"Ace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have had it as well without as with a repeal? Iowa and Minnesota, to both of which the Missouri restriction applied, had, without its repeal, each in succession, territorial organizations. And even the year before, a bill for Nebraska itself was within an ace of passing without the repealing clause, and this in the hands of the same men who are now the champions of repeal. Why no necessity then for repeal? But still later, when this very bill was first brought ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... 1906.] ... I can't think of the name of that daredevil guerilla who led the jayhawkers and chased Redpath up and down the country, and, in turn, was chased by Redpath. By grace of the chances of war, the two men never met in the field, though they several times came within an ace of it. ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... smiling frankly at him; "and besides I hold all the trumps. Ace, King, Queen; and Ace, Knave and Queen ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... cannot gallop after a lady without ceremony, and command her to stand and deliver as if he were a highwayman. Yet I was within an ace of doing it—within an ace. I have beheld her! I had best ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... certain conditions, the barrier between things seen and unseen, material and transcendental, was pervious. It yielded before the push of her apprehension, sense of what it guards, what it withholds within an ace of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... contemporary metallic currency. Others were chiefly hand engraved, and often sold in small metal and silver boxes, those dating from the time of Queen Anne being the most interesting. The most popular card counters in the early days of the nineteenth century were brass copies of the spade-ace gold guinea, which they closely resembled, and it is feared, when gilt, were not infrequently palmed off as ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... whit; I cannot spare them a jot—I cannot bate them an ace. Let them stay in their own barren mountains, and puff and swell, and hang their bonnets on the horns of the moon, if they have a mind; but what business have they to come where people wear breeches, and speak an intelligible language? I mean intelligible in comparison ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the sixth round the lead came to me. Now, what should I have done? Finessed for the ace, or led straight into ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... a number of especially dangerous missions, and had met with considerable success in putting these through. Like most other ambitious young fliers, they hoped soon to merit the title of "ace," when they could point to at least six proven victories over rival pilots, with that number of planes ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... we sent out reported signs of camps but no sight of the enemy. As a consequence of these rumors our sentries were very nervous, and we scouts ran considerable risk returning to our lines before daylight. I was very nearly shot on several occasions, and once was within an ace of firing on one of my best pals. I saw a figure in the dark and, sneaking up to it, called out: "Put up your hands!" He did so, but then foolishly dropped them again. If he had not called out, "Who the hell are you?" at the same ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... disgootet mit de boledics of dis land, Dat his friendts could barely keep him from trowin' oop his hand, Vhen he held shtraight-flush mit an ace in his poot- vitch phrase ish all de same, In de science of pokerology, ash if he got ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... ground, and wrapped the lump of sheets with tender care, but would not allow it to be tied with a rope for fear of breaking more of the edges. He insisted on carrying it himself too, and did so for the larger part of the way to Santa Brigida, and it was only when he was within an ace of dropping himself with sheer tiredness that he condescended to let me take my turn. He was tolerably ungracious about it too. "I suppose you may as well carry the stuff," he snapped, "seeing that after ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... abroad, and, as ace of trumps, you should take your wife with you. Now for the excuse: I would sit down and write such a letter as you alone can write to The Times. You should set forth how you have been insulted by the Marquis of Queensberry, and ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... you did-humph! I knew the ace lay with you; I knew that as well as if I had seen it. I suppose you have eyes—but I don't know; if you have, didn't you see Glenfern turn up the king, and yet you returned his lead—returned our adversary's lead in the face of his king. I've been telling ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... still and refused to move another foot; and then we played our ace of trumps. Near by, twenty laborers were working. Calling all hands, they took hold of that outstretched rope, and heading straight for the new Elephant House started a new tug of war. Every "heave-ho" of that hilarious company meant a three-foot step ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... the straight path that drove through the garden to the door, a sheep-fish wriggling at his heels. They saw too the pastures of the rest of the island, of a rougher brine-qualified green, and the one black tree that stood against them like the ace of clubs; and past them lay the channel where the white sail of a frigate curtseyed to the rust-red rag of a barge, and the round dark hills beyond mothering a storm. And if they looked towards the window in the right-hand wall they saw a line of elms going down the escarpment to the marshes ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Landale was quite aware that Tanty was not yet convinced to the desired extent. He therefore here interrupted her to play his last card—that ace he had up his sleeve, in careful preparation for this trial of skill with his keen-witted relative, and to the suitable production of which he ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... his race, and the majority of mankind for that matter, he was intensely superstitious. Three times in succession he cut and dealt the cards, and three times the ace of hearts, the luckiest card in the pack, turned face ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... A short without either rule or reason before a Consonant or two, with e after, as ace, acre, able, unstable, father, with A long, and solace, massacre, constable, gather, ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... mysterious phenomenon, have become real living creatures to them. One of the players has dreamed all through his life of getting a grand slam, when, one evening, he sees he has the necessary cards in his hand. He has but to take one more card, the ace of spades, and his dream will be realized. But at the very moment when he is stretching forth his hand to take it, he falls down dead. His partners are terrified. One of them, a timorous and exact old man, named Jacob Ivanovich, is particularly struck. A thought comes to him; he ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... a sequence in hearts; the hearts all lay between himself and Sylvie; the colonel won her ace, though it was protected by five ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... chose me as being a little more friendly to him than most of the Stockbridge gentlemen. When we had ridden forward, he saluted us with great cordiality and good humor, as if forsooth, instead of being within an ace of murdering us all, he had but been trying us ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... clad in little beyond Nature's own covering, as the majority of the intruders were, and looking in the dim light as black as the ace of spades, they seemed like so many demons, come to take possession of our unfortunate ship—as indeed they were. ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... see you alive again," he said; "I had a terrible trip. I didn't think I should ever get through—caught in the snowstorm and laid up for three days. The cattle wandered away and I came within an ace of losing them altogether. When I got started again the snow was so deep ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... giving the least heed to his cards. It was true his eyes were resting on the ace, king, and queen of spades; but his mind was tortured by the belief that by his fantastic conceit in sending Helen to this Alpine fastness he had delivered her ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... grimly, "I don't suppose from the exhibition I've just been watching, that you're in the habit of seeing farther than to the end of your own nose. However, I may as well point out to you that if you had killed yourself, as you richly deserved, and as you came within an ace of doing, the run would have been stopped for the season. We should all have been deprived of the Grand National, and I, who come up here solely to ride the Cresta, which I have done regularly every winter for twenty years, would have ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... shopkeepers, the President and General Attorney of the Anaconda Airline came to Washington. The Anaconda president was a short, corpulent man, with dark skin, eyes black as beads, round, alert face, and a nose like the ace of clubs. The General Attorney was no taller than his superior officer, but differed from him in a figure so spare and starved that it snapped its fingers at description. As though to make amends for a niggardliness of the physical, Providence had ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Chevalier Creek, Surville was overtaken by a frightful tempest, which brought him within an ace of destruction, but his sailors had such confidence in his nautical ability that they felt no anxiety, and obeyed his orders with a sang froid of which, unfortunately, the Maoris ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Darby's[3] coadjutor; And, as you in commission sit, To rule the dairy next to Kit;[4] In each capacity I mean To sing your praise. And first as Dean: Envy must own, you understand your Precedence, and support your grandeur: Nor of your rank will bate an ace, Except to give Dean Daniel[5] place. In you such dignity appears, So suited to your state and years! With ladies what a strict decorum! With what devotion you adore 'em! Treat me with so much complaisance, As fits a princess in romance! ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... thing is absurd!" protested Estermen. "There is no other man but you capable of dealing tactfully and diplomatically with my country. Your blundering predecessors brought us twice within an ace of war. If the man takes your place to whom rumor has already given it, I give Europe six weeks' peace—no more. We are a sensitive nation, as you know. You learned how to humor us. No one before you tried. You kept your alliance with France, but you were not afraid to show us the open hand. ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her too!" nodded Spike, warming to his theme. "Hermy's ace-high on the face and figure question! Why, there ain't a swell dame on Fift' Av'ner, nor nowheres else, got anything on ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... dealt, and having gone three in "no trumps" and found seven to the ace, king, queen in hearts lying before her in dummy, she wore a smile of beatific satisfaction. So also did Alice—for two reasons. The deal obviously spelled money, and Vere Millet could be trusted to get every trick out of it. There were four bridge ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... marry is a Custom I' the world; for look you Brother, Wou'd any man stand plucking for the Ace of Harts, With one pack of Cards all dayes ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the gills, 'this ship that we are in is more than half mine. I am chief owner. I'll stake me share of the ship on the next game against all that I have lost.' 'Done!' said I, and shuffled, cut, and dealt. He went four on three highest trumps, and an ace, and I held four small trumps. 'It's a bad job for my creditors,' he said, as he threw his hand down. Ged! I started on that vyage a poor captain, and I came into port very fairly well off, and sailing in me own ship, too! ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... when you did," he said, "I'd likely had to eat 'em, thanks to Reynolds. Now I'll send 'em up to H. B." He peered disgustedly into the bag and removed an irrelevant ace of spades. Its hibernation there seemed for an instant to annoy him as well it might. There had been a furore in whist about it barely a week before. Then he used it irresponsibly for an I.O.U. and impaled it upon a strange looking spike that ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... more serious trouble for the near future. To a loyal henchman, Moffat merely condescended to remark, glancing disdainfully at a knot of hard riders disconsolately sitting their ponies in front of the saloon door, "We 've got them fellers roped and tied, gents, and they simply won't be ace-high with the ladies of this camp after our fandango is over with. We're a holdin' the hand this game, an' it simply sweeps the board clean. That duffer McNeil's the sickest looking duck I 've seen in a year, an' the whole blame bunch of cow-punchers is corralled so tight ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... sight among the other crowders of the quay till the bowler hat came bobbing up the gangway. Then he smote its owner so jovially on the shoulder that his monocle shot the full length of its cord and the hat came within an ace of tumbling overboard. ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... said it was a bank. I've no more idea what it is you're tryin' to run off with than I know what an ace is goin' to do when there's a joker in the pack," remarked Sibley; "but I thought I'd tell you that Bradley and his lot are watchin' you gettin' ready to run." Then he hastily ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... great in the presence of hundreds of his peers, and the multitude of the illustrious dwindle into individual littleness by reason of their superabundance. And when it comes to occupations, it will hardly be denied that the stranger who beholds a Senator "coppering on the ace," or a Congressman standing in a bar-room with a lump of mouldy cheese in one hand and a glass of "pony whiskey" in the other, or a Judge of the Supreme Court wriggling an ugly woman through the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... have no ace of spades to show down! You discarded it. You know you did, you—cheat!" He had risen and was shaking his fist in the face ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... in a strange mood. A few minutes before I had been at Pavannes' door, at the end of our journey; on the verge of success. I had been within an ace, as I supposed at least, of executing my errand. I had held the cup of success in my hand. And it had slipped. Now the conflict had to be fought over again; the danger to be faced. It would have been no more than natural if I had felt ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... first Crow responded with another,—he trumped Tug's ace, as it were,—for though he saw that the fire was going out and would not heat the pokers much longer, he decided not to wait for this, but set his men to gathering stones and sticks to pelt the two ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... the appearance presented by a central plate in the cuirass of the Pterichthys. It is of a lozenge form, and, occupying exactly such a place in the nether armature of the creature as that occupied by the lozenge shaped spot on the ace of diamonds, it comes in contact with four other plates that lie around it, and represent, so to speak, the white portions of the card. And Sir Philip now found, that instead of lying over, it lay under, the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... understood that at least three of them were cheating at every opportunity. Henry, alone, was playing a square game; as for the heavy winner, Larry, Andrew had reason to believe that he was adroitly palming an ace now and then—luck ran too consistently his way. For his own part, he was no card expert, and he smiled as ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... some news," he declared, bluntly; in his mood of the day he was finding no good qualities in mankind. "I never heard of Eck Flagg having any friends. Well, I'll take that back! I believe he's ace high among the Tarratine Indians up our way; they have made him an honorary chief. But it's no particular compliment to a white man's disposition to be able to qualify as an Indian, as ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... the vessel struck the dock and lurched William out of his reverie, coming "within an ace" of pitching the poet ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... ex-prisidint. If I have anny pollytical ambition I'd rather be a Grant or a Garfield thin a Cleveland or a Harrison,' he says. 'I may've read it in th' Bible, though I think I saw it in a scand'lous book me frind Rhodes left in his bedroom las' time he called on me, that ye shud niver discard an ace to dhraw to a flush,' he says. 'I deplore th' language but th' sintimint is sound,' he says. 'An' I believe ye'er intintions to presarve peace ar-re honest, but I don't like to see ye pullin' off ye'er coat an' here goes f'r throuble while ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... experience of a lifetime! With books or no books, it is quite true, however, that some men, otherwise of great intelligence, can never be taught whist; they may have had every opportunity of learning it—have been born, as it were, with the ace of spades in their mouth instead of a silver spoon—but the gift of understanding is denied them; and though it is ungallant to say so, I have never known a lady to play ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... half sheepishly: "My foot's asleep, that's all. I beg everybody's pardon, I'm sure. Please go on"—he had come within an ace of saying "Mr. Rudolph," and only in the nick of time ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... of companions; while the other was an outlaw, a half-heathen, a lover of but one thing in this world, the joyous god of Chance. Pierre was essentially a gamester. He would have extracted satisfaction out of a death-sentence which was contingent on the trumping of an ace. His only honour was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... That evening, and on this day, the 5th, we received none at all, and in that hard, forced march we became very hungry. An incident that occurred will show how hungry we were. As we passed the hamlet of Verdiersville, I noticed a little negro boy, black as the "ace of spades" and dirty as a pig, standing on the side of the road gazing with staring eyes at the troops, and holding in his hand a piece of ash-cake, which he was eating. A moment after I passed him, our dear old comrade ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... an even more ridiculous couple than their kind usually are. And, when the gentleman squeezed the lady, she laughed so foolishly that Archie Pennybet was within an ace of forgetting himself and heartily laughing too. It was worse still, when they began the pernicious practice of "rubbing noses." For the operation was so new and unexpected, and withal so congenial to Archie, that he risked discovery by craning forward to study it. He watched ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... frightful conspiracy has been planned by the celebrated Arnold: he sold to the English the fort of West Point, which was under his command, and, consequently, the whole navigation of the river: the plot was within an ace of succeeding, and quite as many chances combined together to discover it as in that affair of the Alliance, which I have so often described to you.[3] After our journey to Hartford, General Washington passed by West Point, which was not on his road; but he was desirous ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... was the duty of one of us to hold this paper in readiness. The man who was to show the pass sat by the window. Of all our worthless passes our rule was always to show first the one of least value. If that failed we brought out a higher card, and continued until we had reached the ace. If that proved to be a two-spot, we all went to jail. Whenever we were halted, invariably there was the knowing individual who recognized us as newspaper men, and in order to save his country from destruction clamored to have us hung. It was for this pest that the one with the newspaper ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... rather to yield it to her eyes, from a generous impulse, from an irresistible desire to save her from an unworthy husband and a wretched fate. Fortune has been dealing our cards for us, and has turned up the ace. Three to one now on the odd trick. Maltravers, too, is at home. I called at his house, on returning from my uncle's, and learned that he would not stir out all ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... questioned orders and did the best he could, And soon a corporal he came to be; He was known throughout the country as the army's fighting ace, Beloved in every branch ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... Flaherty. 'High man,' says Burke. Flaherty cut th' king iv spades. Burke, th' robber, cut th' ace iv hearts. He was reachin' out f'r th' money, whin Flaherty put his hands over it. 'Wud ye take it?' says he. 'I wud,' says Burke. 'Wud ye rob th' church?' says Flaherty. 'I wud,' says Burke. 'Thin,' says Flaherty, scoopin' it in, 'ye're a heretic; ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... without some noise being heard abroad. There rose in the Court, I know not what confused murmurs, the origin of which could not be pointed out, publishing that either the State or Chamillart must perish; that already his ignorance had brought the kingdom within an ace of destruction; that it was a miracle this destruction had not yet come to pass; and that it would be madness to tempt Providence any longer. Some did not blush to abuse him; others praised his intentions, and spoke with moderation of faults that many people reproached ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... an ace of shooting," said Joe, "before I thought of what you had said. I pulled the trigger with all my might before I remembered that you said I musn't shoot till you told me, but as good luck would have it, my musket wasn't cocked." ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... contestants, Sinclair and Du Sang, were ordered back thirty-five paces on their horses, and the railroad man, walking over to the targets, held out between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand the ace of clubs. The man that should first spot the pip out of the card was to take the prize, a Cheyenne saddle. Sinclair shot, and his horse, perfectly trained, stood like a statue. The card flew from Smith's hand, but the bullet had ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... then, the word "illegal" brought us face to face with a crisis which was within an ace of causing a rupture of diplomatic relations. The last days of the negotiations turned out very unfortunately for us. Mr. Lansing and I had agreed upon a formula in which the word "illegal" did not occur, because my instructions ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... deep, deep river, death a blue sky, life was a house, death a wisp of hay, a flower, a tower, life and death were anything and everything, except this ordered insanity, where the king takes the queen, and the ace the king. Ah, no; there was beauty and adventure behind, such as the man at her feet had yearned for; there was hope this side of the grave; there were truer relationships beyond the limits that fetter us now. As a prisoner looks up and sees stars beckoning, so she, from the turmoil and horror ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... against my wish," she said in a firm voice, "but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive you my death, on condition that you ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... a matter of principle with all of them. They can justify themselves seven ways to the ace. Keep an eye on him, or let us do ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... John, I played a couple of games recently with a wide-faced young man who grew very playful and threw the parlor furniture at me because I trumpeted his ace. I fancy I must have did wrong. The fifth time I trumpeted his ace the young man arose, put on his gum shoes, and skeedaddled out of the house. Is it not considered a breach of etiquette to put on gum shoes in the presence of ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... writes me word that he'll receive you on board the Liffy frigate, which, by a combination of circumstances, is now lying in Cork Harbour,—fortunate for us, but which might have proved disastrous to her gallant officers and crew, for she was dismasted in a gale, and was within an ace of being driven on shore. But a miss is as good as a mile; and when under jury-masts she scraped clear of the rocks, and got into port in safety. Here my letter, after wandering about for many a day, found him, and he has lost no time in replying to it. ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... recognised "card" and "character" since before Denry's birth. But Denry, though so young, had made immense progress as a card, and had, perhaps justifiably, come to consider himself as the premier card, the very ace, of the town. He felt that some reply was needed to Curtenty's geese, and the mule was his reply. It served excellently. People were soon asking each other whether they had heard that Denry Machin's "latest" was to buy a mule. He obtained a little old victoria ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... boasted that honesty was the best policy and that he was invariably willing to put his cards on the table. The Millionaire had once professed himself likely to be satisfied if the Iron King would only remove the fifth ace from his sleeve, and a certain coolness between the two men resulted. In general, however, he had the reputation ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... "I can't show myself less of a sportsman than you are; but I think I've the option of demanding a longer range. Move the mat back twenty-five yards and put up an ace of spades; it's the plainest. Three shots each should suffice at ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... your discard should be governed by two considerations—first, to better your own hand, and second, to cripple your opponent's. Your moderate player never thinks of this latter consideration. His only thought is to better his own hand. He never discards an ace. The mere size of it dazzles him, and he will keep aces and discard tens, forgetting that you cannot have a sequence of more than four without a ten, and that you can have one of seven without the ace, and that a king is as good as an ace, if the latter is in the discard. I am speakin' ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... afterwards, I do confess, with much eagerness, to take a couple of hours' daily sport. Ah! it was a strange place. There was an aristocracy there as elsewhere,—amongst other gents, a son of my Lord Deuce-ace; and many of the men in the prison were as eager to walk with him, and talked of his family as knowingly, as if they were Bond Street bucks. Poor Tidd, especially, was one of these. Of all his fortune he had nothing left but a dressing-case ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... AIR.—During this year warfare in the air continued to advance. Guynemer (geen-m[)e]r'), the great French ace, who was lost on September 11, had to his credit the destruction of fifty-four enemy machines. The increase in the number of airplanes led to the grouping of large numbers into regular formations (escadrilles), sometimes ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... on the continent this morning, Father Jos," said Cornelius. "Did ye learn any news for us? Size ace! ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... boots I am safe tew win, Es the chap thet's able tew smilin' smack The ace he's been hidin' up his sleeve Kerslap on top of a feller's jack! Es I wus sayin', the night wus dark, The lightnin' skippin' from star to star; Thar wa'n't no clouds but a thread of mist, No sound but the ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... next brought clusters of leaves, lozenge-like in shape and bottle-green in color. In the center rose a rod at whose end a varnished ace of hearts swayed. As though meaning to defy all conceivable forms of plants, a fleshy stalk climbed through the heart of this intense vermilion ace—a stalk that in some specimens was straight, in others showed ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Rhodes, and I hike across the border with our outfit; highest cards for Miguel and my trail is blazed for the red gold of Alisal. This is Miguel's hand—ace high for Miguel!" ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... never was so deceived in a pious looking young person in his life. "Why," said he, as he was thumbing over the Bible to read a chapter before morning prayers, "the tow headed cuss would draw to a pair of deuces and get an ace full. Let ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... need so long an exordium to excuse thee, poor Parson Dale, for turning up that ace of spades with so triumphant a smile at thy partner? I must own that nothing which could well add to the parson's offence was wanting. In the first place, he did not play charitably, and merely to oblige other people. He delighted in the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the sailor. "They've let me know as much a'ready. There be two captains to their crew; one's the smoke-dried old sinner as brought yer in; the other a big nayger, as black as the ace o' spades. You saw the swab? He's inside the tent here. He's my master. The two came nigh quarrelling about which should have me, and settled it by some sort o' a game they played wi' balls of kaymal's ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... fool, Dolly. Gretchen is fair and young, and the woman is old and black as the ace of ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... king," he muttered, "now the ace. We're on the home stretch, going strong. There, it's finished. It's come out right. A great game, ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... we have a frame constructed from the ten playing cards, ace to ten of diamonds. The children who made it wanted the pips on all four sides to add up alike, but they failed in their attempt and gave it up as impossible. It will be seen that the pips in the top row, the bottom row, ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... 22) by appointing Montrose his Lieutenant-Governor and Captain-General in Scotland, though Lauderdale and Lanark "abate not an ace of their damned Covenant in all their discourses," wrote Hyde. The dispute between Montrose, on the side of honour, and that of Lanark, Lauderdale, and other Scottish envoys, ended as—given the character of Charles ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... stiff little birch, that, growing recklessly in the thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she realized, from the look in the pale, set, freckly, ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... to explain to you. Perhaps man is mistaken in thinking that he is obliged to resist evil and has a right to do so, just as he is mistaken in thinking, for instance, that the heart looks like an ace of hearts. It is very possible in resisting evil we ought not to use force, but to use what is the very opposite of force—if you, for instance, don't want this picture stolen from you, you ought to give it away rather than lock ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... General, his face as black as the ace of spades, (which, by the way, is blue.) "I might go to Nova Zembla for a quiet smoke, and some sneaking politician would crawl out from the ice with a petition. I went fishing in Pennsylvania, and I found twenty of those fellows to every trout. However, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... was not yet quite emancipated from the traditions of his upbringing. To create a disturbance in a public place, to draw all eyes upon himself, to look a fool, eventually to be turned ignominiously into the street—all this he was within an ace of doing and suffering, but he refrained. He sat down again quickly, feeling hot and cold with shame, just as he remembered he had been wont to feel when he had committed some gaucherie in his early days ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... the 25th such a storm sprang up as mortal mariner rarely encountered even off such a coast—a violent north-easterly hurricane—still known in Algiers as "Charles's gale"—such as few vessels cared to ride off a lee shore. The immense flotilla in the bay was within an ace of total destruction. Anchors and cables were powerless to hold the crowded, jostling ships. One after the other they broke loose, and keeled over to the tempest till their decks were drowned in the seas. Planks gaped; broadside to broadside the helpless hulks crashed ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... first chance, Sam. That proves how you stand with me. A one! Ace high! First! Nobody can ever take your place with me. Don't be a boob coming and going, Sam; you're one now not to see things and you'll be another one spelled backward if you don't help yourself to your chance when it comes. You've got your life in front of ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... it was a garment of far-flung amplitude, woven on the shadowy loom of night and the sea, and from such mysterious warp and weft is often produced the sable robe of tragedy and death. It was so now, within an ace. At one instance, the restless plain of the ocean seemed to bear no other argosy than the Andromeda; in the next, Hozier's quick-moving glance had caught the pallid sheen of some small craft's starboard light. No need to tell him what might happen. A sailing vessel, ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... included the Lyons electric light and gas plant. On this side trip we met an entire regiment of Algerian soldiers, black as the traditional ace of spades, but fine specimens of manhood. Their uniforms were almost identical with the uniform worn by our soldiers in the Civil War. They wore light blue overcoats, such as Governor Tod furnished the first ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... a little. She was within an ace of handing over to Karl Steinmetz the rod of power held over her by the Frenchman. There was something in Steinmetz that appealed to her and softened her, something that reached a tender part of her heart through the coating of vanity, through the ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... had worked, all right. You see, when Mike was doin' his heavy courtin' I'd planted my ace in the hole; I'd took off the outer soles of his runnin'-shoes and filed the spikes almost in two, close up to the plate. When I sewed the leather back on, it never showed, but the minute he struck his gait they broke with him and he begin to miss his ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... and see fair play, Colonel. I won't have any hand in it, beyond seeing fair play. You ain't a-goin' to be very hard with them poor boys? Though I seen 'em both shoot; the fair one hunts well, as you know, but the old one's a wonder at an ace of spades." ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... fostered, and probably originated, by wealthy German employers in Petrograd, Moscow and other industrial centres. They had hoped to frustrate the mobilization order, retard Russia's entry into the field, and possibly bring about civil strife. And they were within an ace of succeeding. On the very eve of hostilities reports reached Berlin and Vienna that the revolution was already beginning. But the declaration of war against Germany purified the air, absorbed the redundant energies of the people, and fused all ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... for help—though its meaning was not comprehended at first—brought the other boys to Clay's assistance. That is to say they paddled toward the dangerous spot and were within an ace of getting in the same fix, when ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... under your pillow a prayer-book open at the part of the matrimonial service 'with this ring I thee wed'; place on it a key, a ring, a flower, and a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread, and the following cards:—the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and the ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin handkerchief of gauze or muslin, and on getting into bed, cross your hands, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... consequences. He is almost a madman in his outbursts of temper; and where Zuilika is concerned—— Perhaps you will understand, Mr. Cleek, when I tell you that once when he thought her husband had ill-used her he came within an ace of killing the man. There was bad blood between them always, even as boys, and, as men, it was bitterer than ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... holdin' FOUR aces when somebody else hez TWO, who don't like to let on because it's Prosper's old mother—it's gettin' rough! And dangerous too, gentlemen, if there happened to be an outsider in, or one of the boys should kick. Why, I saw Bilson grind his teeth—he holdin' a sequence flush—ace high—when the dear old critter laid down her reg'lar four aces and raked in the pile. We had to nearly kick his legs off under the table afore he'd understand—not ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... that Rose had gone home, but Rodwell stopped to tell her we had come as he went down with the cart, and she exclaimed, "Pray day come for me go see Miss Hayiut." In the morning she came early into my chamber, bright and eager. I knew Robert was black as the ace of spades, but they both of them did look blacker than anything I ever saw before, but it ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... "A wounded Ace of theirs, Anton Hupfer, was for ever hanging round. He was to take up the 'plane when it was ready. But Herter industriously chummed with him, and not for nothing. To Herter was due the 'discovery' of the inventor; and as he boasted experience in flying, ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... singular affair! First you see her in the magic caldron; then we find her dead; then, when within an ace of being buried, she comes to life; then we leave her lifeless as a marble statue, shut up in your room, and fifteen minutes after, she vanishes as mysteriously as a fairy in a nursery legend. And, lastly, she turns up in the shape of ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... why not now, my angel? Such beauty fires beyond the power of resistance.—Pshaw! the father here! My old luck: I never nicked seven that I did not throw ames ace three times ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... A carrier suddenly came charging out of the brush to his left. While Ed dealt with that one, the Harn played its ace in the hole. The two special units it had been developing to deal with Ed were not quite done yet, but they were done enough to work for the few minutes the Harn needed them. Ed heard a coughing grunt behind him and spun around to see something new crawling out of the flame and smoke ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... "knowing that in a short time I shall be certain of cash, one way or the other, I had resolved to try my luck with the L500. I went to the hazard table, and threw in seventeen times—hedged upon the deuce ace, and threw out with it—voila. They won't catch me there again in a hurry—luck like that only comes once in a man's life; but, Japhet, there is a little drawback to all this. I shall require your kind attendance in two or ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... whispering echo which was extremely weird and suggestive. Mr. Fetherbee was enchanted. He felt that he was getting down into the mysterious heart of things; that he was having something which came within an ace of being an adventure. Then, as he felt his way down, farther and farther below the vain surface of things, that intervening ace vanished, and he came up against his adventure with a suddenness that sent a knife-like thrill to his heart. His foot had lost its hold of the rope; he was hanging ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... edifice and the pity of its decay. "That's a vile job you have in hand, my friend— a bit of sheer vandalism," said the tourist; "but I suppose the Parson who employs you knows no better." Parson Jack had been within an ace of revealing himself, but now changed his mind and asked humbly enough what was amiss. Whereupon the tourist pulled out a pencil and an old envelope, and explained. "But there," he broke off, "it would take me a week to go into ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... my lady, doant ye," said the honest fellow, and was within an ace of blubbering for sympathy. "We ain't a lot o' babies, to see our squire kidnaped. If you would lend Abel Moss there and me a couple o' nags, we'll catch them ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... had been dealt, young Vaneski was ahead with a king high. On the fourth round he grinned when he got a second king and Mike dealt himself an ace. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the ostrich as he surveyed his victim, "because a man looks sad at the opening of a jack-pot, it doesn't necessarily follow that he's only got ace-high." ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... me to point most clearly to the whole key of the situation. Anything which cannot be brought into such a simple number series, for instance, a colour impression, can never be transmitted. If the mother looks at the ace of diamonds, Beulah says that she sees the red of the diamond before her in her mind, but if the mother looks at the picture of a blue lake, this blue impression can never arise in Beulah's mind, but ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... a hostile incentive, and the Romans with a unified purpose after their reconciliation conducted vigorously the wars which the latter waged, and conquered in all of them. It was at this time that in the siege of Corioli they came within an ace of being driven from their camp, but a patrician, Gnaeus Marcius, showed his prowess and repelled the assailants. For this he received various tokens of renown and was given the title of Coriolanus from the people which he had routed. [Sidenote: FRAG. 17^2] FOR THE TIME HE WAS THUS ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... but it speedily grew as large as the palm of her hand, and then she could perceive that it was red. The oblong white ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the appearance of a gigantic ace ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... came a powerful change; one sollum Sunday night Occurred the tidal wave that put ol' Salty out o' sight. He win on deuce an' ace an' Jack—he win on king an' queen— Clif Bell allowed the like uv how he win wuz never seen. An' how he done it wuz revealed to all us fellers when He said he teched a ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... with a man who stood there, whose chief articles of raiment were overalls, boots, and a woolen shirt. Almost instantly, it seemed, two of the others had returned and Norton was introducing them as "Ace," "Lanky," and "Weary." These pseudonyms were picturesque and descriptive, though at the time Hollis was in a state of pained incomprehension concerning them. Later he was informed that Ace had been so named on account of having once been ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... to see you again," she went on. "You came within an ace of being my husband. I might have belonged to you and counted your washing. It's ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... country solicitor, she married early—for love, and the issue was disastrous. Above her right temple, just at the roots of the hair, a scar was discoverable; it was the memento of an occasion on which her husband aimed a blow at her with a mantelpiece ornament, and came within an ace of murder. Intimates of the household said that the provocation was great—that Mrs. Lessingham's gift of sarcasm had that morning displayed itself much too brilliantly. Still, the missile was an extreme retort, and on the whole it could not be wondered at that husband ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... Grange, trance and test clairvoyant, to Hattie, the landlady's daughter. "Now keep your wish in your mind, remember. That's right; a deep cut for luck. U-um. The nine of hearts is your wish—and right beside it is the ace of hearts. That means your home, dearie—the spirits don't lie, even when they're manifestin' themselves just through cards. They guide your hand when you shuffle and cut. Your wish is about the ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin |
