"Prank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Olympus to consult about the marriage of a Frankfort lawyer, and seriously enough, to be sure, as well became the festival of such an honorable man. Venus and Themis had quarrelled for his sake; but a roguish prank, which Amor played the latter, gained the suit for the former: and the gods decided in ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the Sunday-school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs, With a blow of his fist. Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin, And no children shall worship ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... very much about The Man's sudden return to Opal Farm and if it will interfere with Maria Maxwell's daily care of Amos Opie; for, as it turns out, he is really ill, the chill resulting from Larry's prank having been the final straw, and no suitable woman having been found, who has volunteered to tend the old man in the emergency, but Maria! That is, to the extent of taking him food and giving him medicines, for though in pain he is able to sit in an easy-chair. Maria certainly is capable, ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... dealt with the occasional outbreaks in the college was very interesting. If it was a case of wanton defiance of the habitual order, there was a very slight probability of its being overlooked. A favorite prank of the stealing of the college bell was invariably punished, first by having a hand-bell rung a little earlier than regulation hours all through the sections; and, when his secret police had discovered the offenders, they were punished according ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... proud of you. Won't you try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm a man ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... much more talkative and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... watched,—and would not thence depart— 230 My husband's unlamented tomb. My children knew their sire was gone, But when I told them,—'He is dead,'— They laughed aloud in frantic glee, They clapped their hands and leaped about, 235 Answering each other's ecstasy With many a prank and merry shout. But I sate silent and alone, Wrapped in the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... one of the stools and stirred his coffee. He held a dime novel with his other hand, reading; but Pie-Wagon Pete kept an eye on him. He knew Billy Getz and his practical jokes. If unwatched for a moment, the young whipper-snapper might empty the salt into the sugar-bowl, or play some other prank that came under his ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... in hand, George Gaylord said: "Allow me, Miss Fenwick, to introduce to you my friend and college chum, Fillmore Flagg: for a peculiar purpose of his own he wishes to regain possession of that flighty paper which, fortunately for him, the prank playing wind carried to your feet but a ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... After this prank the Troyas commenced a conversation with their visitors about the people and the affairs of the town. The engineer, fearing that his exploit might be discovered while he was present, wished to go, which ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... that dull grief delights to see Vex'd Nature wear a kindred gloom; Not that she smiled in vain to me, When gaily prank'd in summer's bloom Nay, much I loved, at even-tide, Through Brahan's lonely woods to stray. To mark thy peaceful billows glide, And watch the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... said Miss Wealthy, "I could not do that, of course. Mildred was my god-child, and I loved her dearly. But she was not allowed to see me for twenty-four hours, and I fancy those were very sad hours for her. Dear Mildred! that was her last prank; for the next time she came here she was a woman grown, and all the hoyden ways had been put off like a garment. And now, dears," added Miss Wealthy, rising, "we must let Martha take these dishes, or she will be late with her work, and ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... assistance; but since your going to war will cut off both those assistances, those that are for going to war choose evident destruction. What hinders you from slaying your children and wives with your own hands, and burning this most excellent native city of yours? for by this mad prank you will, however, escape the reproach of being beaten. But it were best, O my friends, it were best, while the vessel is still in the haven, to foresee the impending storm, and not to set sail out of the port into the middle of the hurricanes; for we justly pity those ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... had occasion to punish her one day last week for a particularly mischievous prank, and after she had talked it over very solemnly sent the little girl up to ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... indicated, Judge Enderby in his unprofessional hours had an elfish and prank-some ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... betrays him into magnifying to enormous proportions the guilt of the boyish prank of stealing green pears from the garden of a neighbor, inspired by the agreeable thought of the irritation which would be caused by the theft. The pears were not edible, and were thrown to the pigs, which circumstance seduces ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... whole five were soon eagerly planning as to their work for the day. First of all the two old boats which had served to carry them up to the forks of the Evergreen River must be securely hidden. This was mainly on account of those prank-loving boys who, under the leadership of the town bully, Ted Shafter, they half expected to follow them to ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with green streamers—a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about MONKEY, which can't so well be ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... a babel of tongues broke forth, and there were loud and angry cries for Le Brusquet, whose "fool's prank," as they called it, had caused this storm. Le Brusquet, however, was not to be seen. He had stolen in, thrown his apple of discord, and stolen forth again like a ghost. None knew or understood better than he the wayward character of Vendome, ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... return to his hiding-place in the hold, though he was rather an incubus on board. Phlegmatic, methodic, and by no means communicative, he carefully avoided the seamen, who had always some prank to play off on him, and he kept to his own provisions. He was thin enough in all conscience, and his additional weight but imperceptibly added to the cost of navigating the Dream. If Seng Vou got a free passage it was obvious that his carriage did not ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... at all, my eyes are dazzled and my heart goes to thumping like any silly school boy's. Aye, 'tis a very sorry pass. Were it not so demned upsetting, it would be amusing. Fate never played a wilder prank. What, ho, Zachariah! Where are we now? Whose farm is that upon ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... spot where tulips prank their state Has drunk the life-blood of the great; The violets yon fields which stain Are moles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... happened to be, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed the expression of countenance he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me, but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul and ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)—that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Mississippi Regiment: J. Wm. Flynn,[1] then a mere lad, but whose record will compare with the brightest; Samuel Frank, quartermaster; Maurice Bernhiem, quartermaster-sergeant, and Auerbach, the drummer of the regiment. I was proudly told by a member of Company G, Seventeenth Mississippi, that Sam Prank, although excelling in every duty of his position, was exceeding brave, often earnestly asking permission to lead the skirmishers, and would shoulder a musket sooner than stay out of the fight. Maurice Bernhiem, quartermaster-sergeant, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... should think perhaps they might be, sometimes. At any rate, I think that they deserve a beating quite as much as a boy does, for neglecting to learn a lesson or for playing some prank—which comes just as naturally, to him, as mischief does to a kitten. For anything really bad, I would beat a boy as long as I could stand over him. For lying, or thieving, or any mean, dirty trick I would have no mercy on him. But that is a very different thing to keeping the cane ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... espied that I sought—a place where the coping was gone with sundry of the bricks, making here a gap very apt to escalade; and here, years agone, I had been wont to climb this wall to the furtherance of some boyish prank on many a night such as this. Awhile stood I staring up at this gap, then, seizing hold of massy brickwork, I drew myself up and dropped into a walled garden. Here were beds of herbs well tended and orderly, and, as I went, I breathed an air sweet with the smell of thyme ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the hindmost, who'd be last? They storm the types, they publish one and all, They leap the counter, and they leave the stall:— Provincial maidens, men of high command, Yea, baronets, have ink'd the bloody hand! Cash cannot quell them—Pollio play'd this prank: (Then Phoebus first found credit in a bank;) Not all the living only, but the dead Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' head! Damn'd all their days, they posthumously thrive, Dug up from dust, though buried when alive! Reviews record this epidemic crime, Those books of martyrs to the rage for rhyme ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... O'Brady had chuckled over the prank that had first earned him the title,—the holding up of the coach that ran between Byestry and Kingsleigh, Nick at the head of a band of half a dozen young scapegraces clad in black masks and huge hats, and armed with old pistols purloined from the ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... an Oxford undergraduate prank. Members of a literary club, The Scorpions, agree to write a serial story on shares. They invent a tale around certain names in an accidentally found letter signed "Kathleen." Their romantic fervor ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Slimak bitterly, 'there was no policeman to certify that it was we who saved you the hog, but when a boy plays a prank on you, you ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... be so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was roused ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... caprice of others, is of short duration. Cave's superiority in literature exalted him to an invidious familiarity with boys who were far above him in rank and expectations; and, as in unequal associations it always happens, whatever unlucky prank was played was imputed to Cave. When any mischief, great or small, was done, though, perhaps, others boasted of the stratagem, when it was successful, yet, upon detection, or miscarriage the fault was sure to fall ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... reason. This is some prank, which I am sure does not concern Ehrenstein in the least. They would never dare enter Dreiberg for aught else. There must be a flaw in ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... with you, Gwen! You're always thinking about yourself! You've done a silly, mad prank to-day, and I don't know what Mrs. Cass will say when she arrives. Really, at your age you ought to know better and remember your dignity. You're not a child now, though I'm sure you behave like one. Go and put that bucket ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... if he did, as soon as the sot felt that eyes were upon him, he would take to making faces or launch out into a speech. Then Jean-Christophe would turn away, trembling with fear lest he should commit some outrageous prank. He would try to be absorbed in his work, but he could not help hearing Melchior's utterances and the laughter of his colleagues. Tears would come into his eyes. The musicians, good fellows that they were, had seen that, and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... his revolver. With staring eyes he looked for Bram out where the wolves had passed. And then, all at once, came the shock. It was tremendous. The trickery of sound on the Barren had played an unexpected prank with his senses, and while he strained his eyes to pierce the hazy starlight of the plain far out, Bram himself loomed up suddenly along the edge of the bush ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... LaChaise, who was one of the conductors at the Metropolitan and was to have the direction of the summer opera out here at Ravinia this year. Portia added with the falsely deprecatory air of a mother apologizing for a child's prank, that Pietro had in fact, already invited him to the dinner and had only just informed her of the fact. Lucile had assured her, of course, that this addition to the company would cause not the slightest inconvenience, served ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... houses or cultivated fields, so much the more fun for the river. For years it would flow peacefully in a well-known channel around some great bend, then decide to make a change, and in a single night cut a new channel straight across the loop of land. By such a prank not only were all the river pilots thoroughly bewildered, but a large slice of one State, with its inhabitants and buildings, would be transferred to another. If at the same time an important river-town could be stranded and left far inland, the happiness of the mischief-making giant was complete; ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... must represent reaction from the tension under which he necessarily was through the grave anxieties pressing upon him. Humor he certainly had, but at this time it often showed itself in horse-play, so fantastic as to suggest some unusual exciting cause. Thus, for one such prank he seemed to draw his inspiration from the Sunday celebration of Divine Service. Upon its conclusion, he framed and published a new signal, for "all chaplains," the employment of which, however, was postponed to an occasion suited to his lordship's fun. "A few days after it blew great ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... every night. The genius of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have sufficed to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a year. In the first place, circumstances were not always propitious: sometimes the moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly irritated their betters; then one or another of their number refused to share in some proposed outrage because a relation was involved. But if the scamps were not at Mere Cognette's every night, they always ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... This prank encouraged him very much indeed, for he then felt that now he had certainly escaped without any bad consequences; so he went on applauding his own ingenuity, and came to a farm where several little boys were at play. He desired leave to play with them, which they allowed him ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... had sent them a piano, and many fine pictures ornamented the walls from famous persons. An old English lady who spends her summers up there seemed much amused at the prank of the girls, and evidently wondered what their ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... searching gaze. They took their hats off and bowed to him. He walked past them without acknowledging their greetings. His presence silenced and confused the crowd, and evoked embarrassed smiles and low exclamations, as of repentant children who had already come to regret their prank. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... of less tender age; but there never was betrothal; and before any fit time for it had come, I had the mishap to have the maid close to me—she was ever besetting and running after me—when by some prank, unhappily of mine, a barrel of gunpowder blew up and wellnigh tore her to pieces. My father came, and her mother, an unnurtured, uncouth woman, who would have forced me to wed her on the spot, but my father would not hear of it, more especially as there were then ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Adam, clapping me on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly of ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... Blanche Bay, and the islands in the Gulf, it came bounding, screaming, and buffeting. And all the way across that open sweep from Mermentau to Cote Gelee it was tearing the rain to mist and freezing it wherever it fell, only lulling and warming a little about Joseph Jefferson's Island, as if that prank were too mean a trick ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... seek a green-moss'd pool, with well-spring nigh, And through the grass a streamlet fleeting by. The porch with palm or oleaster shade— That when the regents from the hive parade Its gilded youth, in Spring—their Spring!—to prank, To woo their holiday heat a neighbouring bank May lean with branches hospitably cool. And midway, be your water stream or pool, Cross willow-twigs, and massy boulders fling— A line of stations for the halting wing To dry in summer sunshine, has it shipped A cupful ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... heartily at the puzzling the friar gave Father James. 'James,' says he, 'never heed him; he's only pesthering you with bog-Latin; but, at any rate to do him justice, he's not a bad Scholar, I can tell you that.... Your health, Prank, you droll crathur—your health. I have only one fault to find with you, and that is, that you fast and mortify yourself too much. Your fasting has reduced you from being formerly a friar of very genteel dimensions to a cut of corpulency that smacks strongly of penance—fifteen ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... that Dan Hoolan, though he's mighty quiet just now, will be playing us some prank or other before long, if he can find a chance," ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... don't mention it. I am only sorry that some one has played a mischievous prank on you—a servant, doubtless. Madame," sternly, looking at his step-mother. "I insist that you shall investigate the matter, and discharge ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... "Suppose we were to forgive him and pay the money. You know he would not give up leading a dissipated life, squandering money, making debts, going to our tailors and ordering suits in our names! Can you guarantee that this will be his last prank? As far as I am concerned, I have no faith whatever in ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of Study, Work and Play. The Schoolhouse in the Woods. Maple Sugar-making. The Orator of the Dawn. A Boyish Prank. Capturing the ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... thickness was not vengeance-proof. They little thought, that day of pain When, launched as on the lightning's flash, They bade me to destruction dash, That one day I should come again, With twice five thousand horse, to thank The Count for his uncourteous ride. They played me then a bitter prank, When, with the wild horse for my guide, They bound me to his foaming flank: At length I played them one as frank— For time at last sets all things even— And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... rakes they were as ever the world beheld—was attempting to play off a smart, witty jest upon him. Indeed, Miss Eliza Bolles, who was of a lively, mischievous temper, was not herself above playing such a prank should the occasion offer. With this thought in his mind Barnaby inquired of her with a good deal of particularity concerning the appearance and condition of the man who had left the note, to all of which Miss replied with so straight ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... of thing, Hinpoha, you carve some fearful and wonderful things on that rock. Won't they get a shock, though, when they come to Eeny-Meeny?" In their mind's eye they could all see the sensation caused by the discovering of Eeny-Meeny possibly years hence at the base of the rock, and the prank appealed to them irresistibly. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... of thoughts as he watched the leaping flame. Its cheerful crackle, its bright color in the gloom was almost too good to be true. In these dark forests he had learned to be wary and on guard at too great fortune. Quite often it was only a prank of perverse forest gods, before they smote him with some black disaster. It seemed to him that there was a wild laughter, a Satanic mocking in the joyous crackle that was vaguely but fearfully ominous. The promise in the rainbow, the siren's song to the mariners, the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... been in mischief herself too often when at Phil's age not to feel sympathy with him on the score of the prank he had played that afternoon. It was this same sympathetic understanding of their moods and actions which gave her so much influence with the boys, enabling her to twist them round her little ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... having one night challenged a fellow-student and received no answer, fired, and took such good aim that the poor young man fell dead on the pavement. Horrified and amazed at the fatal result of his mad prank, the student fled, hoping to ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... boyish air of conscious delinquency. Conscious, indeed, that he was the author of a certain commotion, but very far, assuredly, from being conscious that he, Gifford Crayshaw, by means of this schoolboy prank, was taking the decisive step towards a change in the destiny of every soul then bearing a part ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... walk till the purple dieth, And short dry grass under foot is brown, But one little streak at a distance lieth Green, like a ribbon, to prank the down. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... did!" says he. "Just like Warrie to do that, though. But, if I know Miss Prentice at all, she will pay him back for that little prank." ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... relish, and this favorite dish of his childhood seemed to have restored his good humor. "I believe." he said, gayly, "I am still able to read as well in your face, mother, as I could when I was a boy, and took pains to discover whether or not I had deserved punishment for some naughty prank. I believe I have understood your mute dialogue with Cordelia. Will you confess the truth to me if I tell you what Cordelia's glances ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... sketches. The "Tales from Bohemia" collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons whom he met and the friends whom he knew, and he treated ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... went to Larry's, where he understood that Phelim was on the missing list. This justified his suspicions of the Squire; but by no means lessened his bitterness against him, for the prank he had intended to play upon him. With great simplicity, he presented himself at the Big House, and met its owner on the lawn, accompanied by two other gentlemen. The magistrate was somewhat surprised at seeing Art ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... and misery by looking through the dining-room window on that Sunday afternoon when his prospects seemed to be so rosy. He never thought of that. He cursed every circumstance and person impartially and fluently, but he omitted from the Satanic litany the one girlish prank of tree-climbing that led Iris to spring out of sight amid the sheltering arms of an elm when her uncle and Captain Coke deemed the summer-house a suitable place for "a plain talk ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... STENSSON. How came I to——? Nay, what know I? Many's the mad prank I've hit on in my day. And yet 'twas not I hit on it neither; wherever I appeared in the Dales, the people crowded round me and greeted me as Count Sture. Deny it as I pleased, —'twas wasted breath. The Count had been there two years before, they ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... had observed Dousterswivel stand somewhat disconsolate and sad, looking into the open grave. Age had not dulled Edie's wit, nor caused him to relish less a boyish prank. His quick eye had caught some writing on the lid of the box of treasure, and while all were admiring the solid ingots of precious metal laid bare before them, Edie kicked the piece of wood aside without being observed by ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... bring a dozen and more of your friends down on his place to commit some prank that will make him dislike boys more than ever. It's all wrong, I tell you, fellows, and for one I refuse to lend a hand," and Jack folded his arms as though his mind were made ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... home nor her parents seemed to have any part in her life. She told of a prank played ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... really singing. The noise in the house redoubled in the attempt to drown her voice, but she serenely went on with her pantomime. This seemed to continue an interminable time, when the audience, tiring of its prank and in order to hear, suddenly stilled its clamor, and discovered the dumb show she had been making. For a moment all was silent, save for the orchestra, her lips moving on without a sound, and then the audience realized that it had been sold, and broke out afresh, this time with genuine ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... Shortly after this mad prank of Kelson's, Mr. Millinet invited Mary to walk out one lovely evening, to which she gladly assented. They took their way towards the "Whale's Head," a name given by the inhabitants of B—— to the high bluff already mentioned, that formed the eastern side of their harbor, from its real ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... of Phrinzy. Here is th' inconsistency of conduct that marks a disturbance of the reason: and, to tell the truth, I once knew a young fellow that played this very prank at a wedding, and the nixt thing we hard, my ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... may say it, I hope without blushing, That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... possibly could; and a carpenter was set to work to make a covered box, for the rector's tythe-rats, with a lifting door. Hector Mowbray was consulted on the whole progress; and the fancies of father and son were tickled to excess, by the happy prank they ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... love of it, and who in the dark listened to the troubadours below, also for the love of it. A great cavalry leader, he shone at his brightest in the chase, and, when there was no fighting to be done, his were the spirits of a boy, and he was as quick for a prank as any lad under his ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... keep up the high key and act like the rest. Indeed for the most of the time I feel as they do, I suppose, but sometimes that sort of ribaldry and feelings of the ludicrous that made us joke, and prank, and cut up in genial companionships come over me, and I am suffocating with a glee out of place to this exalted society. Ah! it's good to feel you, my friend, so fresh and new from earth. It's promised ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... the stream, and strode towards the beech clump. Prank of the moonlight! Nothing! In and out of the boulders and thorn trees, muttering and cursing, yet with a kind of terror, he rushed and stumbled. Absurd! Silly! Then he went back to the apple tree. But she was gone; he could hear a rustle, the grunting of the pigs, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... come to any thing. But these widows—Then such a love in us all, both old and young, of being courted and admired!—and so irresistible to their elderships to be flattered, that all power is not over with them; but that they may still class and prank it with their daughters.—It vexed me heartily to have her tell me of this proposal with self-complaisant simperings; and yet she affected to speak of it as if she had no intention ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... grew wilder, the reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news that the boy had ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... to the billiard room. "I have one piece of advice to give you," he said. "This prank is harmless enough, but establish a definite understanding with this fellow that you are not to be liable in damages for personal injuries which his Indians may receive. Explain to him that it is not child's play and have him put it ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... a more composed voice: "I am hoping it is merely some boyish prank. But even that will be bad enough, if he misses ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... of utmost dismay on his weatherbeaten face. "Gods!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are just beginning to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... manikins, with glassy eyes and open mouths, when Death had laid his icy hand on them and they were never more to know the warmth and motion of life. Had they dragged themselves, still living, to that place, so as to die in one another's company? or was it not rather a ghastly prank of the Prussians, who had collected the bodies and placed them in a circle about the table, out of derision for the traditional gayety of ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... was not short of such food as the Relief Committees bestow. There was a piece of bread upon the bench, left from his morning meal; and the old fellow chirruped about, and looked as blithe as if he was up to the middle in clover. He showed us a little thing which he had done "for a bit ov a prank." The number of his cellar was 8, and he had cut out a large tin figure of 8, a foot long, and nailed it upon his door, for the benefit of some of his friends that were getting bad in their eyesight, and "couldn't read smo' print so low deawn as that." "Well, ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... answered the professed castaway. "I've been trying to get help for more than a day, and he always breaks in and queers my call. He makes everybody think I'm putting up a prank." ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... place. The second place was just what had been bothering Malone all along. There didn't seem to be any purpose to the car thefts. They hadn't been sold, or used as getaway cars. True, teenage delinquents sometimes stole cars just to use them joy-riding, or as some sort of prank. ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... The man who is known to have committed that crime—Francesco Paoli—escaped to New York. We are looking for him to-day. He is a clever man, far above the average—son of a doctor in a town a few miles from Naples, went to the university, was expelled for some mad prank—in short, he was the black sheep of the family. Of course over here he is too high-born to work with his hands on a railroad or in a trench, and not educated enough to work at anything else. So he has been preying on his more industrious countrymen—a typical case ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... charge of the equipment and has undertaken to improvise clothes out of what canvas can be found here. Wild is working with Joyce. He is a cheerful, willing soul. Nothing ever worries or upsets him, and he is ever singing or making some joke or performing some amusing prank. Richards has taken over the keeping of the meteorological log. He is a young Australian, a hard, conscientious worker, and I look forward to good results from his endeavours. Jack, another young Australian, is his assistant. Hayward is the handy man, being ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... Lord Berkeley of Stratton told Lord Strafford of "a fine prank of the widow Lady Jersey" (see Letter 29, note 3). "It is well known her lord died much in debt, and she, after taking upon her the administration, sold everything and made what money she could, and is run away into ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... she thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ways ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to town. The jailer met me with a doubtful shaking of his scheming head, and I knew that again he had received orders to be rigid in his discipline, but I was resolved that the old rascal's appetite for liquor should not play a second prank upon me; so when he hinted at another bottle I told him that I had spent so much of my life as a temperance lecturer that it was against my conscience to buy a favor with whisky. I looked steadily at him, and he ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... was so positive, and by that time Jonathan had found his tongue, and both children explained the affair so clearly, that the old magistrates looked rather foolish, and dismissed the case with a reprimand to Jonathan for wasting his time so foolishly. But some good came of the boy's prank after all. For his father, seeing how near Jonathan came being proved a witch, bestirred himself in favor of poor School-master Halleck, who was set free from ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... he himself was a goody-goody—far from it; he was a terrible prank maker, and more than once narrowly missed suffering serious consequences. But when he really grew up and it came to an acquaintance with women, very few have even attracted him. I began to fear that he was becoming ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... as though I had driven my friend into a corner from which he would find it difficult to extricate himself. But I did him an injustice and shall therefore do everything in my power to right it. My memory, as it so frequently does, played me a prank. At the same time that I answered him, I was in active correspondence with one of the delegates to the Chicago Parliament of Religions, at which the love of God and one's neighbour had been adopted, as a sort of article of agreement which the followers of any or every faith could accept. Thus it ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... fantasy to a formula? Nor should they ever be allowed to clip the wings of romance. But the painter who bade his subject sit under a sodium light would justly be deemed a lunatic, and any analysis of Spencer's character drawn from his latest prank would be faulty ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... I was joking," the old rascal declared. "Wash and I always prank with each other. You can take a joke, can't ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... I followed them. At the same time, I was fully conscious that I was playing a mad prank without being able to stop myself. My disordered condition ran away with me; I was inspired with the craziest notions, which I followed blindly as they came to me. I couldn't help it, no matter how much I told myself that I was playing the ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... deportment was quite all that could be wished. It occurs to me now that it was because his lordship was, how shall I say?—quite far gone in liquor at the time, so that I could without loss of dignity pass it off as a mere prank. Indeed, he regarded it as such himself, performing the act with a good nature that I found quite irresistible, and I am certain that neither his lordship nor I have ever thought the less of each other because of it. I revert to this merely to show that I have not ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... poured out their tale, to Mrs. Moss's great amusement, for she saw in it only some playmate's prank, and was not much impressed by the ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... But the oddest prank which this hummer performs is to dart up in the air, and then down, almost striking a bush or a clump of grass at each descent, repeating this feat a number of times with a swiftness that the eye can scarcely ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... dear old mother when she'd tell about the long trip to Corpus Christi, and things that happened on the way. They stopped over at Camden as they went through, and one of the colored gals who hated her played a prank on her to take out her spite on mother: They had stopped at a dairyman's home near Camden, and she sent my mother in to get a gallon of buttermilk. After drinking all she could hold she grabbed mother by the hair of the head and churned her up and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... rear, one of his few champions, he estranged by exchanging the "war extra" which the carrier left at the door for her, for the German paper served to Mrs. Schultz, her pet aversion on the floor below. Mrs. Rafferty upset the wash-tub in her rage at this prank. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... which made my mother very angry, my old grandmother to hold up her hands, and look at the ceiling through her spectacles, and my aunt Milly as merry as myself. Before I was eight years old, I had become so notorious, that any prank played in the town, any trick undiscovered, was invariably laid to my account; and many were the applications made to my mother for indemnification for broken windows and other damage done, too often, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... chimney began to rumble ominously, sparks to fly out at the top, and soot and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if she ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... at one another much in the same way as we used to do years before, when she had detected me in some boyish prank, and assumed the mentor while I felt a culprit. How really I felt a culprit at that moment she ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... a thrill of alarm, for the first time, shot through Gard. It was not reassuring. He thought of Rudi. Was this some official prank young Bucher had set going? It would be like him. He must be a spy, as Anderson had insisted. Was the son trying to act with confederates far away over here ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... old Lapithites, with the goblets to fight, Our own 'mongst offences unpardoned will rank, Or breaking of windows, or glasses, for spight, And spoiling the goods for a rakehelly prank. ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley |
