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More "Deuce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... six months. The pleasure and enthusiasm with which I have got to do my work for Punch (since I have got better in health and so forth) are such that I should be content to go on so for ever, without any rise, if it weren't for my having such a deuce of a family! but what's a ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... playing cards, were all left strewed around their fires. One of the gamblers, (it is a serious truth) though shot dead, still held the cards hard gripped in his hands. Led by curiosity to inspect this strange sight, a dead gambler, we found that the cards which he held were ace, deuce, and jack. Clubs were trumps. Holding high, low, jack, and the game, in his own hand, he seemed to be in a fair way to do well; but Marion came down upon him with a trump that spoiled his sport, and ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... "You're having hallucinations, my love. You'll feel better in the morning. Where the deuce did you get such a foolish ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... on the word. "But everything has become uncanny within the last few days. Upon my word, when I look back into the past of, say, a fortnight ago, I ask myself whether I am a fool, or dreaming, or whether my health is going to the deuce. London seems different. I look on things strangely. I fancy, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... deuce of it!" replied Tomsky: "she had four sons, one of whom was my father; all four were determined gamblers, and yet not to one of them did she ever reveal her secret, although it would not have been a bad thing either for them or for me. But this is what I heard from my uncle, Count Ivan ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... who the Deuce you are?" said Chaffery, suddenly tilting his head back so as to look through his glasses instead of over them, and laughing genially. "For thoroughgoing Cheek, I'm inclined to think you take the Cake. ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... uttered these words I asked myself angrily why the deuce did I want to say that? Mr. Burns in answer had only blinked at me. What on ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... "The deuce!" said the Dandy, who did not clearly comprehend the bent of the observation of his much pondering and philosophic friend, but was ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... I am a shade better. But, you see, the deuce of it is I never get more than a shade better. It always stops at that. The little woman can't complain of me now, can she, Sheldon? No more late hours, or oyster ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... a principal hand in the formation of this peninsula. They form the ninety-ninth part of the rock in this quarter. It is a most convenient formation, being worked almost as easily as clay, and yet it makes substantial walls. Frost, I presume, would play the deuce with it. But that is a thing not much known here. I have not yet had the pleasure to fix my northern eye on a piece of ice this winter, though there has been a cream thickness of it once or twice. A pitcher frozen over here makes more noise than the river frozen ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Thomas:—I'm devilish glad to see you, my lad. Why, my prince of charioteers, you look as hearty!—but who the deuce thought of seeing you ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... wife I could not kiss? I wonder if Blanche will speak to me again? Maybe all this was a dodge, women have so many; but she looked in earnest. I might have frightened her by being so sudden, but why the deuce should women be frightened at proposals, when they pass their lives in trying to get them? So Mrs. Stunner said. Poor birdie!, what a soft hand she has! Maybe some women are modest: I will ask Hardcash about it. She may not have known what she was saying—agitated, and all that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... but the latter is an idea, and abideth. I never before saw swine upon sattin. And then that pretty strawy canopy about him! he seems to purr (rather than grunt) his satisfaction. Such a gentlemanlike porker too! Morland's are absolutely clowns to it. Who the deuce ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... conveniences of the place for making a lady comfortable—a tolerably patient captive. But the draw-bridge was never raised, and Acton's brilliant visitor was as free to depart as she had been to come. It was part of his curiosity to know why the deuce so susceptible a man was not in love with so charming a woman. If her various graces were, as I have said, the factors in an algebraic problem, the answer to this question was the indispensable unknown quantity. The pursuit of the unknown quantity was extremely absorbing; ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... Deuce take the foolish woman with her dreams! Was anything so preposterous ever heard of? I must go and ask the help of ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... "What the deuce," he said, and then paused. "I won't have it," he went on, jumping up, "I won't have it. I am not particularly fond of old de la Molle, perhaps because he is not particularly fond of me," he added rather drolly, "but it would be an infernal shame to break up that family ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... matter," said Fry, and he showed him a deuce of clubs, a five of hearts and an ace of diamonds, and so on; two or three cards of each suit. "A prisoner has been making these out ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... said he, musing; "but the postmark is Plymouth. How the deuce—!" The two first lines of the letter were read, and the old man's countenance fell. Susan, who had been all alive at the mention of McElvina's name, perceived the alteration in her ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... run— Was a jolly young chap, and a son of the SUN; Or rather of PHOEBUS—but as to his mother, Genealogists make a deuce of a pother, Some going for one, and some for another! For myself, I must say, as a careful explorer, This roaring young blade ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... there at the other end of the poop might have (and he probably did) suspect him of being criminally asleep on duty, he tried to "get hold of that thing" by some side which would fit in with his simple notions of psychology. "What the deuce are they worrying about?" he asked himself in a dazed and contemptuous impatience. But all the same "jailer" was a funny name to give a man; unkind, unfriendly, nasty. He was sorry that Mr. Smith was guilty ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... was evidently a personage of note. But a special would never do! Where the deuce was it going to ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... leaving him still standing in his pet attitude, taking mental stock of all the fast-looking fair ones who might come under his notice. "Oh, bother?" I am not prepared to assert positively that I did not use a much stronger expletive. He ought to have seen them! What the deuce was the use of his sticking star-gazing there, unless to observe people, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for a few days and then take him back. But they can't git him now—not if I can help it. A better cook never throwed dishwater over a guy-rope than that same old Mose, but—" He stopped and looked at Ford hesitantly. "Say! I hate like the deuce to tie a string on you as soon as you hit the ranch, Ford, but—if you've got anything along, you won't spring it on Mose, will you? A fellow's got to watch ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... present state, and we must own that his stories are so slightly constructed as to remind us of the showman's thread with which he draws up his pictures and presents them successively to the eye of the spectator. He seems seriously to have proceeded on Mr. Bays's maxim—"What the deuce is a plot good for, but to bring in fine things?"—Probability and perspicuity of narrative are sacrificed with the utmost indifference to the desire of producing effect; and provided the author can but contrive to "surprize ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... one day, after hearing Mobray through his lines in "The Deuce is in Him," "I'd give a finger but ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... dine at Mr. Harley's alone, about some business of importance; but there were two or three gentlemen there. Mr. Secretary and I went together from his office to Mr. Harley's, and thought to have been very wise; but the deuce a bit: the company stayed, and more came, and Harley went away at seven, and the secretary and I stayed with the rest of the company till eleven; I would then have had him come away, but he was in for it; and though ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... it back. Ace-of-trumps may it prove to you, Captain Paul; may it be impossible for you ever to be taken. But for me—poor deuce, a trey, that comes in your wake—any king or knave may take me, as before ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... which they smother a man in the Low Countries; and there he lay, melting between, two feather beds, like an anchovy sandwich between two slices of toast and butter. He was a warm-complexioned man, and this smothering played the very deuce with him. So, sure enough, in a little while it seemed as if a legion of imps were twitching at him and all the blood in his ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... ever saw. I wish she'd come back again," and, shutting his eyes, he tried to recall the bright, animated face which had so lately bent anxiously above him. "She tarries long," he said at last, beginning to grow uneasy. "I wonder how far it is; and where the deuce can this old Hagar be, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... away.] Oh, dear; oh, dear! Deuce take Carlton Smythe an' 'is supper party— those are my sentiments; an' Lal Roper, busybody that 'e is! Things were goin' on with us as smooth an' peaceful as could ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... how the deuce do I see you here? You ought to be up at the fort. But, say, old man, I'm glad you broke out. That thirty-day term smelled to heaven when the old man gave it. ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... herself, however, the ground was occupied by Sir Claude, who, as he stood before their visitor with an expression half rueful, half persuasive, rubbed his hand sharply up and down the back of his head. "Then why the deuce do you grant so—do you, I may even say, rejoice so—that by the desertion of my ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... we both in a breath: "Pogson is a commercial traveller, with thirty shillings a week, and how the deuce is he ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... alarmed, "Stretch out, men: never mind the shark. He can't jump into the boat surely," said the skipper. "What the deuce are you ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... had come the thunderbolt. And then, while he was still dazed and furious, his grandfather had tried to convince him that he had done him a deuce of a good turn in showing up ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... his whip at them, 'if I listened to you idlers, you and I would both starve under the fence. The beggars are playing the deuce here!' ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... Confusion of pagan gods and Christian saints. 26. Church in North Europe. Thonar, etc., are devils, but Balda gets identified with Christ. 27. Conversion of Britons. Their gods get turned into fairies rather than devils. Deuce. Old Nick. 28. Subsequent evolution of belief. Carlyle's Abbot Sampson. Religious formulae of witchcraft. 29. The Reformers and Catholics revive the old accusations. The Reformers only go half-way in scepticism. Calfhill and Martiall. 30. Catholics. Siege of Alkmaar. Unfortunate mistake of ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... me—leave that to me!" said Melrose with an answering good humour. "Stable and carriage expenses are the deuce. There never was a coachman yet that didn't rob his employer. Well, thank you; I'm glad to have had this talk with you, and now, I go to bed. Beastly cold, I must say, this ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... place the side of the board with only two men on points nearest the window, so that there shall be a good light on the home tables. The points in the home tables are known by their numbers, which correspond to the faces of a die, and are called: ace point, deuce point, trey point, four point, five point, ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... big proposition to offer you. One that will beat Mascola's like an ace beats a deuce. Because this one ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... have been there now. I'm going to-morrow, ain't I, Nell? I had not a bit of business to be here. Winding up affairs in the bachelor line, don't you know; but I had to come on my way west to see this young lady first. It plays the deuce and all with one's plans when there's such a ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... lo! the Captain, Gallant Kidd,[4] commands the crew; Passengers their berths are clapt in, Some to grumble, some to spew. "Hey day! call you that a cabin? Why't is hardly three feet square! Not enough to stow Queen Mab in— Who the deuce can harbour there?" "Who, sir? plenty— Nobles twenty Did at once my vessel fill."— "Did they? Jesus, How you squeeze us! Would to God they did so still! Then I'd 'scape the heat and racket Of the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... despairing—now coming out towards you in a burst of light—and now fading away from you in a gathering of gloom—even as one might figure in his imagination a fallen Angel. On Thursday, confound you if you know what the deuce to make of his Springship. There he is, stripped to the buff—playing at hide-and-seek, hare-and-hound, with a queer crazy crony of his in a fur cap, swan-down waistcoat, and hairy breeches, Lodbrog or Winter. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... had no success on the stage, which greatly afflicted this previous tribunal. Being assembled the day after its performance, there was a general silence; but the lady, who had first given her favourable suffrage, spoke at length and said—"The piece, however, was not hissed." "How the deuce could it?" replied a stranger, who happened to be present; "people cannot gape and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... said I, dropping my arm, which had been sticking out like a pump brake, 'that's she that just now turned about and blushed so like the deuce—do you ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... best, I don't deny, Thou'st fee'd the keeper, and he likes to feed us, But, then the situation I decry, But crying's useless—who the deuce will heed us? Then, reader would you listen to my wail, Come, and but see ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... little old-fogyish, thinks we are too young for any definite engagement, and wants me to be permanently established in some business before we are married, and all that; when I can't see what in the deuce is the difference so long as I have plenty of stuff. So the upshot of it all was that he and his wife took Grace to Europe, and they're not coming back until the holidays, and if, by that time, we have neither of us changed our minds, and I am settled ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... to hear any more. Things were getting too hot. I sneaked softly out of my bush and raced for the front door. I sprinted up to my room and made for the drawer where I had put the parcel. And then I found I hadn't the key. It wasn't for the deuce of a time that I recollected I had shifted it to my evening trousers the night before and must have forgotten to take it ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... the deuce! a bad business!" said Jacquet, examining the letter as a usurer examines a note to be negotiated. "Ha! that's a gridiron letter! Wait ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... John's comment afterward. "How the deuce did he ever come to be Tod's son? Sheila, of course, is one of these hot-headed young women that make themselves a nuisance nowadays, but she's intelligible. By the way, that fellow Cuthcott's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... for Dolcino," I said: surprised a moment afterwards at being in a position—thanks to Miss Ambient—to be so explanatory; and surprised even now that Mark shouldn't have shown visibly that he wondered what the deuce I knew about it. But he didn't; he simply declared with a tenderness that touched me: "Ah nothing shall ever ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... what he would do and say to-morrow if anything happened to Tom—nothing, of course, fatal, but something perhaps so grave that May himself would be unable to explain it. In that case Henry could only state facts exactly as they had occurred. But there would be a deuce of a muddle if he had to make statements and describe the exact sequence of recent incidents. Already he forgot the exact sequence. It seemed ages since he parted from May. He broke off there, rose, drank a glass of water, and lighted a ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... is all very fine, But if pleuro-pneumonia crosses the line, And with BULL'S bulls and heifers should play up the deuce, A Yankee Inspector won't be of much use, Which nobody ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... the chaps in the canoes might think when they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before I went down, and without the helmet on—for they might have been spying and hiding since over night—they would very likely take a different view from the others. I was in a deuce of a stew about that for hours, as it seemed, until the shindy of the ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... that I wish he would go to the deuce with it, he will leave it to a hospital. Is that ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... being the first to arrive, he found the old lady alone in the drawing-room. "Well! little one," he asked, with his smiling familiarity, "are your affairs going on all right? Why the deuce do you make ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... what it is, Angelica,' said he, 'since I came here yesterday, there has been such a row, and disturbance, and quarrelling, and fighting, and chopping of heads off, and the deuce to pay, that I am inclined to ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tried, Wouldst thou have me swear? I shall be a steaming mass, Freeze to rock and stone, alas! If I don't remove. All this, love, I owe to thee, Winter-bumps thou'lt make for me, Thou confounded love! Cold and gloom spread far and wide! Ay, the deuce! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... (The deuce he had! Flynn would lose his engagement as a boxing teacher if he didn't heed my ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... distant lake. From the grass arose, with measured sweep, a gull, and bathed luxuriously in blue waves of air. And now she has vanished on high, and appears only as a black dot: now she has turned her wings, and shines in the sunlight. Deuce take you, steppes, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... composition. He happened one night to stop under the window of Bernardone Kurz, a director of a theatre and the leading clown of Vienna. Down rushed Kurz very excitedly. "Who are you?" he shrieked. "Joseph Haydn." "Whose music is it?" "Mine." "The deuce it is! And at your age, too!" "Why, I must begin with something." "Come ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... the wrong end foremost, as Briggs said," thought the young man. "I wonder where the deuce Briggs can be? I'm no match ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... It would tax his invention, certainly, and I felt, this time, over his real embarrassment, a curious thrill of triumph. It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! He couldn't play any longer at innocence; so how the deuce would he get out of it? There beat in me indeed, with the passionate throb of this question an equal dumb appeal as to how the deuce I should. I was confronted at last, as never yet, with all the risk attached even now to sounding ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... turning with a bouncing flounce and looking straight at the Major. "Marry Pennington! Why, she shan't, John. That's all there is of it. We object and that settles it. Why, what the deuce can ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... the one that weakens all the others. Why the deuce do you want this thing known? Why do you want to put your ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... his eye fell upon the contents. "What in creation is this? It isn't shorthand, but what the deuce is it?" ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... outright, "You played the wrong card at such and such a point." No, he always employed some such phrase as, "You permitted yourself to make a slip, and thus afforded me the honour of covering your deuce." Indeed, the better to keep in accord with his antagonists, he kept offering them his silver-enamelled snuff-box (at the bottom of which lay a couple of violets, placed there for the sake of their scent). ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... went a Goat of grass to take her fill, And browse the herbage of a distant hill, She latch'd her door, and bid, With matron care, her Kid; "My daughter, as you live, This portal don't undo To any creature who This watchword does not give: 'Deuce take the Wolf and all his race'!" The Wolf was passing near the place By chance, and heard the words with pleasure, And laid them up as useful treasure; And hardly need we mention, Escaped the Goat's attention. No sooner ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... First Consul. "I warn you, sir, that I wish no excuses, and I will add that unless an attempt is made on my life before ten o'clock to- night, you lose your place. The French people must be kept interested in this performance, and how the deuce it is to be done without advertising I don't know. Go, and remember that I shall be at home to assassins on Thursdays of ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... back by about a foot; that, however, was of little consequence, as the high chair concealed the deficiency; neither did the shortness of the sleeves matter much, as the ample shawl could be made to hide my too great length of arm; but the skirt was scarcely lower than a Highlander's, and how the deuce I was to crook my booted legs up out of view, even in that gloomy starlight, I could hardly imagine. The cap also was far too small; still, with an ample kerchief in my hand, my whiskers might, I thought, be concealed. I was still fidgeting ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... not a public character. So I have to take trouble to keep myself in print. And I do—a deuce of a ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... have mistaken your man, De Pean!" whispered Cadet. "Why the deuce did you pitch upon Le Gardeur to carry out ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... well) but how the deuce can you be funny in the Baltic? Why call it Baltic? For days and nights at sea, sometimes up, more often down, and a sense of inability coming over me in the middle of the boundless deep. Alas, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... "Where the deuce are you going to sleep to-night, St. George? You came down hither all the way from London, did you not? You surely do not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... the Professor angrily. "What the deuce is the matter with you, then? You sit there like a set of stuck pigs staring at ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... smiling, "We must do without him, and you will keep your Mr. Clinch. A thorough officer in a ship's hold is an advantage not to be thrown away; and I suppose, if Hotham had asked such a thing of old Agamemnon, he might have whistled for the favor. The deuce is in it, if we do not get as good ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... run, and an infernally daring one,' said Mr Rattenbury; 'in Lealand Cove, not half an hour ago. And the deuce of it is we had warning of it ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... son-in-law, be reasonable. God knows I don't say that Sidonie's conduct—But, for my part, I know nothing about it. I never wanted to know anything. Only I must remind you of your dignity. People wash their dirty linen in private, deuce take it! They don't make spectacles of themselves as you've been doing ever since morning. Just see everybody at the workshop windows; and on the porch, too! Why, you're the talk of the quarter, my ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... white teeth. "Come, now, none of that, my beauty. You're my wife all right, no matter how much of a fuss you make over it. I want to be agreeable, but you persist in raising the devil in me, and though you may not know it, I've a deuce of a temper when I'm thoroughly roused to anger—at least that's what the ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... less special. To listen to him was to combine the excitement of going out with the economy of staying at home. There was only one hindrance—that I seemed not to know any of the people this brilliant couple had known. I think he wondered extremely, during the term of our intercourse, whom the deuce I DID know. He hadn't a stray sixpence of an idea to fumble for, so we didn't spin it very fine; we confined ourselves to questions of leather and even of liquor- saddlers and breeches-makers and how to get excellent claret cheap- -and matters like ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... attending to Valre). Thither no coxcomb comes. (Valre again bows to him). What the deuce!... (He turns and sees Ergaste bowing on the other side). Another? What a great ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... her down into the close cabin!' said Mrs Gamp, impatiently. 'What's the man about! The deuce is in him, I think. Why can't he leave her in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... with his old loves and his new dances. He wondered how the deuce that fellow could be amused with such frivolity, and always look so serene and calm. Then there was Squib: that man never knew when to leave off joking; and Annesley, with his false refinement; and Darrell, with his petty ambition. He felt quite sick, and took a solitary ride: but he ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on the Elysium road?" The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from me ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... are in our rear, everywhere. The railroad is torn up, the viaducts smashed, the wires cut, and general deuce to pay. I ran into an Uhlan or two—you notice it perhaps," he added, with a grim smile. "Could you drive me to Morteyn? Do you think the vicomte would lend me ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... himself, and was sure to make them some present or other—some said in proportion to his anger; so that the sexton, who was a bit of a wag (as all sextons are, I think), said that the vicar's saying, "The Devil take you," was worth a shilling any day, whereas "The Deuce" was a shabby sixpenny speech, only fit ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... involved in a block of traffic near the Mansion House, and rain began to fall. The two occupants of the car watched each other surreptitiously, mutually suspicious, like dogs. Scraps of talk were separated by long intervals. Mr. Prohack wondered what the deuce Softly Bishop had done that Angmering should leave him a hundred thousand pounds. He tried to feel grief for the tragic and untimely death of his old friend Angmering, and failed. No doubt the failure ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... a deprecating movement; he had been identified with a gentleman; not for a good deal of money now would he be classed with manufacturers. But his innate distrust of general principles revived. What the deuce was the good of talking about regularity and self-respect? It looked to him as if the house would ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... farmer, and I'm married, and I'm in a deuce of a stew because my spuds is drying up on me and no way to get water on 'em without I carry it to 'em in a jug," disclaimed Andy Green hastily. "All I know about punchers I learned from seeing picture shows when I go to ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... dizzy limit," Lawanne observed, when the tea and some excellent sandwiches presently appeared. "He bought another rifle the other day—paid forty-five bones for it. That makes four he has now. And they have to manage like the deuce to keep themselves in grub from one remittance day to the next. He's a study. You seldom run across such a combination of physical perfection and child-like irresponsibility. He was complaining about his limited income the other ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... "As if organized violence could have a steadying effect—could have any results that are not the offspring of violence. It is hard for me to talk about it. I've never even tried before to put it into words; but we are both suffering from the same cause, I think. I know it has played the very deuce with my life. It has made me discontented with what I have; but it hasn't shown me anything else that was worth striving for. I seem to have lost the power of wanting because I've discovered that nothing is worth having after ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... with her dear, soft touch, and her lips ready to kiss, and the sweet smell of her hair mounting to his brain like wine. Something pricked his arm: something that felt like the needle of a syringe; something that . . . But anyway, what the deuce was she doing? Then suddenly he recalled that pin at the back of her dress, where he'd pricked his wrist so badly the first time ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... bestow any personal presence at his interment. The wiser they, because he hath ordained nothing for them in his latter will and testament. The devil take me, if I go thither. If he be damned, to his own loss and hindrance be it. What the deuce moved him to be so snappish and depravedly bent against the good fathers of the true religion? Why did he cast them off, reject them, and drive them quite out of his chamber, even in that very nick of time when he stood in greatest need of the aid, suffrage, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Robin. "There's the deuce of a current running over there, and Ann's not an experienced enough swimmer to tackle a drag ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... which simply said that the bearer, Gulab Lal Singh, would look after me and my belongings. So I paid attention to the man. He was a strapping fellow, handsome as the deuce, with a Roman nose, and the ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... tight case; but there was nothing to them, except that they were old Thompson's beyond a doubt. If I had thought there might be writing on them there was not so much as the scratch of a pencil. There seemed to be a card missing. I thought it was the deuce of hearts; but I was too sick over Marcia's discovery about Paulette to really examine the things and make sure. I shoved them into my coat pocket beside what was there already, just as Dudley came ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... got you and Elizabeth into a deuce of an unpleasant position. I've told you what a fine woman my mother is, and how she'd welcome Elizabeth with open arms, and now I find I was all wrong. My mother isn't a fine woman; she's an ancestor-worshiping, heartless, selfish snob. I'm ashamed ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... hand, preaching, as I have already shown, in the most manly and emphatic style—which could have been emulated with advantage in other Episcopacies in my country. MacCarthy was a bookworm from Maynooth, who played the deuce with the diocese, allowing all the priests to run wild, and by his laxity becoming criminally responsible for much of the terrible condition of Kerry. Higgins was the nominee of a friend of Moriarty, and he worked hard to suppress ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... see that horse-thieving John Morgan is in this part of the country, cutting up the deuce. Between you and me, captain, if he comes this way, we'll try and give him the best we've got in ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... a deuce game, was hotly contested. Her face ablaze with interest, Keineth held her little body tensely poised on one toe, ready for instant action. The faces of the crowd around her blurred into nothing—there seemed only left in her small world those ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... hand to ride, only it wouldn't carry him. I can't make horses. Harry brought home that brown mare on Tuesday with an overreach that she won't get over this season. What the deuce they do with their horses to knock them about so, I can't understand. I've killed horses in my time, and ridden them to a stand-still, but I never bruised them and battered them about ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... while, that it all led to nothing but superficiality and pedantry; we saw that our leading men, so-called advanced people and reformers, are no good; that we busy ourselves over foolery, talk rubbish about art, unconscious creativeness, parliamentarism, trial by jury, and the deuce knows what all; while, all the while, it's a question of getting bread to eat, while we're stifling under the grossest superstition, while all our enterprises come to grief, simply because there aren't honest men enough to carry ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... situations arise when esprit de corps is equivalent to, and even produces, discipline. That is where brother Boche fails to rise to the occasion. I am not of those who think the Boche a coward, but undoubtedly an unexpected situation very often plays the very deuce with both his courage and his organisation. In his plans he allows for most possibilities, but he is nonplussed when the situation does not turn out exactly as it should on paper. Again, man for man, he loses "guts" in tight corners, ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... up yourself," the doctor commented. "Watch this sun out here. Because it's dry here you Eastern people don't notice the heat until it plays the deuce ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... In a deuce of a pet For he liked not to fast in the least And the Parson and he On this point did agree They were far better pleas'd at ...
— The Entertaining History of Jobson & Nell • Anonymous
... of colonel Tamper, and the plighted hnsband of Mdlle. Florival.—G. Colman, sen., The Deuce ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... citizenship to try it. It ain't neighborly. Think of the lean years we've known. You can't do it. This war won't last forever—" Mr. Doolittle's voice was tinged with regret—"and it will be time enough to go in for playing the deuce with business when business gets slack again. That's the time for reforms, ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... effect upon the young men; they have been ruined by light wines and French quadrilles. "They've nothing," he says, "of the spirit of the old service. There are none of your six-bottle men left, that were the souls of a mess-dinner, and used to play the very deuce among the women." ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... at those fixed, glazed eyes in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... "Why the deuce should I bore you with myself, when you're hot and tired? I've been a confounded fool; if not worse, and the devil's in the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... has invented the lost girl's features and dress, and her disappearance into the bargain; and I hold with the schoolmen that she who does not exist cannot disappear. Poikilus, a puffing detective. S. I., Secret Inquiry. I spell Enquiry with an E—but Poikilus is a man of the day. What the deuce can Ned Severne want of him? I suppose I ought not to object. I have established a female detective at Hillstoke. So Ned sets one up at Islip. I shall make my own secret arrangements. If Poikilus settles here, he will be drawn through the horse-pond ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... "You must be in a deuce of a mess after the tornado. Just help yourself to a set of my dry things. The shirts are in the bottom drawer, the trousers are in the box under the bed, and then come over here to the sing-song. My leg is dickey or I'd come ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... shaking him.) What the deuce has got hold of you?"[130] And so in the case of practically all the ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... of the United States thought about English battue-shooting. Seemed to think we shot pheasants perched in the trees, and went on to say that wasn't the sport for him; he liked to go after his game, and find it for himself. Who the deuce cares if he does? If he can't talk better sense than that, no wonder CLEVELAND beat him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... with a dress-suit? How could he keep from feeling foolish in a low-cut vest, and what the deuce would he do with the tails? Did you part 'em or roll 'em up, when you sat down? And wouldn't everybody be able to tell from his foolish look that he didn't belong in one?" He could hear A.D.T. boys and loafers in front ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... to him, "there are most dangerous things going on here. Two old women are constantly being seen in this chateau. What the deuce ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... whose medal-ribbon was an inch or so too low down. Fixing the man with his eye, the admiral asked: "Did you get that medal for eating, my man?" On the man replying "No, sir," the admiral rapped out: "Then why the deuce do you wear it ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... told me man sometimes piles all his tokens in a retrospective heap, and says, "Who the deuce gave me this ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... seen that chap somewhere—I know him. Now, who is he? And what made him in such a deuce of ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... there are no walls: but, walls are required to enclose the gates; therefore, in Ballaarat there are no gates. Corolarium—How the deuce can they hang up my hind-quarters on the gates of Ballaarat Township? Hence, Toorak must possess a craft which passes all understanding ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... a big proposition to offer you. One that will beat Mascola's like an ace beats a deuce. Because this ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... I, dropping my arm, which had been sticking out like a pump brake, 'that's she that just now turned about and blushed so like the deuce—do you know her?' ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... to you, dad. You just say that because you think it would be better for us. Why, you'd be lonely as the deuce." And he went off into the other room and ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... What-a-deuce? Only a little fighting sparrow of a royalist!" cried a swaggering colt of a fellow ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... surprised to hear a civilian walking side by side with the captain of his troop remark, as he passed up the stable, "Why, there's old Smut!" When the officer and civilian had passed out he turned to the next man, and asked who the deuce the bloke was in the brown hat. "Why, that's Captain Baden-Powell," said the man; and then he added with great pride, "I was his batman once." The young soldier had heard of Baden-Powell before, and was furious that he had ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... fixed, glazed eyes in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... golden Papa, the mighty merchant with the naked head and the two chins.—Ha! my good dears, I am closer than you think for to the business, now. Have you been patient so far? or have you said to yourselves, 'Deuce-what-the-deuce! ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... Everybody knows that. What the deuce was the good then of our going down here? I couldn't do anything, and I knew he wouldn't. The truth is, Mistletoe, a man now-a-days may do just what he pleases. You ain't in that line and it won't do you any good knowing it, but since we did away with pistols everybody may do just ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... meanness." But rising somewhat disconcerted—"really, early as it is, I think I must retire; my head," putting up his hand to it, "feels unpleasantly; this confounded elixir of logwood, little as I drank of it, has played the deuce with me." ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... was a little relief to me,—when to my utter astonishment B——, the eldest partner, began a formal harangue to me on the length of my services, my very meritorious conduct during the whole of the time (the deuce, thought I, how did he find out that? I protest I never had the confidence to think as much). He went on to descant on the expediency of retiring at a certain time of life (how my heart panted!) and asking me a few questions as to the amount of my ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... and the trees were green, She thought that the trump was in her hand, He thought that he held the queen. But winter has come, and they both have strayed Away from the throbbing wave— He finds 'twas only the deuce she played, She finds that ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... 'What the deuce do you want?' I began angrily; then, as he raised his weak, watery eyes to mine, and I saw that his grey hairs were as wet as his boots, I relented. Perhaps he was someone who knew my wife or her people, and wanted to condole with ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... guess there's nothing to prevent.... Boy, you be careful of those boxes! What the deuce do you think you're trying to do? There, that's a little better. Try to show some sense about your work, even if you ain't got any." Edward Pilkings's voice crackled like wood ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... my duty to send home your last words to your sorrowing relatives, and it would be easier to do that if I knew exactly what you had done. The death-bed repentance of the prodigal is always most consoling to the elder brother—much more consoling, in fact, than the prodigal's return. Now, how the deuce am I to make up a plausible repentance for you, if I don't ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... thought about himself, and the whole earth Of man the wonderful, and of the stars, And how the deuce they ever could have birth; And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars, How many miles the moon might have in girth, Of air-balloons, and of the many bars To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies;— And then he ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... was, reclining, with my art-treasures about me, and wanting a quiet morning. Because I wanted a quiet morning, of course Louis came in. It was perfectly natural that I should inquire what the deuce he meant by making his appearance when I had not rung my bell. I seldom swear—it is such an ungentlemanlike habit—but when Louis answered by a grin, I think it was also perfectly natural that I should damn him for grinning. ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... in advance?' 'Two hundred in advance, the remainder afterward.' 'You are afraid to trust me?' 'No, you can pocket my two hundred francs without fulfilling our agreement.' 'And you, old friend, once the affair finished, when I ask you for the remainder, can answer me— go to the deuce!' 'You must run your chance; does this suit you, yes or no? Two hundred francs down, and the night after to-morrow, here, at nine o'clock, I will give you eight hundred francs.' 'And who shall tell you that I have made these two persons drink?' 'I shall know it: that's my affair! Is it a bargain?' ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... and heroes. Yet he feels he has been cheated by the fat parson who stole sovereigns from his pocket to keep him out of h——! His spiritual bones fairly ache with the leagues he has travelled, hunting up the throne of God! "Where the deuce," he mutters, "is the showman?" He can't find the lake of fire and brimstone without ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... and set to work at it. Moreover, he is made to fetch and carry like a dog. Like as not, if the mate sends him after his quadrant, on the way he is met by the captain, who orders him to pick some oakum; and while he is hunting up a bit of rope, a sailor comes along and wants to know what the deuce he's after, and bids him be ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... which the participants enjoy a racket on the side and raise the deuce over a net, while the volleys drive them from set to set and love scores as often as ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... doctor is concerned," said Mr. Jelliffe, slowly. "The other chap will come and undo this thing, and hurt me a lot more. I'm inclined to let things slide. This practice of yours ought to be a great thing for a stout man needing a reducing diet. How the deuce do you keep from starving ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... "'This is a deuce of a place, Mr. Earnshaw,' the captain said. 'We must do nothing hastily in this matter, or we shall only be throwing away the lives of a lot of men, and failing in our object. I was intending to sail ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... weigh in the balance the place to which she had been invited; and she added as quickly as possible: "It isn't to America then?" The Countess, at this, looked sharply at Beale, and Beale, airily enough, asked what the deuce it mattered when she had already given him to understand she wanted to have nothing to do with them. There followed between her companions a passage of which the sense was drowned for her in the deepening inward hum of her mere desire to get off; though she was able to guess later ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... from them. Shells have had a principal hand in the formation of this peninsula. They form the ninety-ninth part of the rock in this quarter. It is a most convenient formation, being worked almost as easily as clay, and yet it makes substantial walls. Frost, I presume, would play the deuce with it. But that is a thing not much known here. I have not yet had the pleasure to fix my northern eye on a piece of ice this winter, though there has been a cream thickness of it once or twice. A pitcher frozen over here makes more noise than the river frozen over at ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... grocer ceased his avocation and hastened to obey the summons. "How the deuce does the man know me?" muttered he, forgetting that his name was over the door in gilt ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... afterwards assured me it was the hottest corner he had ever been in. Bush-country fighting is detestable chiefly because you cannot see your enemy until you are on top of him. Our centre cantered in extended order up an avenue flanked by dense bush. We were laughing and asking where the deuce the rebels were, when a hail of rifle fire at short range greeted us. Our fellows were out of their saddles in a second, and advanced to the attack through the bush. Meantime, the South African Police extreme left had swept round to the head of the spruit on both sides of which the donga was formed, ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... thought I had better come up with Charley, since I was woke up. Hullo! what is that?" he added, glancing astern at the felucca, which was now almost within speaking distance, and coming on as if she were going to sheer alongside. "What the deuce is that piratical-looking craft running us aboard like that for? If I were you, Mr Tompkins, I would signal them to stand off, and call up the captain ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... a pony, dear boy," grinned Beaumanoir. "There was a deuce of a shindy when three fat johnnies tried to pull me out of my compartment. I told 'em I didn't give a tinker's continental for their bally frontier, and then the band played. I slung one joker through the window. Good job it was open, or he might have ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... If she whom the king had run off with was either a Miss Grafton or a Miss Stewart, I should be of his opinion; nay, I should even think him not half miserable enough; but she is a little, thin, lame thing. Deuce take such fidelity as that! Surely, one can hardly understand how a man can refuse a girl who is rich, for one who is poverty itself—a girl who loves him for one who deceives ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... them—"yes, these letters make it plain. He was a Lieutenant Calhoun Pennington, and he was from the Rebel army at Corinth. I take it he was on his way back to Kentucky to recruit for the command of a Captain John H. Morgan. Morgan—Morgan, I have heard of that fellow before. He played the deuce with us in Kentucky last winter: burned the railroad bridge over Bacon Creek, captured trains, tore up the railroad, and played smash generally. These letters all seem to be private ones written by the soldiers in Morgan's command to their relatives and friends back in Kentucky. But he may have ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... gone out. In spite of himself, he had slipped from the easy-going, casual tone into one that was becoming persuasive, apologetic, strenuous. Although the day was not particularly warm, he began to perspire a little; and he repeated the words over to himself, "I understand you." What the deuce did the rector know? He had somehow the air of knowing everything—more than Mr. Plimpton did. And Mr. Plimpton was beginning to have the unusual and most disagreeable feeling of having been weighed in the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... said. What a greeting was this! Who says that a woman cannot be as cruel as a man? The dinner was not very cheerful, though Margaret did her best not to appear constrained, and Henderson rattled on about the events of the day. It had been a deuce of a day, but it was coming right; he felt sure that the upper court would dissolve the injunction; the best counsel said so; and the criminal proceedings—"Had there been criminal proceedings?" asked Margaret, with a stricture at her heart—had broken ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... should he be?" said Scaife. "Well, it's queer. Dukes[3] and dukes' sons come to Harrow—all the Hamiltons were here, and the FitzRoys, and the St. Maurs—but the Kinlochs, as I say, have gone to Eton. It's a rum thing—very. And why the deuce hasn't he ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Hester?" he said. "I can smell in the air something has gone wrong: what the deuce is it? There's always something getting out of gear in ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... magnifying glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me, very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often. But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it be from? Pooh! it's only ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Slosh diminished my lead by fifteen. The Renshaw Slam brought the score to Deuce. Then I got in a really fine serve, which beat him. 'Vantage in. Another Slosh. Deuce. Another Slam. 'Vantage out. It was an awesome moment. There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood—I served. Fault. I served again—a beauty. He returned it like a ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... luk'd to see if he wor commin', aw'm blow'd! if he hadn't put his cloas into bed an hung hissen ovver th' cheer back. Awm sure aw connot tell where all this marchin' is likely to lead us to at last, but aw hooap we shall be all reight, for aw do think ther's plenty o' room to mend even yet, but the deuce on it is,' ther's soa monny different notions abaat what is reight wol aw'm flamigaster'd amang it. Some say drink is the besetting sin; another says 'bacca is man's ruination. One says we're all goin' ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... woman. Hello, 297? The hospital? This is Burke of the secret service. Will you tell my man, who must be somewhere about, that I would like to have him hold that woman who was in the auto smash until I can - what? Gone? The deuce!" ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... the answer, as they shook hands. "That wretched climate played the deuce with me, and they graciously gave me a step and allowed me to retire upon it. The very deuce, I assure you, Philip. Beg pardon, ma'am," he added seeing the lady look ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... "How the deuce CAN people dine at such an hour?" say several genteel fellows who are watching the manoeuvres. "I can't touch a morsel ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... o'clock, still afoot, we heard that there was a deuce of a row going on at the Ha-ta Gate, because it was still locked and the key was gone. It now transpired that a party of volunteers, led by the Swiss hotel-keeper of the place and his wife, had marched down to the gate after the Boxers had rushed in, had locked it, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... as she drew the lone nine of Clubs from the dummy, to place beside Carolyn's Ace, but Penny's fingers were quite steady as she followed with the deuce of Clubs, to which Karen added, with a trace of characteristic ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... discovery struck him as curious. He argued with himself that he had every right to feel afraid, that he ought to feel "queer." He said to himself, "Here you are, as nervous and temperamental a youth as ever stepped, with a mental laziness that amounts to moral cowardice, in the deuce of a hole that I don't expect you'll ever get out of. You ought to be in an awful state. Your cheeks ought to be white, and there they are looking like two raw beef-steaks. Your tongue ought to cleave to the roof of your mouth; and it isn't. You ought to feel ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... know it is a hard thing for me to say. I know it will sound heartless. But I am bound to say so. It is for your sake. I can't hurt myself. It does me no harm that everybody knows that I am philandering after you; but it is the very deuce for you." She was silent for a moment. Then he said again emphatically, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... been fitted with a conductor. There was a meeting of the dignitaries some years back; some argued in favour and some against it, and it ended in neither party being persuaded, and nothing being done. I met another Englishman here, to whom the question might so properly be put, "What the deuce are you doing here?" An old worthy, nearly seventy, who, after having passed his fair allowance of life very happily in his own country, must, forsooth, come up the Rhine, without being able to speak a word of French, or any other language but his own. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Foreign Office, my lord," he said. A moment afterwards a young official, his subordinate, entered. "There's the deuce to pay in Egypt, sir; I've brought ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... there is new Order shaping itself free: but what a faith this, that of all new Orders out of Chaos and Possibility of Man and his Universe, Louis Sixteenth and Two-Chamber Monarchy were precisely the one that would shape itself! It is like undertaking to throw deuce-ace, say only five hundred successive times, and any other throw to be fatal—for Bouille. Rather thank Fortune, and Heaven, always, thou intrepid Bouille; and let contradiction of its way! Civil war, conflagrating ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... "What a deuce of a clamor is made about this new comet or planet! What a useful thing to us poor, mud-stranded mortals to find out that there is another little fragment of a world, away some hundreds of millions of miles, outside of no particular where—for I believe this astronomical detective ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... a whisper. "He will hear you. Ha!" he continued after a short pause, during which they moved on towards the mess-room, "you begin to find out his amiable military qualities, do you! But tell me, Ronayne, what the deuce has put this Quixotic expedition into your head? What great interest do you take in these fishermen, that you should volunteer to break your shins in the wood, this dark night, for the purpose of seeking them, and that on the very day when your ladye ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... lead him on; partly because, out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of the girl's unconcealed suspense. "Go on, please, Mr. Calendar. You throw yourself on a total stranger's mercy because you're in the deuce ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... men belonging to these soul-forsaken years: Third-rate canvassers, collectors, journalists and auctioneers. They are never very shabby, they are never very spruce — Going cheerfully and carelessly and smoothly to the deuce. Some are wanderers by profession, 'turning up' and gone as soon, Travelling second-class, or steerage (when it's cheap they go saloon); Free from 'ists' and 'isms', troubled little by belief or doubt — Lazy, purposeless, and useless — knocking round and hanging out. ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... the Sea Puss is found, Cat-like, forever chasing round and round. She has no claws, but crouching sly and low She stealthily puts out her undertow. And when an old seadog comes in her way I'll warrant you there is the deuce ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... ejaculated Von Sendlingen in relief, when all had gone out, as he sprang on the rifle and feverishly fingered it. "This is the rifle of their latest finish. What an odd arrangement! Where the deuce is the hammer—the trigger—and all that goes toward making up the good old rifle of our fathers? Oh, Science, Science! what liberties are taken in your name!" he cried in drollery too bitter not to be intended to cover his vexation. "Mind, this rifle ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... thought Luck, why the deuce hadn't he done it at first? But there is no fathoming the reticence of an Indian—and Luck, by a sudden impulse, hid his own knowledge of the language. He stood up and turned toward the rocks, cupped his hands around his lips and called for the Native Son. "And leave your ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... 'Haven't I been at my wits' ends for myself or my friends ever since I come to man's estate—to years of discretion, I should say, for the deuce a foot of estate have I! But use has sharpened my wits pretty well for your service; so never be in dread, my good lord for look ye!' cried the reckless knight, sticking his arms akimbo 'look ye here! in Sir Terence O'Fay stands a ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... joined me mysteriously from the deuce knows where, and we staggered to the dancing-house somehow, and struggled in, blinded, our faces scored, our clothes heavy with sand, our pockets, our very boots, ...
— Desert Air - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... feel That dogs were human? Well, there's Bruce, My collie—brighter than the deuce! Just talk in ordinary tones— A joke, he barks, speak sad, he moans, The other day I said to him, 'Here, Bruce, take this to Uncle Jim,' And gave ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... and Exegetics with Fortsch [How the deuce did Fortsch teach these things?]; Hermeneutics and Polemics with Walch [editor of—Luther's Works,—I suppose]; Hebraics with Dr. Danz; Homiletics with Dr. Weissenborn; PASTORALE [not Pastoral Poetry, but the Art of Pastorship] and MORALE with Dr. Buddaeus.' [There, your Majesty!—what a glimpse, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... for Wally. What the devil did the fellow mean? The deuce of it was that he knew all the facts and Wally did not. He talked as if he meant it, but behind those cool eyes there might lie either mockery or irony. One thing alone stood out to Selfridge like a sore thumb. His plans had come tumbling down like a house of cards. Either Big Bill ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... marriage of Khalid and Najma, the parish priest places a ban upon it. And in this, ye people of Baalbek, is food enough for tattle, and cause enough for persecution. Potent are the ruffles of the Church! But why, we can almost hear the anxious Reader asking, if the camels are ready, why the deuce don't they get on and get them gone? But did we not say once that Khalid is slow, even slower than the law itself? Nevertheless, if this were a Novel, an elopement would be in order, but we must repeat, it is not. We are faithful transcribers of ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... it, in silhouette against menacing clouds, a lone and austere figure. He was dismayed by a sudden contempt for his surest friends. He grasped Louetta Swanson's hand, and found the comfort of human warmth. Habit came, a veteran warrior; and he shook himself. "What the deuce is the ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... sure and tell him, Willets. I suppose we must go to bed. Many thanks for the splendid sport. I have to get back to Chatham to-morrow, worse luck, and with the Sunday trains it takes a deuce of ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... it—the ace, backed by ten and deuce. Here it is. All ready?" He turned them down, in order; methodically, even listlessly moved them to and fro, yet with light, sure, well-nigh bewildering touch. Suddenly lifted his hands. "All set. A dollar you don't face up the ace at ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... Maitre Quennebert; "swallow the honey of his words, do But how the deuce is it going to end? Not Satan himself ever invented such ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... years ago I came here as innocent as Caruthers there; never knew anything. Fernhurst taught me everything; Fernhurst made me worship games, and think that they alone mattered, and everything else could go to the deuce. I heard men say about bloods whose lives were an open scandal, 'Oh, it's all right, they can play football.' I thought it was all right too. Fernhurst made me think it was. And now Fernhurst, that has made me what I am, ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... 'em, anyhow. And if they try to arrest us without a warrant there'll be the deuce to pay. But they aren't going to make any more trouble. I know these country crooks. They've got no stomach for trouble outside ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... and the little roll of greenbacks dropped to the floor unheeded. "Fact is," said the young fellow, carried away by that impulse toward confidence which the sight of Persis was likely to inspire in the least communicative, "fact is we're having the deuce of ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... "Oh, the deuce! I did n't mean to show that one; it 's the other." And Tom took up a second paper, looking half angry, half ashamed at his own mistake. "I don't care, though; every one will know to-morrow; and perhaps you 'll be good enough to ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... "Ah, the deuce! I had forgotten! I wanted to finish. Look at this, quite fresh, and perfectly pure this time; something ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... you look! More fitted for the sick list than the sentry's duties. What the deuce is ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... up from one side, were echoed from God knows what distant lake. From the grass arose, with measured sweep, a gull, and bathed luxuriously in blue waves of air. And now she has vanished on high, and appears only as a black dot: now she has turned her wings, and shines in the sunlight. Deuce take you, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... remind us of the showman's thread with which he draws up his pictures and presents them successively to the eye of the spectator. He seems seriously to have proceeded on Mr. Bays's maxim—"What the deuce is a plot good for, but to bring in fine things?"—Probability and perspicuity of narrative are sacrificed with the utmost indifference to the desire of producing effect; and provided the author can but contrive to "surprize and elevate," he appears ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the first to arrive, he found the old lady alone in the drawing-room. "Well! little one," he asked, with his smiling familiarity, "are your affairs going on all right? Why the deuce do you make such ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... every one of us, from the first duke in the Peerage down to Jack Ketch inclusive: which has no respect for rank, virtue, or roguery in man, but sets each in his turn in a fever; which breaks out the deuce knows how or why, and, raging its appointed time, fills each individual of the one sex with a blind fury and longing for some one of the other (who may be pure, gentle, blue-eyed, beautiful, and good; or vile, shrewish, squinting, hunchbacked, and hideous, according to circumstances and ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was foreign to the rest of the table. He appeared to be kind, she thought, and on his side he was thinking that she was a nice girl, with an attractive face and remarkable eyes. On the whole, he preferred brown eyes, though his wife's were the colour of slate. "Why the deuce did she marry that fool?" he ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... fellow," replied the gentleman. "I am certain your reasons are good for not attending to your arrangement punctually—by the way," he continued, "who the deuce was that lady I saw you escorting to ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... must be in a deuce of a mess after the tornado. Just help yourself to a set of my dry things. The shirts are in the bottom drawer, the trousers are in the box under the bed, and then come over here to the sing-song. My leg is dickey or I'd come ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the motor wizard, drawing his tow-headed friend apart, "if you're convinced your father is in San Diego, what the deuce are you expecting to see him ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... for ten years? She is safe enough in some Sanatorium, depend upon it. And what if she did come? Do you think, my dear good woman, that I—a sensible clear-headed general practitioner, who have found out all I know for myself—would let her play the deuce with me as she did with poor HALVARD? No, general practitioners don't do ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893 • Various
... he said, leaning back, and puffing at his cigar,—"what England wants is a war. (Another whisky and soda, waiter.) We're getting flabby. All this pampering of the poor is playing the very deuce with the country. A bit of a scrap with a foreign power would do us all the good in the world." He disposed of his whisky at a draught. "We're flabby," he repeated. "The lower classes seem to have no sense of discipline nowadays. We want a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... wine-shop, and asked for a bottle of wine; as he drank it he said to himself: "How the deuce am I to see Miss Carmen? She is in the salon receiving her guests. Of course, she won't come into the anteroom to get a billet doux, but if the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain, which means, that ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... job—except for the god. And in daylight it didn't seem as if It could be such an awful devil of a god. But It did have the deuce of a funny spoor, as I made haste to find out. The thing had five toes, like a man, which was a relief. But unlike nigger feet, the thumb toe and the index weren't spread. The thumb bent sharply inward, and mixed its ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... with Godunov. Or play false with the Jesuits of the Court, Than with a woman. Deuce take them; they're beyond My power. She twists, and coils, and crawls, slips out Of hand, she hisses, threatens, bites. Ah, serpent! Serpent! 'Twas not for nothing that I trembled. She well-nigh ruined me; but I'm resolved; At daybreak I will put my ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... sport," he said. "When I know you a bit better, I shall remember that. Hi, Dinah! What a deuce of a time you've been. This is Mr. Studley, and he saw you at the window ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... the table a grey-blue glance, then gently put down one half of the lemon and took up the other. "Why the deuce should he look at me in that damned reproachful fashion?" thought Ewell. He made another start. "There's a damned criss-cross of advices from Richmond. I hate uncertainty like the devil, and so I ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... said the Captain, turning over the leaves of Juliet's portfolio. "What the deuce does the girl mean? She has scribbled over all the paper. I hope she don't ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... the mischief is all this?" exclaimed the bewildered Mr Pitskiver; "this isn't the jeanie-ass you promised me a sight of. Who the deuce is this?" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... one night to stop under the window of Bernardone Kurz, a director of a theatre and the leading clown of Vienna. Down rushed Kurz very excitedly. "Who are you?" he shrieked. "Joseph Haydn." "Whose music is it?" "Mine." "The deuce it is! And at your age, too!" "Why, I must begin with something." "Come ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... tres bien (very well) but how the deuce can you be funny in the Baltic? Why call it Baltic? For days and nights at sea, sometimes up, more often down, and a sense of inability coming over me in the middle of the boundless deep. Alas, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... evening clothes, on the other hand I've a deuce of a good appetite. A brandy cocktail and ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... Hun, I'm a Dutchman!" said Tommy to himself. "And running the show darned systematically too—as they always do. Lucky I didn't roll in. I'd have given the wrong number, and there would have been the deuce to pay. No, this is the place for me. Hullo, ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... Christiania. I have lived in a spiritual shadowland, dreaming elusive dreams, my better part stayed by the fitful vision of things unseen. Such an exquisite wild-goose-chase has never man undertaken before or since the dear Knight of La Mancha. And now I come to think of it, I don't know what the deuce I have been after, save that instead of pursuing I have all ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... the Colonel, "but deuce take me, Oliver, if I know how we're to be filled. Madge would have us start off with you at once, quite rightly too, and we'd neither bite nor sup before we ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... He wondered. That copper tint in her hair suggested it. Magnificent! And what the deuce was the colour of her eyes? Sometimes there was a glint of topaz, or cornflower sapphire, gray agate; they were the most tantalizing eyes he ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... Monsieur!" That was the proper thing. Now for the—never can reach it—here's the premiere classe one—any port in a storm.... Feel better now. Narrowly missed American officer but just managed to make it. Was it yesterday or day before saw the Vaterland, I mean the what deuce is it—the biggest afloat in the world boat. Damned rough. Snow falling. Almost slid through the railing that time. Snow. The snow is falling into the sea; which quietly receives it: into which it utterly and peacefully ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... from him angrily, leaving him still standing in his pet attitude, taking mental stock of all the fast-looking fair ones who might come under his notice. "Oh, bother?" I am not prepared to assert positively that I did not use a much stronger expletive. He ought to have seen them! What the deuce was the use of his sticking star-gazing there, unless to observe people, I should like ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... is the best, I don't deny, Thou'st fee'd the keeper, and he likes to feed us, But, then the situation I decry, But crying's useless—who the deuce will heed us? Then, reader would you listen to my wail, Come, and but see me, "I'll ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... chests of diamonds, and sending them to his wife against the King's wedding—thunder go to the Tower guns, and behold, Broglie and Soubise are totally defeated; if the mob have not much stronger heads and quicker conceptions than I have, they will conclude my Lord Granby is become nabob. How the deuce in two days can one digest all this? Why is not Pondicherry in Westphalia? I don't know how the Romans did, but I cannot support two victories every week. Well, but you will want to know the particulars. Broglie and Soubise united, attacked ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... did not. What the deuce should I have done as a lawyer—or what advantage would it have been to me, to be admitted ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... market; or that the weaker sex is coming it amazingly strong. The sceptres of three of the first kingdoms in Europe are swayed by female hands. The first writer of young France is a woman. The first astronomer of young England, idem. Mrs Trollope played the Chesterfield and the deuce with the Yankees. Miss Martineau turned the head of the mighty Brougham. Mademoiselle d'Angeville ascended Mont Blanc, and Mademoiselle Rachel has replaced Corneille and Racine on their crumbling pedestals. I might waste hours of your precious time, sir, in perusing a list of the eminent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... in his mind which of his cousins, uncles and aunts was, all things considered, the greatest nuisance. Sometimes he would give the palm to Colonel Horace Mant, who struck the soldierly note—"I recollect in a hill campaign in the winter of the year '93 giving my ankle the deuce of a twist." Anon the more spiritual attitude of the Bishop of Godalming seemed to annoy ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... blockade?" shouted Parrington, in a state of the greatest excitement. "You have run the blockade, man? What the deuce do you mean?" ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... must go well, for most people are content with it. If I knew history enough, I should prove to you that evil has always come about here below through a few men of genius, but I do not know history, no more than I know anything else. The deuce take me, if I have learnt anything, or if I find myself a pin the worse for not having learnt anything. I was one day at the table of the minister of the King of——, who has brains enough for four, and he showed as plain ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... reached her, lo! the Captain, Gallant Kidd,[4] commands the crew; Passengers their berths are clapt in, Some to grumble, some to spew. "Hey day! call you that a cabin? Why't is hardly three feet square! Not enough to stow Queen Mab in— Who the deuce can harbour there?" "Who, sir? plenty— Nobles twenty Did at once my vessel fill."— "Did they? Jesus, How you squeeze us! Would to God they did so still! Then I'd 'scape the heat and racket Of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... parted, her head bent a little forward, a faint colour kept flitting across her whole face; from time to time she sighed deeply, suddenly dropped her eyes, and softly laughed to herself.... I rejoiced for Kolosov.... But at the same time, deuce ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... get at. The murderers of Telfik Bey, of course. My instructions are to find out secretly, if at all. For if it does get into the newspapers there'll be the very deuce to pay. It isn't desirable that even Telfik Bey's presence here should have been known for reasons which—ah—(here Average Jones remarked the resumption of his friend's official bearing)—which, not being for the public, I ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a letter which simply said that the bearer, Gulab Lal Singh, would look after me and my belongings. So I paid attention to the man. He was a strapping fellow, handsome as the deuce, with a Roman nose, and the eye of a ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... gathered, if there was one lonely boy in the world, languidly despairing, it was I. Many times I found myself uttering aloud such slang expressions as: "Oh, my hat! If only I had told the beastly truth for the third time! Dash it, why didn't I? Why the deuce didn't I?" I addressed myself as: "You blithering, blithering fool!" And my temples began to ache and now and then to hammer. For, always in these my early days of puberty, excitement and worry produced ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... general of our brigade, the general of our division, half a dozen other generals, three or four English officers in their smart red coats; presently there was a stir—and in came the Emperor! What the deuce it all meant I ...
— For The Honor Of France - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... it pretty easily," said Dean angrily. "You put me in the position where, if I don't lend it to you, I'm a sucker—oh, yes, you do. And let me tell you it's no easy thing for me to get hold of three hundred dollars. My income isn't so big but that a slice like that won't play the deuce with it." ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... then take him back. But they can't git him now—not if I can help it. A better cook never throwed dishwater over a guy-rope than that same old Mose, but—" He stopped and looked at Ford hesitantly. "Say! I hate like the deuce to tie a string on you as soon as you hit the ranch, Ford, but—if you've got anything along, you won't spring it on Mose, will you? A fellow's got to watch him pretty ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... the town or in the neighborhood. Shall I meet her again, I wonder? I will stay here a week or a month if—What nonsense! I must have distinguished myself, staring at her like a gawk. When she said she was the Queen of Sheba, I ought instantly to have replied—what in the deuce is it I ought to have replied? How can a man be witty with a ton of ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... broken every engagement since that afternoon I was to address the drunkards at Casterbridge Fair. The deuce only knows what I am thought of by the brethren. Ah-ha! The brethren! No doubt they pray for me—weep for me; for they are kind people in their way. But what do I care? How could I go on with the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... I think. Yes, it was after; for I remember that I had a deuce of a time unbuttoning my coat to get at ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... Of course the regular cutting for the year is done, year by year. That's as regular as the rents, and the produce is sold by the acre. But she is marking the old oaks. What the deuce ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... horizontal row. There are two kings among them, which is auspicious, for kings must be placed sometime at the top. There is a red queen, also auspicious, to be placed on one of the black kings. There is an ace of diamonds and its deuce. Good, again! The ace is placed above the row, beginning a row of aces to be placed there as fast as they fall, and the deuce is placed atop of it, for in that row the suits will be built up, each in its kind. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... 'Now, deuce take him that first good prologue writ: He left a kind of rent-charge upon wit, Which, if succeeding poets fail to pay, They forfeit all they're worth, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... rummiest go!" said the bewildered Dempsey to himself, as he walked towards his bicycle. "Mistake be damned! She was Mrs. Delane, and what's she up to now with my captain? And what the deuce ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a round score of men—in case of natives, buccaneers, or the odious French—and I had the worry of the deuce itself to find so much as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke of fortune brought me the very ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my dear Frank? You know I would scorn such meanness." But rising somewhat disconcerted—"really, early as it is, I think I must retire; my head," putting up his hand to it, "feels unpleasantly; this confounded elixir of logwood, little as I drank of it, has played the deuce with me." ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... class of men belonging to these soul-forsaken years: Third-rate canvassers, collectors, journalists and auctioneers. They are never very shabby, they are never very spruce — Going cheerfully and carelessly and smoothly to the deuce. Some are wanderers by profession, 'turning up' and gone as soon, Travelling second-class, or steerage (when it's cheap they go saloon); Free from 'ists' and 'isms', troubled little by belief or doubt — Lazy, purposeless, and useless — knocking round and hanging out. They will ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... he would go to the deuce with it, he will leave it to a hospital. Is that what you ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... materialism in philosophy; but could never bear its introduction into Christianity, which appears to me essentially founded upon the soul. For this reason, Priestley's 'Christian Materialism' always struck me as deadly. Believe the resurrection of the body, if you will, but not without a soul. The deuce is in it, if after having had a soul (as, surely, the mind, or whatever you call it, is) in this world, we must part with it in the next, even for an immortal materiality; and I own my partiality ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... brace of prebendaries, ere the archdeacon rouses himself to the battle; but at the fourth assault he pins to the earth a prostrate king, laying low his crown and sceptre, bushy beard, and lowering brow, with a poor deuce. ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... it is," said I. "Didn't you know? . . . How the deuce else do you suppose that a cricket pro. supports himself during ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hadn't, after all'—the boy took him up—'remained such an idiot? Just because I never dreamed you knew. But I beg your pardon. I only wanted to spare you. And what I don't now understand is how the deuce then for so long you've ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... give you the second kiss from Arthur. Come, better late than never." She knelt before him and put out her forehead instead of her lips. "There," said the general, "that kiss is from Arthur Wardlaw, your intended. Why, who the deuce is this?" ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... He ruffled up his neck feathers, repeating "Rubberneck, I'm cold as the deuce; what's the matter with Hannah; let 'em all ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... hear a civilian walking side by side with the captain of his troop remark, as he passed up the stable, "Why, there's old Smut!" When the officer and civilian had passed out he turned to the next man, and asked who the deuce the bloke was in the brown hat. "Why, that's Captain Baden-Powell," said the man; and then he added with great pride, "I was his batman once." The young soldier had heard of Baden-Powell before, and was furious ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... day what the President of the United States thought about English battue-shooting. Seemed to think we shot pheasants perched in the trees, and went on to say that wasn't the sport for him; he liked to go after his game, and find it for himself. Who the deuce cares if he does? If he can't talk better sense than that, no wonder CLEVELAND beat him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... I've got a big proposition to offer you. One that will beat Mascola's like an ace beats a deuce. Because this one is on ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... dumps," cried Bill sharply. "You got no more sense in your idjot head than to slep when your eyes shut. Diggin' worms on the dumps! Gee! Say, if it ain't enough to give 'em bile and measles, an'—an' spots, then I don't know a 'deuce-spot' from a hay-rake. Git right out, you loafin' bum, an' fetch 'em in, an' then get the muck off'n your face, an' clean this doggone shack up. I'd sure say you was a travelin' hospital o' disease by the look of you. I'm payin' you a wage and ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... should think so," replied Monsieur Rambaud. "It's away over yonder, on the other side of Marseilles, a deuce of a distance! Why do you ask me ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... along, half a block away, without the slightest apparent interest in what was happening behind. Inevitably Mr. Birnes' eyes were drawn to the water-plug across the street. A tag end of white paper gleamed tantalizingly. Now what the deuce did it mean? ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... he said, "how the deuce I came, of all places, to come just here! I don't believe, in all my wicked life, I ever made such a fool of myself before—and I've made many ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... ticks." He retrieved the Herald, and abstractedly smoothed out the pages. "That was a great spread-eagle speech of Mix's wasn't it? Talking about his model ordinance, and what he's going to do next year!... Nothing I'd love better than to give that fellow a dose of his own tonic. But that's the deuce of it—I can't think how to put it over.... Even if I'm licked, I wouldn't feel so badly if I just had the personal satisfaction of making him look like ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... remonstrated the motor wizard, drawing his tow-headed friend apart, "if you're convinced your father is in San Diego, what the deuce are you expecting to see him ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... in the old King's mood, And a sweet Spring freshet came Into his eyes, and his heart renewed Its love for the favored dame: But often he has been heard to declare That "he never could clearly see How, in the deuce, such a strange affair ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... said Ben; "and we had better be moving on," he added, rising and leading the way. "The fairies don't like human ears to hear their music and they might be playing tricks on us. Then we'd be in the deuce of a fix ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... afeard of you! Deuce a bit am I afeard of you! You may glare till your eyes drop out, but you'll not scare me! And you may be the Markiss of Arondelle and the Duke of Hereward, too, for aught I know, or care either! But you were just plain Mr. John Scott to me, and also to that poor, wronged lass whom ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... and the whole earth Of man the wonderful, and of the stars, And how the deuce they ever could have birth; And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars, How many miles the moon might have in girth, Of air-balloons, and of the many bars To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies;— And then he thought of Donna ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... same moment a ring at the bell stupefied him. Amidst the sudden silence of the others, he inquired—'Who, to the deuce, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... strange fancy; "but there's only one about, and it seems a deuce of a long way off—however, I'll try;" and, with that, I reached my arm up in the direction of the solitary planet, which lay in the vast obscure like a small silver candlestick, with a greenish tinge in its icy sparkling, mirrored far below in the indigo flood of the abysmal ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... The master rushed to teach him manners; And with the cudgel tanned his hide, And bullied him with words beside. Forth from another yard—a butcher's— The master rushed—his name was Mutchers— "Why, who the deuce are you?" he cried: "Why do you interfere? Bankside Has, at the Bull-pit, seen and known, And Hockleyhole and Marry-bone, That when we go to work we mean it— Why should you come and intervene it?" So said, they dragged the dogs asunder, And kicks and clubs fell down ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... forsooth, Clarence Glyndon! Every light nature answers "yes" lightly to such a question from lips so rosy! Have a care,—have a care! Why the deuce, Mejnour, do you leave your pupil of four-and-twenty to the mercy of these wild cats-a-mountain! Preach fast, and abstinence, and sublime renunciation of the cheats of the senses! Very well in ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and shakes his head, "I see by every sign, There soon will be the deuce to pay, With this estate ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... satchel—yet the curtains of Section Eleven, next his stateroom, were parted slightly, and the half-light from above streamed on a woman's loose hair. She was not looking toward where he stood; her face was turned from him, and as she clasped the curtain she was looking into his stateroom. What the deuce! thought Glover. A woman passenger in a dead sleeper? He balanced himself to the dizzy wheel of the truck under him, and waited for her to look his way—since she must be looking for the porter—but the head did not ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... Semple had a just cause of anger; "but then," he argued, "Neil is a proud, pompous fellow, for whom I never assumed a friendship. His father's hospitality I regret in any way to have abused; but who the deuce could have suspected that Neil Semple was in love with the adorable Katherine? In faith, I did not at the first, and now 'tis too late. I would not resign the girl for my life; for I am sensible that life, if she is another's, will be a very tedious ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... "These women are the deuce—" he began; when suddenly the great bell of the Castle started to ring furiously, and a loud shout reached us ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... Aw, the vicar's a grand man, but he's only a parzon, you see. Mr. Christian, is it? He's got too much work to do to be thinking about women. We're living on the nineteenth century, boys, and it's middling hard feeding for some of us. If the fishing's going to the dogs and the farming going to the deuce, don't be tossing head over tip at the tail of the tourist. If you've got the pumping engine inside of you, in plain English, if you've got the indomable character of the rael Manxman, do as I done—go foreign. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... that we will," answered Cap heartily; for he began to have more confidence in the security of his scalp now that he saw the sun again. "I set down the arrival of the Scud as one circumstance, and the chances of Oh-deuce's honesty as another. This Jasper is a young man of prudence, you find; for he keeps a good offing, and seems determined to know how matters stand on the island before ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... he, musing; "but the postmark is Plymouth. How the deuce—!" The two first lines of the letter were read, and the old man's countenance fell. Susan, who had been all alive at the mention of McElvina's name, perceived the alteration in her ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... said Harry, very gloomily, "and—and papers that I am very sorry to lose. What the deuce has come of it? I had it ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mike the Angel was looking down at two hands of cards, wondering whether he'd make his contract. His own hand held the ace, nine, seven of spades; the ten, six, two of hearts; the jack, ten, nine, four, three, and deuce of diamonds; and ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... sailor whose medal-ribbon was an inch or so too low down. Fixing the man with his eye, the admiral asked: "Did you get that medal for eating, my man?" On the man replying "No, sir," the admiral rapped out: "Then why the deuce do you ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... seemeth good and square, yet is it forged longer, vppon the Cater, and Trea, then any other way: And therefore it is called a Langret. Such be also cal'd bard Cater treas, because commonly, the longer end will of his owne sway drawe downewards, and turne vp to the eie, Sixe, Sincke, Deuce or Ace. The principall vse of them is at Nouum, for so longe a paire of Bard cater treas be walking on the bourd, so longe can ye not cast fiue, nor nine, vnles it be by greate chance, that the roughnes of the table, or some other stoppe force them to stay, and runne against their ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... in a hurry. He was not in the best of humors; why the deuce couldn't Fraser manage without dragging him there? He had carte blanche as to how he ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... was just it. What the deuce is a fellow to do when a woman goes on in that way? She told me down there, upon the old race-course, you know, that matrimonial bonds were made for fools and slaves. What was I to suppose that she meant by that? But, to make all sure, I asked her what ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... Michael, the idea wore a less attractive countenance. Was Michael the man to be blackmailed? and was Morris the man to do it? Grave considerations. "It's not that I'm afraid of him," Morris so far condescended to reassure himself; "but I must be very certain of my ground, and the deuce of it is, I see no way. How unlike is life to novels! I wouldn't have even begun this business in a novel, but what I'd have met a dark, slouching fellow in the Oxford Road, who'd have become my accomplice, and known all about how to do it, and probably broken into Michael's house at night and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mise-en-scene, and its splendid "Missis-en-scene," too, "There would seem no reason," continues the generous SCOTT, "why Antony and Cleopatra should not be regarded as what is euphemistically (a deuce of a word this) known as a 'Christmas Piece.'" By all means. Be it so. Will the fair Manageress take the hint, and announce a grand Transformation Scene for Boxing Night, with the pantomimic cast thus distributed:—Harlequin, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... exclaimed, turning with a bouncing flounce and looking straight at the Major. "Marry Pennington! Why, she shan't, John. That's all there is of it. We object and that settles it. Why, what the deuce can she ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... is an agreeable acquaintance, but a tiresome friend. "The wit of the company, next to the butt of the company," says Mrs. Montagu, "is the meanest person in it. The great duty of conversation is to follow suit, as you do at whist: if the eldest hand plays the deuce of diamonds, let not his next neighbour dash down the king of hearts, because his hand is full of honours. I do not love to see a man of wit win all the ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... "The very deuce of a hurry, little one; why?" Bertie never was in a hurry, however, and he said this as lazily as possible, shaking the white horsehair over his helmet, and drawing in deep draughts of Turkish ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... that. It is because you act as if you really cared to have me talk about my own affairs. I never met a girl before that did. Now, I want to ask you about that club business. There's going to be the deuce and all to pay in that if I'm not careful. Have you thought it over? What would you do if you ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to Valre). Thither no coxcomb comes. (Valre again bows to him). What the deuce!... (He turns and sees Ergaste bowing on the other side). Another? What a great ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... hesitated Joe, "how the deuce you going to pack a radiophone outfit, all those coils, batteries and boxes, when you're shipwrecked? How you going to keep 'em dry with the rain pelting you from above and the salt water beating at you from below? Lot of sense to that! Huh!" ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... don't suppose Micky cares for that old thing he has married! That was what I was trying to save him from. He'd have had to be the deuce of a lot worse than he is ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... receive four hundred, and give me four hundred, what the deuce will you make out ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... young men; they have been ruined by light wines and French quadrilles. "They've nothing," he says, "of the spirit of the old service. There are none of your six-bottle men left, that were the souls of a mess-dinner, and used to play the very deuce among ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... feels he has been cheated by the fat parson who stole sovereigns from his pocket to keep him out of h——! His spiritual bones fairly ache with the leagues he has travelled, hunting up the throne of God! "Where the deuce," he mutters, "is the showman?" He can't find the lake of fire and ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... order to show how differently a democrat and an aristocrat saw the same thing. As for French criticisms they have never been able to exalt me in my own opinion nor to stir my bile, for they are written with such evident ignorance (I mean of English books) as to be beneath notice. What the deuce do I care whether my books are on their shelves or not? What did I ever get from France or Continental Europe? Neither personal favors nor money. But this they cannot understand, for so conceited is a Frenchman that many of them think that ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... became pally, I had no idea he was really making love to you. No idea, I assure you. If I'd known, I certainly wouldn't have invited him to Auchinleven or accepted his presents. Now I don't know what the deuce to do. I'm in a frightfully awkward position. ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... date been settled for that? Is there a plan for employing the German fleet? What is said about the German fleet joining the French?' That is only a small portion of the long list; but it is quite enough for anyone to guess at the nature of the rest of the questions. What the deuce! Admiral Hollway would like to learn everything for his paltry thirty pounds! or were they only a little on account? I cannot believe, M. Penurot, that your Antwerp correspondent would be willing to sell so much ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... is staking his little all on the play to be given this evening, and will be forced—if it does not succeed—to leave this marvellous scenery, these rich stuffs at a hundred francs the yard, unpaid for. His fourth failure is staring him in the face. But, deuce take it! our manager has confidence. Success, like all the monsters that feed on man, loves youth; and this unknown author whose name is entirely new on the posters, flatters the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... to get hold of liquids out there, that's the worst of it," the pilot went on. "But for that any booby could manage a ship. He's only got to keep well to the right of Mads Hansen's farm, and he's got a straight road before him. And the deuce of a fine road! Telegraph-wires and ditches and a row of poplars on each side—just improved by the local board. You've just got to wipe the porridge off your mustache, kiss the old woman, and climb up on to the bridge, and there you are! Has the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... from the deuce knows where, and we staggered to the dancing-house somehow, and struggled in, blinded, our faces scored, our clothes heavy with sand, our pockets, our very ...
— Desert Air - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... son. This is to be a battle of the Centaurs, these are Parthian horsemen;—Saint George and the Dragon, and the Crusaders are not yet finished. The king wants the Apocalyptic riders too. Deuce take it! But it must be done. I shall commence them to-morrow. They are intended for the walls and ceiling of the new winter riding-school. One person gets along slowly with all this stuff, and I—I. . . . The orders oppress me. If a man could only double, quadruple himself! ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Beltravers, as soon as he was alone. He paced rapidly up and down the tiled kitchen. "Deuce take it," he added recklessly, "she's a lovely girl." The Beltraverses were noted in two ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen, And sair wi' his love he did deave me; I said there was naething I hated like men, The deuce gae wi'm, to believe, believe me, The deuce ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... waded through the booklet on "What Makes the Engine Go." It took us close on half a day To read through all the guff; The engine goes all right, but don't Keep goin' long enough. It's very good to understand What makes the engine go. But why the deuce the d—- thing stops Is what we want to know. So now we're making this request, While tears and curses drop, Please send along a booklet on What Makes the Engine Stop. The folk around here all await With interest your reply: To them the reasons why she goes Don't seem ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... of Old Nick," said Lady Castlemaine. "Who the deuce wants to remember anything, except what cards are out ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... paper again, and re-read the whole business. "But when does the Tramp come in? Why the deuce was he ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... witnessing a play of semi-French, not purely domestic English life, and the essence of the play could not be adapted to ordinary English notions. Julian Beauclerc, for example, in England, would never have challenged Count Orloff; he might have had "a deuce of a row with him"; et voila tout. Dora, as a young Irish girl, and not, as she is here, a half-breed, would never have threatened to suicide herself out of the window, though all else she, as a not particularly well-educated, but certainly very impulsive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various
... to a whisper. "I say, haven't we had almost enough?" he asked. "A fortnight's a deuce of a time! She's all very well, but it's jollier when we're alone, Luce. I want us ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... "Deuce take it," said Bolton, cheerfully; "I don't know why it just occurs to me that in Water Street there's a comfortable tavern, where one might be very well off between a glass of gin and a bottle of porter. Can you ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... the pack to all the players and then turn up the next card for trumps; if the trump turned up is the same suit as the last, the dealer must give another three cards until a different suit turns up trumps. In playing this game the ace is the highest card and the deuce (the two) is ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... they went, he had been there before them. He appeared to have under his orders a dozen men, four of whom at least certainly belonged to the Rue de Jerusalem. All the detectives had met him; and he had spoken to them. To one, he had said: "What the deuce are you showing this photograph for? In less than no time you will have a crowd of witnesses, who, to earn three francs, will describe some one more like the portrait than ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... would come up soon and see about it. Well, you know he died the next week, and little Bluebell was left to me. Those were hard times for me, Archie, as you know. Maud was taken next, and I was left alone with two helpless children on my hands and my finances in the very deuce of a state. I forgot all about everything but the troubles that had come upon me. Then I sent for Eleanor to look after my family, and after she came I had other reasons you know nothing about for keeping silent concerning Captain ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... a Tully!" said Candide; "this great man, I fancy, you are never tired of reading."—"Indeed, I never read him at all," replied Pococurante. "What a deuce is it to me whether he pleads for Rabirius or Cluentius? I try causes enough myself. I had once some liking to his philosophical works; but when I found he doubted of every thing, I thought I knew as much as himself, and had no need of a ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... have such men as Tommy. He'd be at home in a palace, now wouldn't he? And it's jest the same in a miner's shanty. Ye don't have such men as he. If he takes a likin' to anybody, he sticks to 'em through thick and thin; but if he gits ag'in ye once, he's—the—very—deuce. Ah, ye don't have no such man out ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... room in the morning while I was still asleep, causing much misery; but Jeeves seems to know when I'm awake by a sort of telepathy. He always floats in with the cup exactly two minutes after I come to life. Makes a deuce of a lot of difference ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... has had a look in since," grinned Georgie vacuously. "Even Reggie de la Vere, who is a deuce of a fellah with the girls, could not get within ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... It must go well, for most people are content with it. If I knew history enough, I should prove to you that evil has always come about here below through a few men of genius, but I do not know history, no more than I know anything else. The deuce take me, if I have learnt anything, or if I find myself a pin the worse for not having learnt anything. I was one day at the table of the minister of the King of——, who has brains enough for four, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... Liberty on the loose, And All the Russias capped in red, And Demos hustling like the deuce, And Tsardom's day as good as dead— When on the Dynasty they dance And with the Imperial Orb play hockey, I feel that LITTLE WILLIE'S chance Looks, at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... I can puzzle it out yet myself," said Barraclough. "If they've got it, why the deuce do they come ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... less you must concede that the world has invariably progressed because, upon the whole, we find civilisation to be more comfortable than barbarism; and that a wholesome apprehension of the penitentiary enables many of us to rise to deaconships. Why, deuce take it, Jill! I may endow a hospital because I want to see my name over the main entrance, I may give a beggar a penny because his gratitude puts me in a glow of benevolence that is cheap at the price. So let us not rashly declare ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... told Jimmy. Then Gibson offered to do it, and with a very similar result. With suaviter in modo, sed fortiter in re, I informed him that I did not consider him a sufficiently crack shot to enable him to win a Wimbledon shield; and what the deuce did he—but there, I had to shoot the poor miserable creature, who already had two rifle bullets in his carcass, and I am sure with his last breath he thanked me for that quick relief. There was not sufficient flesh on his bones to cure; but we got a quantity of what there was, and because we ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... That dogs were human? Well, there's Bruce, My collie—brighter than the deuce! Just talk in ordinary tones— A joke, he barks, speak sad, he moans, The other day I said to him, 'Here, Bruce, take this to Uncle Jim,' And ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... is not certainly a form of colloquialism that I should feel inclined to encourage. It is very odd; I wrote it very carefully, and you seem to have read it very carefully, and yet none of us found it out. The Deuce is in it. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... too great a deuce of a hurry to satisfy that curiosity, dear man," Poppy put in. "You must contrive to exercise patience for a little while yet, please; always remembering that it is entirely superfluous to run to catch a train which is bound not to start until you are on board ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... side, were echoed from God knows what distant lake. From the grass arose, with measured sweep, a gull, and bathed luxuriously in blue waves of air. And now she has vanished on high, and appears only as a black dot: now she has turned her wings, and shines in the sunlight. Deuce take you, steppes, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... cried, sitting up in bed, "what the deuce am I doing here? Nothing. Nothing on earth. Let's get out of it." So out he had got, and could not ask for breakfast at four in ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... because an elderly gentleman, who was no other than Doctor Jeddler himself - it was Doctor Jeddler's house and orchard, you should know, and these were Doctor Jeddler's daughters - came bustling out to see what was the matter, and who the deuce played music on his property, before breakfast. For he was a great philosopher, Doctor Jeddler, ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... I ever saw in my life!" he panted. "But, you young scaramouch! what the deuce d'you mean by stopping ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... Justine to herself, "monsieur wants to send me away, does he? Wait and see the deuce of a life I'll ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... my right hand to ride, only it wouldn't carry him. I can't make horses. Harry brought home that brown mare on Tuesday with an overreach that she won't get over this season. What the deuce they do with their horses to knock them about so, I can't understand. I've killed horses in my time, and ridden them to a stand-still, but I never bruised them and battered them about ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the people of Furseborough were devoted to the good cause, but I never expected such enthusiasm as they have displayed to-night;" i.e., Why the deuce don't they cheer all together, instead of clapping here and clapping there? Must try to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... that? Well, I'm glad something happened—and you didn't go. It wasn't the same when I got back, an' SHE wasn't the same, Miki. Lord, she'd got married, AND HAD TWO KIDS! Think of that, old scout—TWO! How the deuce could she have taken care of you and the cub, eh? And nothing else was the same, Boy. Three years in God's Country—up here where you burst your lungs just for the fun of drinking in air—changed ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... If you hear of any thing good out your way to drop a couple of hundred thousand in, let me know—better wire me. Politics have played the deuce with my Utahs. Julia sends her love, and wants me to enclose you yards of newspaper clippings about the party. Ha! Ha! Not by a damn sight! It's enough that I was bored to death by it! The "young'un" often speaks of you. She is getting togged ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... are inclined to lose their ideals in this complicated atmosphere of civilization. They run one another down like the deuce, and it is quite time that stopped. What is the use of A running down Scott because he served with Shackleton, or B going for Amundsen because he served with Scott? They have all done good work; within their limits, the best work to date. There are ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... perceive something yesterday evening; what the deuce was his meaning with those stupid questions he put to her? 'Does cousin like this?' or 'Is cousin fond of that?' I don't like that at all myself. Louise is not yet full-grown, and already people come and ask her, 'Does cousin like—?' Well, it may signify very little after all, which would ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... was an insidious blow at one of the most important of our industries. How could wigs be made unless there were bald heads. And how wrong it was to divert any class of persons, under the shallow pretence of making them wiser and better, from the making of bald heads. There would be the deuce toupee if this kind of thing were to be encouraged, and their tonsorial constituents would bring them to the Scratch on this question. He was proud to say that he was an Old Wig. Others might hold ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... frightened, a little. "Well, well! but it is usually the deuce and all, this doing of the manly thing. How, then, can I come ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... Hendrik, added, "I wish Arend had let the horse go to the deuce. It was not worth following into a place ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... "That's right, Skipper. We have. I guess we'll just have to grit our teeth and wait—gee—three years, anyway, till I'm twenty-one! That's the deuce of a long time, isn't it? Lord, why wasn't I born five years before you? Then it would be O. K. Loads of girls are ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... found him," said Rosie cheerfully. "Had the deuce of a time locating him." And the Nurse, apprising in one glance his stocky figure and heavy shoulders, his ill-at-ease arrogance, his weak, and just now sullen but not ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Oh, dear; oh, dear! Deuce take Carlton Smythe an' 'is supper party— those are my sentiments; an' Lal Roper, busybody that 'e is! Things were goin' on with us as smooth an' peaceful as could be, before ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... On the other hand, Teal was certainly taking a liberty. He could, if he so pleased, tell Teal to go to the deuce. Technically, he had the right to freeze Teal with ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... the gamblers, (it is a serious truth) though shot dead, still held the cards hard gripped in his hands. Led by curiosity to inspect this strange sight, a dead gambler, we found that the cards which he held were ace, deuce, and jack. Clubs were trumps. Holding high, low, jack, and the game, in his own hand, he seemed to be in a fair way to do well; but Marion came down upon him with a trump that spoiled his sport, and non-suited ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... regrets and into his advice that they should consult a lawyer. It was not business-like; if it were generally known it might be criticised; but in the last resort, with a thing like that, Hilary felt that he could always tell his critics to go to the deuce, and fall ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... dunderheadedness.] But there's no room for difference. She's a wild, headstrong, dissatisfied, foolish little filly. The deuce couldn't ride her—she'd shy at her own shadow—"Carmencita." Oh, very well then, I'll wager you—and I'll give you odds too—"Decorum" will come in first, and I'll lay three to one he'll beat Carmencita by five ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... in a spiritual shadowland, dreaming elusive dreams, my better part stayed by the fitful vision of things unseen. Such an exquisite wild-goose-chase has never man undertaken before or since the dear Knight of La Mancha. And now I come to think of it, I don't know what the deuce I have been after, save that instead of pursuing I have all the time ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... argued with himself that he had every right to feel afraid, that he ought to feel "queer." He said to himself, "Here you are, as nervous and temperamental a youth as ever stepped, with a mental laziness that amounts to moral cowardice, in the deuce of a hole that I don't expect you'll ever get out of. You ought to be in an awful state. Your cheeks ought to be white, and there they are looking like two raw beef-steaks. Your tongue ought to cleave to the roof of your mouth; and it isn't. You ought to feel pains ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... no evening clothes, on the other hand I've a deuce of a good appetite. A brandy cocktail and ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... timber-yard at about noon the next day, selected what he required, and pompously tendered the thousand-franc note in payment. 'Whe-e-e-e-w!' whistled Dufour, 'the deuce!' at the same time looking with keen scrutiny ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... them for Dolcino," I said: surprised a moment afterwards at being in a position—thanks to Miss Ambient—to be so explanatory; and surprised even now that Mark should n't have shown visibly that he wondered what the deuce I knew about it But he did n't; he simply exclaimed, with a ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... she drew the lone nine of Clubs from the dummy, to place beside Carolyn's Ace, but Penny's fingers were quite steady as she followed with the deuce of Clubs, to which Karen added, with a trace of ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... die from the dice-box; and coincidence signifies one falling-out on the top of another, the concurrent happening of two or more chances which resemble or somehow fit into each other. If you rattle six dice in a box and throw them, and they turn up at haphazard—say, two aces, a deuce, two fours, and a six—there is nothing remarkable in this falling out. But if they all turn up sixes, you at once suspect that the dice are cogged; and if that be not so—if there be no sufficient cause behind the phenomenon—you ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... without him, and you will keep your Mr. Clinch. A thorough officer in a ship's hold is an advantage not to be thrown away; and I suppose, if Hotham had asked such a thing of old Agamemnon, he might have whistled for the favor. The deuce is in it, if we do not get as ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... which I thought at the time a particularly nugatory and even schoolboy step, and only consented to because I had held the reins so tight over my little band before, has raised a deuce of a row - new proclamation, no one is to interview the sacred puppet without consuls' permission, two days' notice, and an approved interpreter - read (I suppose) spy. Then back; I should have said I was trying the new horse; a ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 'Steam enough to wreck Europe! I almost wish I'd never godfathered you into this blessed little stoke-hole. Why the deuce didn't you enlist at home ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
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