. Well, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Vane with a joyous thump on the shoulder-blade. "I say, old man, Miss Harding has turned out to be the most fearful doubting Thomas—thinks the whole scheme quite mad and all that sort of thing. I'm far too great a duffer to convert her, but perhaps you ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... crazy duffer had gone about over the desert for years digging wells, but at last he struck water. A few miles ahead was a well flowing like an artesian well. There would be plenty of water for every one, even the cattle. Next morning we could ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... used to the Grammar School, and the Grammar School got used to him, setting him down as a hopeless duffer at learning, but respecting him for a generous, honest nature. Only one narrow, domineering fellow, the Latin master, bullied him and made the blue eyes mad with shame and rage. There was a horrid scene, when the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... receive augmentation. No one felt alarm at their absence. The inhabitants of Foss River were a self-reliant people—accustomed to look to themselves for the remedy of a grievance. Besides, Horrocks, they said, had shown himself to be a duffer—merely a tracker, a prairie-man and not the man to bring Retief to justice. Already the younger members of the settlement and district were forming themselves into a vigilance committee. The elders—those to whom ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... halted in its tracks, wheeled toward Bradley and then back again toward Tippet. Again the former's rifle spit angrily, and the bear turned again in his direction. Bradley shouted loudly. "Come on, you behemoth of Holy Writ!" he cried. "Come on, you duffer! Can't waste ammunition." And as he saw the bear apparently upon the verge of deciding to charge him, he encouraged the idea by backing rapidly away, knowing that an angry beast will more often charge one who moves than ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... about a duffer's set. Do go to her, and say you didn't mean to be unkind, there's ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... It's finished. [Hanging his head.] I'm sorry to break faith with her people; but she may take me, if she will, on her own terms—a poor devil who has proved a duffer at his job, and who is content henceforth to be nothing but her humble slave ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... honor. As a Sportsman (and war is fundamentally the sport of hunting and fighting the most dangerous of the beasts of prey) he feels free. He will tell you himself that the true sportsman is never a snob, a coward, a duffer, a cheat, a thief, or a liar. Curious, is it not, that he has not the same confidence in other ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... summer suns beat down upon it His head is sheltered by a bonnet; And though it makes him look a duffer, He hasn't ...
— A Horse Book • Mary Tourtel
... school, and if there is stuff in him he succeeds. He does not set a high value on learning. Even if he works and brings home prizes he will not be as proud of them as of his football cap, while a boy who is head of the school, but a duffer at games, will live for all time in the memory of his fellows as a failure. But the German boy goes to school to acquire knowledge, and he too gets what he wants. The habit of work must be strong in him when at the age of eighteen he goes to one of his many universities. But when ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Bungler. — N. bungler; blunderer, blunderhead[obs3]; marplot, fumbler, lubber, duffer, dauber, stick; bad hand, poor hand, poor shot; butterfingers[obs3]. no conjurer, flat, muff, slow coach, looby[obs3], lubber, swab; clod, yokel, awkward squad, blanc-bec; galoot[obs3]. land lubber; fresh water sailor, fair weather sailor; horse marine; fish out of water, ass in lion's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... do, how short are the odds you get—hardly worth mentioning! Horses occasionally win with odds of forty to one against them, these are the animals of which I was in search, not the hackneyed favourites of the Press and the Public. This, I think you will find, is usually the attitude of the Duffer, who, in my time, was known, I cannot say why, as the "Juggins." I liked to bring a little romance into my speculations. Often I have backed a horse for his name, for something curious, or literary, or classical about his name. Xanthus, or Podargus, or Phaeeton, or Lampusa has ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... have anything to do with that feller, 'cause he's a reg'lar duffer. He's too lazy to work, an' he hangs 'round the city like a loafer. That boat hain't his at all. I know who owns her. Bart West hain't got money enough to buy one end of a punt. He was goin'. to steal the yacht, that's what he was goin' to do, if he was goin' to do anything, ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... this man yere," pointing with his cigar to Mr. Kemble, who was listening with a deeply-troubled face, "knows 'bout me too, yet wants to ast questions. I don' keer ef I do say it, I had better times with the Johnnies that call me Yankee Blank than I ever had sence. Well, ole duffer [to Mr. Kemble], ast away and git yer load off'n yer mind. I don't like glum faces roun' en folks jes' ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... little awed. He had a great respect for Fallacy Street. "Oh, they won't have any room for me," said Harry, laughing. "I'm an awfully stupid old duffer. I haven't read anything at all, except a bit of Kipling—'Barrack-room Ballads'—seems a waste of time to ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... interest was so purely selfish that she had not even wished to learn how the cabinet was to be constructed. "All those figures gave her a headache," she declared. For another, when early in the winter he had owned himself at a deadlock, she had sneered at him as a duffer who was unable to fulfil his boasts. Old Bourjac never forgot that—his reputation was very dear to him—he did not speak to her of ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... for his friend. Twice Lord Hampstead had come down in an omnibus from Islington; on which occasion it was remarked that as he did not come on Saturday there must be something wrong. A clerk, with Saturday half-holidays, ought not to be away from his work on Mondays and Tuesdays. Mrs. Duffer, who was regarded in Paradise Row as being very inferior to Mrs. Demijohn, suggested that the young man might, perhaps, not be a Post Office clerk. This, however, was ridiculed. Where should a Post Office clerk find ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... wood for the wheel-rims. One piece does not please him; He takes up another And bends it with effort; 240 It suddenly straightens, And whack!—strikes his forehead. The man begins roaring, Abusing the bully, The duffer, the block-head. Another comes driving A cart full of wood-ware, As tipsy as can be; He turns it all over! The axle is broken, 250 And, trying to mend it, He smashes ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... of the whole business was that the little duffer in the bus, who was attached to that troop, thought that Tyson was the hero of the occasion. He was strong on troop loyalty if on nothing else. So far as he was concerned (and he was very much concerned) Tyson had saved the lives of every scout in those two troops. Subsequent ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... few chaperons lying about loose) in a motor-car for a week, passing through the loveliest country in the world, and can't make her forget for his sake some other fellow she's known only a few hours longer, must be a born duffer. This I dinned ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... by a graceful fiction, as all unskilled in the art. An instance of similar modesty is found in Mr. Andrew Lang, who entitles the first chapter of his delightful ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no fisherman's library is complete), "Confessions of a Duffer." This an engaging liberty which no one else ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... officers come it over me; they're gentlemen, and it don't try a fellow," would Rake say in confidential moments over purl and a penn'orth of bird's-eye, his experience in the Argentine Republic having left him with strongly aristocratic prejudices; "but when it comes to a duffer like that, that knows no better than me, what ain't a bit better than me, and what is as clumsy a duffer about a horse's plates as ever I knew, and would almost let a young 'un buck him out of his saddle—why, then ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... vowed James Stuart proudly. "I was a duffer at it till she showed me what she was after. I wanted to buy brocaded silk furniture, like that in her home—while my money held out. But she would have nothing but this sort of ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... the truth in his brother's eyes. He smiled weakly, the anger gone. "Same old blind duffer you always were. I wrote an answer to her letter. In that letter I told her . ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... makes me feel sort of glad, Miss Helen. You see, I'm not such a duffer really. I think an awful lot, and it don't come hard either. But folks have always told me I'm such a fool, that I've kind of got into the way of believing it. Now, when I saw that pine and the valley I felt sort of queer. It struck me then it was ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Offitt, consulting his memory. "Let me see. I took supper about seven at Duffer's; I went to Glauber's drug-store next and got a glass of soda water; if they don't know me, they'll remember my breaking a glass; then I made a visit at Mr. Matchin's on Dean Street; then I went to the Orleans theatre; I come out between the acts and got a cup of coffee at Mouchem's—then ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... said the man on the kerb; "I wonder how the old duffer worked it. I wish I had asked him." None of the rest made any comment; they were struck dumb with amazement at the success of the old gentleman, who had even to ask if ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... probably rolled off when they trotted at a coming shell, and what the officer didn't say to Hambone for trotting, which was a violation of orders, would not be worth repeating. He bellowed at him to go and search for it, and with wicked delight we watched the duffer going back over the route, peering from side to side of the road in his ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... never be, dear. Perhaps if I also made two million dollars, and if I felt I had grown worthy of you, I might come to you and say—two and two are four—let us go into partnership. But then, you see," he went on briskly, "the odds are I may never even have two thousand. Perhaps I'm as much a duffer in music as in other things. Perhaps you'll be the only person in the world who has ever heard my music, for no one will print it, Mary Ann. Perhaps I shall be that very common thing—a complete failure—and be worse off than even ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... Davy as strong," said Jim, "though he is paying his debts. But Dick certainly is getting to be a conceited duffer. The ayes," he sighed, "seem to have it. The next question is ways and means. Old Bixby's method in St. X looks good to me. A ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... by nature, if we are Athenians who wish to have no qualms. If we have told our friends that we do eighteen holes of golf in 95, we tell them after doing the course in 110, that we are not ourselves to-day. That is to say, we are not acquainted with the duffer ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... "Thorough old duffer, you mean. Look at him. What with his gold spangles and his talking to Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys, he's as proud as a cock on ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not all exactly like Levick," said Philip, who was a little ashamed of himself for having frightened his little brother; "but I was only joking when I said that about the policeman in Borsham, Dan. What a little duffer ...
— The Gap in the Fence • Frederica J. Turle
... than stoop to the tricks in vogue with regard to the weighing of gold-dust: the greased scales, the wet sponge, false beams, and so on. Accordingly, he had a clearer conscience than the majority and a lighter till. But even at the legitimate ABC of business he had proved a duffer. He had never, for instance, learned to be a really skilled hand at stocking a shop. Was an out-of-the-way article called for, ten to one he had run short of it; and the born shopman's knack of palming off or persuading to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... has told us all about you. Excuse my rig—we are short of men on the farm, and I took hold. I'm glad of the chance, for I get precious little exercise since I left college. You came from East Branch by morning stage, I suppose? Oh, is that your trunk dumped out in the road? What a duffer I was not to know. Wait a minute—I'll bring it in," and he ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... we can't all play for the Gentlemen," said Lord Amersteth slyly. "My son Crowley only just scraped into the eleven at Harrow, and HE'S going to play. I may even come in myself at a pinch; so you won't be the only duffer, if you are one, and I shall be very glad if you will come down and help us too. You shall flog a stream before breakfast and after ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... through his paces. Ask him what he knows. Process (I fear) incidentally reveals to him what I know. Hear him at lunch explaining to HERBIE (with whom he has made friends again) that I am "not bad at sums, but a shocking duffer at Latin." Pretend not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... Quigg forgotten the uplifted shovel with which his proposal had been greeted. Yet there was no well-defined jealousy between them. Mr. Walking Delegate Dennis Quigg, confidential agent of Branch No. 3, Knights of Labor, had too good an opinion of himself ever to look upon that "tow-headed duffer of a stable-boy" in the light of a rival. Nor could Carl for a moment think of that narrow-chested, red-faced, flashily dressed Knight as being able to make the slightest impression on ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... like to kick him if he wasn't such a duffer," was Nick's reluctant thought, for he had wanted to be favourably impressed by the Dook. If this were really anything like an English duke, give him a crossing-sweeper! But he must not be too hasty in his generalization. He was unhappily sure that Mrs. May's position in her far-off ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the Wild Hunter, the spooky old critter, has been seen agin. i wuz on the top of the painted Butte yesterday squinten one i in the valley look'n for elk and look'n up with tother i for Big horn on the mountain, when i staged the old duffer snoop'en along in one of the parks an' he had the same long hair and long rifle he uster have. He sure is a ghost or else he's a nut or an old timer gone locoed. He sends the chills down my backbone every time i sots ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... Phil said regretfully. He had been "a regular duffer" at climbing at school, and the bigger boys had often dragged him up a fairly tall tree and left him there, clinging helplessly to the boughs, until they were tired of jeering at him. He shivered now as he thought of it; then squared his shoulders. His grey eyes ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... of it. I had something else on my mind. In case I became satisfied that the two teams were pretty evenly matched, I had a little plan through which I felt confident I could make it a dead sure thing for Barville. I was not off my base, either, and it would have worked out charmingly if that big duffer, Lander, hadn't dipped in and messed ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... the scornful. "I say, you are a duffer to suppose that clever men like schoolmasters bother their heads about such rot as the colour of a ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... centuries, again, generally assumed that if a function is continuous it can always be differentiated. A comparatively unphilosophical mind may let such plausible assertions pass unexamined, but a more philosophical mind will say to itself, when it comes across them, 'You great duffer, aren't you going to ask Why?' Suppose that, by way of experiment, I assume that the fourth angle of my quadrilateral will be acute, or again obtuse, will the body of conclusions I can now deduce from my set of postulates be free from contradictions or not? If I really give my mind to the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... means thorough. There is no record of his having distinguished himself academically in the slightest degree. It is related of him, on the contrary, that he was such a duffer at classics as to be incapable of grasping the rule that 'ut' should be followed by the subjunctive mood. The following account of Disraeli's schooldays, given by one of his school-fellows, is ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... a duffer pays fare," said the other. "There'll be a freight along pretty soon, and she stops at the water tank just below here. Why don't ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... is too rediklus for anythink. Look at the kiddish kick-up along o' the visit of the Hempress! Why, if we 'ad that duffer, DEROULEDE, on Newmarket 'Eath, we should just duck him in a 'orsepond, like a copped Welsher. Here they washup him, or else knuckle under to him, like a skeery Coster's missus when her old man's on the mawl, and feels round arter her ribs with his bloomin' high-lows. That's yer high-polite ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... young duffer,' said Oswald, who could now smell the coffee. 'All that isn't History it's Humbug. ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... the poor old duffer is myself. They've put me in as caretaker—an excellent arrangement: avoids all ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... for man to creep up within the killing range of modern, high-power, long-range rifles. Is it not pitiful to think of animals like the caribou, moose, white sheep and bear trying to survive on the naked ridges and bald mountains of Yukon Territory and Alaska! With a modern rifle, the greatest duffer on earth can creep up within killing distance of any of the ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... something worth saying, but the words wouldn't come, and I could only shake her hand. But, duffer as I was, the way she had said those words, and the double meaning she had given them, would have made me the happiest fellow alive if I could only have forgotten the existence ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... a pedestal. They think that they lose dignity if they are not able to answer every question that a child puts to them. One result is that the child develops a dangerous inferiority complex. I knew one boy who was a duffer at mathematics. His weakness was due to the inferiority he felt when he saw the learned mathematical master juggle with figures as easily as a conjurer juggles with billiard balls. The little chap lost all ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... thought th' officials of the train were tars; Told them to "Coil that rope and clean the scuppers, And then go down below and get your suppers." This must be changed, or my good name will suffer, And folks will say, JIM FISK is but a duffer. To feel myself a fool and lose my head, Too, takes the gilding off the gingerbread; And makes me ask myself the reason why On earth I have so many fish to fry? The fact is, what I touch must have a risk Of failure, or it wouldn't suit JIM FISK, I'll conquer this, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... exactly a Duffer. He was what might be called a sub-Duffer, or Varnish, which means that the Committee was ashamed ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... oh good! that's little Duffer, I know! We've seen him before! Wouldn't mind giving him a chase to-day, just for ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... up stairs at the time, and he afterwards said that when the bloody duffer fell to the floor, that all the checks on the table trembled like aspen leaves. Poor fellow! He is dead now, having been shot in Paris a few ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... mean. If it were diamonds or pearls or rubies, all well and good. But a string of glass beads! The old duffer is a nut!" ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... us once before. It was you she wanted, not me. Why didn't you go, you duffer? I only came ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... him. He had been a very second-rate helmsman while alive, but now he was dead he might have become a first-class temptation, and possibly cause some startling trouble. Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... learnt. John could manage a public meeting, but he could not manage Ellis. Besides, there was plenty of money; and Ellis was so ingratiating, and had curly hair that somehow won sympathy. And, after all, Ellis was not such a duffer as all that at the works. John knew other people's sons who were worse. And Ellis could keep order in the paintresses' 'shops' as order had never been kept ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... office. "I was sane when I came in here, but the eyes of the girl outside—oh, yow, them eyes! I must be introduced to her. And you're scolding me for coming around here in broad daylight. Why, you duffer, if I come at night, d'ye suppose I'd have ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... Dolly; 'stupid little duffer. We won't have him this time. And, mother darling, I want to dance all the time; and it's my own party. Dancing is enough—it is really,' she pleaded in a pretty frenzy of impatience. And Dolly got ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Edition The Confessions of a Duffer A Border Boyhood Loch Awe Loch-Fishing Loch Leven The Bloody Doctor The Lady or the Salmon? A Tweedside Sketch The Double Alibi ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... I've heard from the editor of the 'Sunday Illustrated.' He's in a beastly bad temper, and says my last batch of illustrations isn't funny enough. The old duffer's bringing out a religious serial, and he must have humour to ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... he's weak of arm and knee; if trouble came he'd quickly shin up the nearest tree. No hale man ever loves him; he stirs the sportsman's wrath; the whole world kicks and shoves him and shoos him from the path. For who can love a duffer so pallid, weak and thin, who seems resigned to suffer and let folks rub it in? Yet though he's down to zero in fellow-men's esteem, this fellow is a hero and that's no winter dream. Year after year he's toiling, as toiled the slaves of Rome, ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... been for Willy Horse I should not have got the property at all. That chief with the iron toes is a shrewd old duffer. He has owned the property for some years, and all that time the Hiram Dusenbery Company has been trying, by fair means or otherwise, to buy it of him, but Old Iron-Toe put the price so high that they preferred to wait, hoping that ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... it?" Daney's voice rose triumphant. "The blessed old duffer!" he added. "I'll put in a call for New York immediately. We ought to get it through in an ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... Then soon after: "Everything's strange. That's the trouble," he confessed. "It's only in little things that don't matter, but a fellow feels such a duffer." ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... you," said he, "but I'm afraid I should show myself such a duffer. I used to be a pretty fair trout-fisher when I was a lad," he went on to say; and then it suddenly occurred to him that the offer of her companionship ought not to be received in this hesitating fashion. "But I shall be delighted to try my hand, if you will let me; and ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... afterwards to see the ones they have at the Natural History Museum in London; all of them were cracked and just stuck together like a mosaic, and bits missing. Mine were perfect, and I meant to blow them when I got back. Naturally I was annoyed at the silly duffer dropping three hours' work just on account of a centipede. I ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... greetings and chatting with such acquaintances as they there meet, or idling up and down the river in the luxurious small boats of their river-made friends. This type of house-boater himself is generally spoken of in brisk naval asides as a "duffer," the kitchen of his boat is a wine-closet, and, to look at him poring for hours over his paper, one may well believe that time is heavy on his hands and that he arrives during every summer vacation at depths ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... panted, pulling her round. 'Look at that! Well, if you're so cross you needn't, but you must be a duffer if you don't care to see what's coming round ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... is a duffer," she said sharply, pointing a very earthy trowel at the unconscious figure of the gardener, who was busy in the middle distance digging potatoes. "A man," she continued, "who calls a plain, every-day squash a vegetable marrow isn't fit to ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... me too, and they got me; they peppered me till I fell; And there I scribbled my message with my life-blood ebbing away; "Now, Billy, you fat old duffer, you've got to get back like hell; And get them to cancel that order before it's the dawn ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... and took out his cigarettes. "What do you take me for, you old duffer? Think I should commit myself at this stage? An old hand ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... 'Duffer, Cis!' cried Hilary, contemptuously, for Cecily had appointed herself professional peacemaker to the family, and her efforts were about as successful as such ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... in the early spring. And these had come all the way without the stroke of a piston or the crunch of a paddle-wheel or a pound of steam. Nothing but grit and man-muscle to drag them a small matter of two or three thousand miles up the current of the most eccentric old duffer of a ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... old duffer whose watch was ticking inside my waist that very minute! Yes, sir, the same red-faced, big-necked fellow we'd spied getting full at the little station in the country. Only, he was a bit mellower than when you grabbed his chain. ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... was charmed with your heroine [Dick rather likes Marion; and doesn't think Jack treats her with the consideration she deserves], and I have no doubt women in general will admire her, but your hero—you know I always speak my mind—is rather a duffer. You should go into the world more, and sketch from life. The Vice-Chancellor gave me great pleasure by speaking of your early poems very highly the other day, and I assure you it was quite a drop down for me, to find that he was referring to some other writer of the same name. Of course I did not ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... "It would take a great deal more than a little of Vincent's fun," he thought, "to make me feel anything but peaceable here." He was quite used to having people set him down as a harmless, worn-out old duffer, and he did not object to this conception of his character. It made a convenient screen behind which he could carry on his ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... "You duffer of a Cranajour! Go along with you! You're the man for my money, old fellow! Here's something for a glass—but come with me for five minutes: I want to interview you and make a jolly ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... you were one of my hostesses come to round me up to do my duty," he confessed. "I'm a duffer at dancing, so I've taken cover in here. I see you don't remember me, but we've met before—at Red Ridge Barrow. My ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... praise, His two thousand hearers raise cheering—raise cheering. Of wild would-be Scuttlers he proves the mad craze, And of Governments prone to small-beering—small-beering. Sullen Boers may prove bores to a man of less tact, A duffer funk wiles Portuguesy—tuguesy; But Dutchmen, black potentates, all sorts, in fact, To RHODES the astute come ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... born duffer," said Dick pathetically. "But your face is all that I see when I look ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... duffer," said he, looking at me in a stupid, expressionless sort of a way, "you are not hurt yet. I'll give you something to cry about if you don't quit making such a fuss over nothing. You're the biggest baby I ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... There's a duffer in your district Whose sheer cussedness is such He has neither pride nor manners— No, nor gumption, overmuch. 'Twould be great to up and tell him Where to go. But be resolved— He's no foeman to be fought with, Just a problem ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... note of cheer written by a somewhat dolorous duffer who spent last night in pain, but this morning ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... weak. I dare say that nasty things might have happened—but I should have known more what the world was like, I should have depended more upon other people, I should have made friends. As it was, I left school entirely innocent, very solitary, very modest, thinking myself a complete duffer, and everyone else a beast. It got a little better at the end of my time, and I had a companion or two—but I never dreamed of telling anyone what ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ill with playing out of doors and having fun,' returned Tricksy scornfully; 'I'm not such a duffer, Marjorie.' ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... nose out of this business, an' don't speak to me again till after I'm dead. Do ye mind that, ye big duffer?" ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... "Obstinate little duffer," he said affectionately to himself. "He's playing go to the hotel, I suppose. Perhaps when that imagination of his gets to work at hypothetical bread and butter he'll find the reality ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... Nancy, with a flare in her mild eyes. (How I wish I might have seen her as she defended me!) "He's the dearest fellow in the world, and I love him with all my heart!" (How do you like that, Mr. Robert? Bravo, Nancy! I may be a duffer, true enough, but I rather object to its being called out from the housetops.) And Nancy added: "I want you to understand distinctly, Robert, that in my selection of a husband you are not to ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... Moxon has coached him well: I sent him to poor Moxon. He wanted to read with me, but—you understand—I could not exactly receive him while Lord Rafferty and Mr. Duffer are in my house. So I sent him to poor Moxon, who is glad of a pupil when he can ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... they had pitched in as one of the foremen some fellow or other, a friend of the firm's, a rank duffer, who pestered me incessantly with his questions. I did half his work and all my own, and it hadn't improved my temper much. On this night that I'm telling about, he'd been playing the fool with his questions as if a time-contract was a sort of summer holiday; and he'd filled me up to that point ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... "Why, you duffer, of course he could get out any time he liked. It's only a latch on the door; any one can open it from inside. He could easily get down to the river in the night, and have a tub, ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... be if Bluff ever drops down into those claws. Why don't the duffer shoot? I can't stand it much longer, I ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... grumble! Dawdling duffer, he sprawls across the well in one of his infernal aesthetic attitudes, picks the best swim, and girds at us who have to handle the poles. Wonder SM-TH ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... an uneasy resemblance to Colihan's own think-machine. Wilson, the oldest employee of General Products, had been the operator of the maintenance Brain. He had been a nice old duffer, Wilson, always ready to do Colihan a favor. Now that he had been swept out in Colihan's own purge, the Personnel Manager had to deal with a new ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... afraid, mother. If I get into a chest, you may depend I shall know how to get out of it. That girl in the poem was a duffer for not having made more row; and her lover was a beastly sneak for ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... and it was better fun to smoke and watch my man Collet making or fitting in a new part than to bother with it myself. This will be my first long trip 'on my own,' you see, and I don't want to be a duffer, especially as I myself proposed going down into Dalmatia, where we may get into no end ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... It was as though as much as possible of his body were seeking to escape that all-devouring tension in relapse. How familiar it all was! Even during those months at camp the picture would recur and Joe would laugh softly to himself. Poor old duffer! He was a product of the plant just as much as ploughs and tillage implements were. How soon would he begin to show the ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... took possession of me. "What would they call you?" I speculated. "The vicar would like Duffield. Too much like Duffer! Difficult thing, a title." I ran my mind over various possibilities. "Why not take a leaf from a socialist tract I came upon yesterday. Chap says we're all getting delocalised. Beautiful word—delocalised! Why not be the first delocalised ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... me to talk, do you?" he said a little sadly. "Well, I don't see but what I shall have to do it, then. Still, I should think a nice little lady like you might find lots nicer people to talk to than an old duffer ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... 1873.—To-day had more provocation from my Mongol, and my earnest prayer is that I may be able to stand it all, and not get soured in temper and feeling against the Mongols. I must have patience. Some knowledge of camel's flesh also would help me not a little. As it stands, I feel an incompetent "duffer."' ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... night only Dick had assumed the role of Moonlighter Ryan, a notorious Queensland cattle duffer, recently hanged for his part in a disputation with a member of the mounted police. The dispute ended with the death of the policeman, who succumbed to injuries received. As Moonlighter Dick was characteristically remorseless, his courage and cunning were understood to verge ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... brief silence before the man continued, "He was a strange duffer. I have seen him off an' on the last fifteen year. He never gave up his search for a mine and I guess he never found one. Strange how a man will keep on as if he was all possessed when he has ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... of floods in their courses, The rattle of rain on the roofs Recalled the fierce rush of the horses, The thunder of galloping hoofs. And soon one broke out: 'I can suffer No longer the life of a slug, The man that don't race is a duffer, Let's have one more run for ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... have always been getting for my twenty-four dollars a dozen hats? In that way you would make an additional twenty-five cents. Be logical! If that's not profit enough, why not sell a $15 or a $12 a dozen hat for $3? Be logical! If that's not enough, why not hire a big burly duffer to stand at your front door, knock down every man who comes in so that you can take all the money he has without giving him anything. You could bury him in the cellar. ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... "Handsome duffer," was Merrihew's comment. "But you never can tell a man by his looks. Gaze on me, for instance. I'm a good example of handsome is as handsome does." He ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... sure," I said, assuming an enthusiasm I did not feel. Put on the gloves with this strapping, skillful boxer? Not I! I was firmly resolved to stop while my record was good. In a scientific clash with the gloves he would soon find out what a miserable duffer I was. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... went on the Vere calmly. "Eat 'em up with sauce for dinner. The 'admired actress well known at the Brilliant,' has nothing to do with the Bruce-Errington man,—not she! He's a duffer, a regular stiff one—no go about him anyhow. And what the deuce do you mean by calling me an offending dama. Keep your oaths to ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... he, followed stealthily By Bengal Mike, who jeered him every step: "Come, elephant, and fight! Come, hog-eyed coward! Come, face about and fight me, lumbering sneak! Come, beefy bully, hit me, if you can! Take out your gun, you duffer, give me reason To draw and kill you. Take your billy out. I'll crack your boar's head with a piece of brick!" But never a word the hog-eyed one returned But trod about the court-house, followed both By troops of boys and watched by all the men. All day, they walked the square. ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... my stock quite a while ago, an' counted on givin' Snip a chance to run in the park. The poor little duffer don't have much fun down at Mother ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... the "Not Really a Duffer" type, where the nervous new boy, who has been found crying in the boot-room over the photograph of his sister, contrives to get an innings in a game, nobody suspects that he is really a prodigy till he hits the Bully's first ball out of the ground ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... personally. You both know all about the will and its mysterious disappearance, so I need not recapitulate that. Well, I have been to Ireland and seen the lawyers—Burrows and Fagan. I could not make much of Burrows, who is a duffer; but Fagan has his wits about. He had never had to do with that branch of the business, but now the credit of the firm was at stake he busied himself in making searching and pertinent inquiry. A sharpish boy-clerk was certain that the will was left at the office, and kept ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... 'Don't be a bigger duffer than you are, Flo. You can't help being a girl, I know; but I'm willing to help you all I can out of a girl's foolishness. Only a girl would talk of ringing the bell, and making a row, because she can't have all her own way. Come now, I want to talk to you about the new boy, and ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... who wears the Panama? I wonder if anyone would think of haste in connection with that duffer. It took him just one hour to buy three soft crabs from some kids at the dock yesterday," said Walter. "I wouldn't like to be his messmate. But I don't like his eye; ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... goes on, although it is Sunday. Indian men sitting down on the grass before the commissioner. He asks each one what right he has to claim money from the Great Father, I suppose. Once in a while he turns to the clerk and says, 'We'll give this old duffer twenty bucks.' This doesn't look to me like very much money. I don't think they get much help. They are poor and dependent. If they couldn't rustle well out of doors they all would die. Much trade finery among the natives, who dress very bright. Several Northwest ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... a Duffer, but I hope I am neither an idiot nor a cad. I have never collected postage-stamps, nor outraged common humanity by asking people to send me their autographs. With these exceptions I have failed as a collector of almost everything. ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 13, 1892 • Various
... of a character unheard of and unparalleled. It was the result of "uncertain sounds;" of "duffer" government. ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... down Loch Tay, while the rods fish for themselves. The angler's only business is to pick them up if a salmon bites, and when this has gone on for a few days, with no bite, Influenza, or a hard frost with curling, would be rather a relief. This kind of thing is not really angling, and a Duffer is as good at it as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... golf himself, but he consented to walk over the course and watch the representative's strokes. The representative was rather a duffer. Teeing off, he sent clouds of earth flying in all directions. Then, to hide his confusion he said to his guest: "What do you think of our links here, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... been always on the watch to take him down a peg when he was pleased with himself—to hold him cheap and overpraise some duffer in his hearing—so that I might save my own self-esteem; to pay him bad little left-handed compliments, him and his, whenever I was out of humor; and I should have been always out of ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Russian agents in Persia, Afghanistan and in the Pamirs. We always bear the service brand too openly. It gives away our own military agents. Now, Hawke's a fellow like Alikhanoff, that smart Russian duffer! He can do the Persian, Afghan, or Thibetan to perfection! He has been on to London. Some morning he will clear out. You'll hear of him next at Kashgar, or in Bhootan, or perhaps he will work down into China and report to the Minister there. He is a ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... "it's a shop all right, or if it isn't exactly a shop that old duffer will be glad to get a little good money ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... for peace? What good was a general to expect from peace? Could this civilian not comprehend that a commanding general really commanded, was really a general, just in times of war, while in times of peace he was like a strict teacher in galloons, an old duffer who occasionally shouted himself hoarse out of pure ennui? Was he to long for that dreary treadmill existence again? Was he to hope for the time—to please the gentlemen civilians—when he, the ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... more about life than any one I have ever met. I feel an awful duffer when I am with you, Lord Illingworth. Of course, I have had so few advantages. I have not been to Eton or Oxford like other chaps. But Lord Illingworth doesn't seem to mind that. He has been ...
— A Woman of No Importance • Oscar Wilde
... breakfast," he said ecstatically, "and real food the other two meals! Gee, but it's fine to eat something some other poor duffer has cooked! Say, Joe, what is it that pigs have that kills them off in ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... duffer!" he said. "What have you been doing with your pocket money, eh? Been buying ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... conservative slow-poking duffer!" cried Dick. "This is the land to wake you up. It calls ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... how you always manage to find out such things?" remarked the other, reflectively. "By Jove!" he added, "Hester is the name of that major duffer whose message to Sir Jeffry caused my delay; I wonder if ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... miles and minutes went swinging by. "And that's something to be thankful for. One likes novelty, especially if it's feminine. Well, I'm out for the sole purpose of saving a million or so for old Wharton, and to save as much of her reputation as I can besides. With the proof in hand the old duffer can scare her out of any claim against his bank account, and she shall have the absolute promise of 'no exposure' in return. Isn't it lovely? Well, here's Albany. Now for the dinky road up to Fossingford Station. I have an hour's wait here. She's coming on the ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... Bud, across the head of the herd, "yer could slap that old duffer across the face with your hat, and ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... Tenor had accomplished his mandate, his good humour returned, and he began to beam again. "What a duffer you are!" he said, taking the lid off the dish he held in his hand. "You have no imagination. You never lifted a dish cover. Why, I've found a dozen eggs—fresh, for I broke one into a cup to see; and here are a whole lot of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... "'You know what a duffer I am on a horse, Governor,' he says. 'Well, I want to try for the Melford Cup. I'd like to build a course on the place, and school ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... habitually associated, much behind him in this respect. Even during this Junior year he was offered the post of secretary to our Ambassador at Vienna. From him and the others I acquired a second-hand knowledge of life, which was sufficient to keep me from being regarded as a duffer or utterly "green," though in all such "life" I was practically as innocent as a young nun. Now, whatever I heard, as well as read, I always turned over and over in my mind, thoroughly digesting it to a most exceptional degree. So that I was somewhat like the young lady of whom I heard ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... had finished his story and leant back in his chair. Both the matter and the manner of his narration had, as time went on, impressed me favourably. He was an old duffer and pedant, but behind these things he was a country-bred man and gentleman, and had showed courage and a sporting instinct in the hour of desperation. He had told his story with many quaint formalities of diction, but also ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton |
