"Deuce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wrong end foremost, as Briggs said," thought the young man. "I wonder where the deuce Briggs can be? I'm ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... 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
... 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
... "The deuce!" was his certainly uncalled for exclamation. "Women's eyes for women's matters! I am greatly indebted to you, ma'am. You have solved a very important problem for us. A hat-pin! humph!" he muttered to himself. "The devil in a man is not easily balked; even such an innocent ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... 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
... "The deuce!" thought he, thus led to an unforeseen conclusion. "To be sure, it is not necessary perhaps that the church itself should offer so complete a parallel, or that the Old and New Testaments should be bound up in one volume; here, indeed, at Chartres the work, though integral, is in two separate ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... 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
... "What the deuce do you mean, sir, by disobeying my orders? Take your men back to the grove, and be quick ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... 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 deuce can you attend to anything I am saying if you keep jumping around so?" demanded ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... 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
... "The deuce!" said Lissac. "Do you know that if you were to fly from the danger in question, I should be very uneasy? It would be ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... "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
... deuce! a bad business!" said Jacquet, examining the letter as a usurer examines a note to be negotiated. "Ha! that's a gridiron letter! ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... "The deuce he does! Well, if that's it, I'd be precious glad to get out of it. You don't suppose I could cut it, do you? Susan is going to take me to the Pendletons' after supper, and I'd like to run upstairs now and ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... 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
... deuce were they at? and what was a "tink-an"? I dragged the filly nearer, and discovered that a hound puppy was the central point of the tumult, and was being contended for, like the body of Moses, by Miss Trinder and Bridgie the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... 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
... deuce can that mean?" muttered Old King Brady. "Bandits trying to rob this train? It don't seem possible, ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... '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
... "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 mean ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... 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
... deuce an' all are you talkin' about, Summerhayes?" Sartoris spoke most deprecatingly. "A man would think you'd buried a shipmate, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... "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
... "The deuce!" muttered du Bousquier. "Actually Madame Amphoux's liqueurs, which they only serve at the ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... "The deuce it is!" exclaimed the former. "I thought I owed this unexpected pleasure to your affectionate desire to let me know I had inherited the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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
... "The deuce you do! That's good! Well, tell me how to get to Guise. We've lost our blooming way, that's what we've done! And we've got supplies ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... 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
... deuce asked you for your opinion?" rapped out the "senor" savagely. "And what are you doing in here, anyhow? If we want the service of a vet., we're quite capable of getting one for ourselves without having him shove his presence upon ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... "What the deuce have I done to her? Why is she angry with me? Marianne did not forget my fire! Mademoiselle told her not to light it! I must be a child if I can't see, from the tone and manner she has been taking to me, that I've done something to displease her. Nothing like it ever happened to Chapeloud! ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... 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
... deuce! We should have to explain everything to him. He knows what's what, and would find the idea too good, and want a share of the spoil. No! Sign that, and don't be alarmed. The sheep will be back in the fold before the ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... 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
... deuce was Bibi? She might be a baby. Or—who could tell?—she might be a poodle? On this point, however, I was left uninformed; for my unknown friend, who, luckily, seemed fond of talking and had a great deal to say, launched off ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... 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 ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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 |
