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Joke   Listen
noun
Joke  n.  
1.
Something said for the sake of exciting a laugh; something witty or sportive (commonly indicating more of hilarity or humor than jest); a jest; a witticism; as, to crack good-natured jokes. "And gentle dullness ever loves a joke." "Or witty joke our airy senses moves To pleasant laughter."
2.
Something not said seriously, or not actually meant; something done in sport. "Inclose whole downs in walls, 't is all a joke."
In joke, in jest; sportively; not meant seriously.
Practical joke. See under Practical.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Joke" Quotes from Famous Books



... and sets them aside till they are required. On one occasion, while the crew of a boat landed to cook their dinner, a youngster carefully opened such a quid and substituted a piece of filth for the betel-nut. When the victim of the joke spat out the morsel, spluttering with disgust and anger, the crew was moved to loud laughter, which they tried in vain to suppress out of consideration for the feelings of the victim; for no one ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... Many of them left a long train, extending through twenty, thirty, or even forty degrees. I called at Bard's window and told him that the stars were falling, but he refused to get up, thinking it a joke. The butcher of the town, Abijah Whitney, came out to commence preparations for his morning rounds, but conceiving that the day of judgment had come, he returned into the house and gave up business for the day. In the year 1901, I know of one other person only, Mrs. Mary ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... asked for information, and offered Nevis a tow, but he replied with a joke and declined the proffered assistance. Then it developed that, in going in to anchor, he had observed two other small Spanish boats near the wreck of the Santo Domingo, and had resolved to capture them, too. He knew it was hazardous work, ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... wiped his face, which had suddenly grown very hot, and remarking in a tremulous voice to his conductor that he had always been fond of his joke, followed him in silence until ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... motionless, till the angry pedagogue becoming infuriate, pushed the intruder out of the room with such force, that Crispin might have sustained an action at law against him for an assault. Thus, to Coleridge's mortification and regret, as he afterwards in joke would say, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... guezel! In a moment she threw off her black ferigee, and tore the thick veil from her head. I could have yelled with rage, for I saw what a fool I had made of myself, and that the old hag had played a practical joke on me in revenge for the affair in the Valley of Roses. I cursed her in French, I cursed her in Russian, I cursed her in English, and stamped about the room, trying to get out. The horrible old witch screamed ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... seize them!" Then she ran out of the room, and in a couple of minutes returned with the necklace hanging loose in her hand. It was part of her little play to show by her speed that the close locking of the jewels was a joke, and that the ornament, precious as it was, received at her hands no other treatment than might any indifferent feminine bauble. Nevertheless within those two minutes she had contrived to unlock the ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... I don't see how you're going to satisfy him that it was all a joke. Joke? It WASN'T a joke! It was a real assault and a bona fide robbery, and Bemis ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells

... have run away by now, if they stole the things," said wise Penelope, who could be very practical when she did come out of her dreamy state, "and they would laugh more if the baskets were only just hidden for a joke, and we went hungry because we ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... which, however much longer it might be contested, had evidently begun to be a losing one on his part. But we were mistaken. We found him one morning in high spirits, and evidently in possession of some joke which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... thought the Indian attack on them was a joke perpetrated by some of their friends. After all, modern Indians did not ...
— The Hohokam Dig • Theodore Pratt

... my most remorseless critics were not in earnest, but were obeying some sudden impulse started by the first attacking journal. The extravagance of the Red Dog "Jay Hawk" was emulated by others: it was a large, contagious joke, passed from journal to journal in a peculiar cyclonic Western fashion. And there still lingers, not unpleasantly, in my memory the conclusion of a cheerfully scathing review of the book which may make my meaning clearer: "If we have said anything ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... of the Commissioners, and generously bestowed our own great names on its crags and creeks. The rock was carefully measured by Mr. S. It will be a most desolate position for a Light-house—the Bell Rock and Eddystone a joke to it, for the nearest land is the wild island of Tyree, at fourteen miles distance. So much for ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... Carradyne. "I joke with her, rather than quarrel. But I don't give in. She pays me some left-handed compliments, telling me that I am no gentleman, that I'm a bear, and so on; to which I make ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various

... London, while we were from thence, we gradually neared, when an amusing conversation by signals took place. Our captain, by mistake of the signaller, invited the Yankee captain to dinner, and the reply from the American, who good-naturedly took it as a joke, was "Bad roadstead here." Our captain thought they were chaffing him, and had not the mistake been discovered in time, the rencontre might not have ended as pleasantly as it did. Our captain and second mate went on board the ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... Merwell! I know his handwriting almost as well as I know my own," he declared. "He always makes those funny little crooks on his capital letters. I guess that shows what kind of a crook he is," and Phil grinned at his little joke. "What are you going ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer

... the speech, unless, of course, he has any very complicated gestures; and it won't take him any time at all to compose it, because the private secretary will do that; and the private secretary will be able to make sure that his joke about JEREBOAM is not turned into a joke about JEHOSHAPHAT at the last minute, or simply shelved in favour of a peroration on rainbows. After the speech the M.P. can be filmed opening a flowershow and, if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various

... immediately the room began to fill with tobacco smoke. Every one seemed to be talking and laughing at once, in the liveliest spirit of good fellowship. They joked from table to table, and sometimes the whole room would quiet down while some one told a joke, which invariably wound up ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... servant-girl whose family belonged to Throndhjem district. She worshipped King Olaf the Saint, and believed firmly in his sanctity. But the above mentioned count doubted all that was told of the holy man's miracles, insisted that it was nothing but nonsense and idle talk, and made a joke and scorn of the esteem and honour which all the country people showed the good king. Now when his holyday came, on which the mild monarch ended his life, and which all Northmen kept sacred, this unreasonable count would not observe ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... Oakhurst's admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to retire up the canon until he could recover his gravity. There he confided the joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire—for the air had grown strangely chill and the sky overcast—in ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... respectively Deborah and Amilly. The latter name had been intended for Amelie; but by some mistake of the parents or of the clergyman, none of them French scholars, Amilly, the child was christened and registered. It remained a joke against ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... tea-table; and the cloud lifts a little from Gerald's stern, set face; the three young people even laugh and joke ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... although my sister instantly boxed my ears, it was highly gratifying to me to see that the answer spoilt his joke, and brought him to a ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... broke into a laugh; and it was some time before he could proceed with his business. I was not aware that I had said anything that was funny: if I had, I should have been highly complimented by the manner in which my joke was received. ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic

... boy. Und you get very hot because I happen to make that liddle joke about somebody killing you. Was you thinking maybe old Max not care what ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... Northampton's. And then comes Monday—and to-night any unicorn I may see I will not find myself at liberty to catch. (N.B.—should you meditate really an addition to the 'Elegant Extracts'—mind this last joke is none of mine but my father's; when walking with me when a child, I remember, he bade a little urchin we found fishing with a stick and a string for sticklebacks in a ditch—'to mind that he brought any sturgeon he might catch to the king'—he having a claim on such a prize, by courtesy ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... a sorry day whin I can't take a joke, as Jim Doolin said smiling whin his frinds pushed his cabin over on top of him as he lay sleeping behind it, but I was niver sarved ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis

... plot was accordingly hatched to solve the problem, and during a set of Kitchen Lancers a syphon of soda-water was cleverly squirted full in her face, but the colour remained fast. Mrs. Mangold, I am sorry to say, failed to see the point of the joke, and fled to her room, pursued as far as the staircase by a score or more of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various

... of, and showed me how I was to behave myself. After I had had some days' practice, he sent round to let it be known that he had picked up a bear at sea, which could talk and play all sorts of tricks; and in a short time people came to look at me. At first I thought it a good joke, but at last he treated me so like a real bear, for he chained me up at night and never let me get out of my skin, that I began to grow heartily tired of the fun; and it's my belief, if you hadn't found me out, he'd have been after making away with me, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... dignity, his appearance in the bell-crown hats attracted the severe regard of Milburn, and set the little town on a grin. The joke went on till Jimmy Phoebus, Judge Custis, and some others prompted Jack Wonnell, with the promise of a gallon of whiskey, to ask Meshach to trade the steeple-top for the bell-crown. The intense look of outrage and hate, with the accompanying ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... a good deal; then when the belated audience presently caught the joke he would look up with innocent surprise, as if wondering what they had found to laugh at. Dan Setchell used it before him, Nye and Riley ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... mean," said he when I had finished, "but I believe you. Anyway, it's all a stupendous joke. In the first place, we shouldn't be here at all. And, secondly, why should they want ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... of the worthy man's harmless conceits. He never lost an opportunity of indulging in the joke to his own amusement; and I remarked that he laughed as heartily the last time he uttered it as ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... it difficult to stifle her laughter at the humour of the whole thing:—it was really such a very good joke! ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... write a dozen funny rhymes, Need a dozen "Cantabs" write about it to the Times? Need they write, at any rate, a generation after, Stating cause and date of joke and ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... do—did not choose one of a sturdier make than poor little Humphrey Bold. They even joked about my name, averring that names assuredly must go by contraries, for I was Bold by name, and timid by nature. The joke seemed to me, even then, a very poor one, for a boy must have the name he is born with, and I have known very delicate and white-handed folk ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... He'll joke with you in sun or show'r, And keep you laughing by the hour. Some zanies are a trifle mad: Now we ...
— Little People: An Alphabet • T. W. H. Crosland

... squeezed the life out of them with one awful handshake, if his heart had been as big as his claws. But they had something to do with it. And they knew it. So did Cob, who laughed again, hoarsely and as one appreciating a joke, while he wheeled and wheeled over the following waves, seeing all things and never appearing to ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... things easily; I am an indivisible man. But one night I went for a bicycle ride with my wife. She was a Bantam of delight, I can tell you, but she rode very badly. It was starlight, and I was attempting to explain the joke in the paper called, if I recollect aright, Punch. It was an extraordinarily sultry night, and I told her the names of all the stars she saw as she fell off her machine. She had a good bulk of falls. There were lights in the upper ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas

... family of my acquaintance occupied a whole floor there last winter, and lived very well at a fabulously cheap rate. The Wesendoncks are also staying there, and you might set up a splendid, half-common MENAGE, which would be a great joke. Well, the chief thing will be to have a good piano for our two selves, and of that I will take care, although I cannot provide so splendid an instrument as that which Erard sent me in London, and for which I forgot to thank you. I believe if I had such an instrument I should still learn ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... brings new faces, and Herst is still further enlivened by the arrival of two men from some distant barracks,—one so tall, and the other so diminutive, as to call for an immediate joke about "the long and ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... very advanced years, who contemplated life as an aged hermit, from the door of his cell. Conceive my surprise to find a genial young gentleman of about twenty-five, who looked as if he might enjoy a joke as ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... pitched rather high, falsetto. My own, as nearly as I could judge, was a full octave deeper, and more resonant. Yet they issued from the same vocal chords, unless Forth was having a reasonless, macabre joke. ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... he and all the peasants around, even including my guide, laughed aloud as at an excellent joke, and said, 'Cinquante, Ho! ho!' and dug each other in the ribs. But the innkeeper of Tizzano Val Parmense said in Italian a number of things which meant that I could but be joking, and added (in passing) that a lira made it a kind of gift to me. A lira ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... well to joke," protested Uncle Chris, pained by this flippancy, "but let me tell you that I shall not require magic assistance to become a rich man. Do you realize that at houses like Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim's I am meeting men all ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... making love to Priscilla; but the joke is, you have been persuaded to do it for somebody else, when all the time you would like to do it ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... room, the stench from the pigs, and the still more dreadful odors wafted from the queer food cooking on the range, made the young traveler's unaccustomed senses revolt. He had a half notion that the two older men were putting up a joke ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith

... hostess, "I told you our sports were to be a huge joke. You must have a sense of humor, or you won't want to take part. You know we have horse show grounds here in Lenox. Well, the Gymkana race this year will take place over their meadow. Indeed, all the sports are to be held there. Father, you explain what ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane

... really go because she would not trust you without her?' said Mrs. Finch. 'Well, that is a good joke!' ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... too much for Mabel. "Now, Jane, you go too far. Robert likes his little joke, but he knows when to be serious. Why ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... music, that's all. It's too late, or I'd have taken you, for the joke of the thing. Confound it! she ought to have ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... From the home and the mother who loved me too well; But the shame and the pain I have borne since that day Not a pitying soul who now listens can tell! There was never a promise he made but he broke; The bruises he gave I have covered with shame; Not a tear, not a prayer, but he scorned as a joke! He cursed at my children, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... be rather a joke for susceptibility, and was still a regular boy when we went out to Gibraltar. I thought ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... all the while. He never once smiled or laughed at the brilliant sallies of his brethren, and did his best to prevent his new patron, Mr. Flaw, from doing so—constantly putting his hand before his mouth, and whispering into Mr. Flaw's ear at the very point of the joke or story—and the smile would disappear from the countenance ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... village on the coast, and on this account he assumed the title of Cockletown; and when he built himself a mansion, as they term it, he would have it called by no other name than that of Cockle Hall. It is true he laughs at the thing himself, and considers it a good joke." ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... light evil eyes that looked at me and—smiled! Smiled with a smile that said more plainly than words, 'I am waiting!' and that is what the shapes, and the very atmosphere of the place at night always seem to say—'We are waiting! You are enjoying the joke now—we shall enjoy it later on!' If we knew exactly what was in store for us it wouldn't be so bad, but it is the vagueness of it, the vagueness of the horrors that the Unknown has hinted at, that makes ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... after a wild final romp that they left the room together. There was certainly no ceremony left between them. They came out as comrades, laughing at the same joke, ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... handiwork of some kind friend; the practical joke of some flippant youngster, who thinks it a delightful piece of humour to play upon the jealousy of a husband of fifty," mused the baronet, as he brooded over his folly. "I wish to heaven I could discover the writer of the epistle. He should find that it is rather a dangerous thing to ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... 29th, he was clutched by Cromwell, dragged to the table on which the Warrant lay, and compelled to sign it, Cromwell forcibly holding his hand and tracing the letters for him, with loud laughter at the joke! More by token, as Clarendon reports him, if his name on the Warrant "were compared with what he had ever writ himself," the difference would be seen! Unfortunately, Mr. Thoms, who has made this comparison, vouches that no difference can be detected, and that the name "Rich. Ingoldsby" ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... Guess so!" he added, making a joke on the name of the strange lad who had worked the steam organ of ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope

... had mounted his horse and ridden out alone to attend to our wounded, his green sash looking quite in harmony with the early spring verdure of those lovely woods. So came we back in triumph, enjoying the joke all the more because some one else was responsible. We mystified the little community at first, but soon let out the secret, and witticisms abounded for a day or two, the mildest of which was the assertion that ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... had been much amused by the sort of adoration she had no hesitation in showing that she felt for him. He used to call her Mademoiselle ma femme, and M. de Nailles would speak of him as "my daughter's future husband." This joke had been kept up till the little lady had reached her ninth year, when it ceased, probably by order of Madame de Nailles, who in matters of propriety was very punctilious. Jacqueline, too, became less ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... with things that another man will hang for. A Jean Valjean will steal a banana and go to the Island, while some rich fellow will put a bank in his pocket and everybody will treat it as a joke. A popular man may get drunk and not be criticized for it; but the sour chap who does the same thing is flung out of the club. There is little justice in the arbitrary decisions of society ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... errs greatly when he says that it will feed on mulberry. The last clause of the sentence, which says that cocoons of Pernyi are nearly as good as those of worms fed on mulberry leaves, must be a sort of entomological joke, of which the point is not discoverable by me, so ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... Hazel Gray? I should say!" exclaimed Jennie, instantly falling in with Ruth's attempt to pass the incident off as a joke. ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson

... "Now comes the joke!" continued Lestocq. "We have transferred Biron to another colony, and Herr Munnich will occupy the poetical pleasure-house of his friend Biron ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... stork met the fox and invited him to dinner. The stork brought out fine hot soup in a high narrow necked bottle, but the fox could not see the joke ...
— Nature Myths and Stories for Little Children • Flora J. Cooke

... to pick up a stone and throw it at the dog, as masters sometimes do when they do not want their dogs to follow them. This dog only wagged his tail, as though he thought it the best joke he had ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... the Doctor. He had been but a few months in the place; but the old church-goers had found him out as a passionate, free-and-easy, honorable fellow, full of joke and anecdote,—shrewd, too. They "fellowshipped" with him heartily, and were glad when he got the post of surgeon with their sons. If there were anything more astringent below this, any more real self in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... a grave, solid people, who understand a joke even less than the Scotch, while such a thing as chaff is absolutely unintelligible to them. Life to the Finns seems a serious matter which can be only undertaken after long thought and much deliberation. They lose much pleasure by their seriousness. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... yourself, in the wrong, and that obstinacy alone prevented you from owning it. Father Cullen's redeeming point was his earnestness,—his reality; he had no humbug about him; whatever was there, was real; he had no possible appreciation for a joke, and he understood no ridicule. You might gull him, and dupe him for ever, he would never find you out; his heart and mind were full of the Roman Catholic church and of his country's wrongs; he could neither think ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... did your sire provoke, By jest and jeer at better folk, A' solemn thought wad end in smoke, Sae wad his teachin', And fun wad fly in jibe an' joke At ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke

... responsibility and forestalled anxiety on any one's account by playing tunes, stampeding the whole cavalcade more than once because the horses were unused to his clanging concertina, but producing such high spirits that it became a joke to have to dismount in the mud and replace the load on some mule who had expressed enjoyment of the tune by rolling in slime, or by trying to kick ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... serenaders were invited in, and were in such numbers that the room would scarcely hold them all. More cigars, more punch, more giving of thanks. About three o'clock the crowd began to disperse, and at length, after those Spanish leave-takings, which are really no joke, had ended, Captain E——, C—-n, and I, all three excessively cold and shivering, having passed the night at the open windows, consoled ourselves with hot chocolate and punch, and went to dream of sweet-sounding harmonies. Altogether, it was a scene which I would ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... them if they came to look for them," observed Serko, shrugging his shoulders and laughing heartily as though he had perpetrated a huge joke. ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... "You must not joke, my children," said the Father; "this is a very sad business. I am thankful it has taken place in the absence of your dear Mother, and I forbid you writing her anything about it. This must concern me, and ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury

... my seclusion to visit my guru in Benares. He used to joke with me over my ceaseless ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... of life!" said Mrs. Beverley; but the joke amused her, she wiped her eyes, and, as Irene had hoped and intended, stepped smiling into the waiting taxi, and left her old home with laughter instead of ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... this if he reaffirms it. But I have a horrible feeling that you farmers think you have caught a city ignoramus and that it is your duty to stuff me with the tallest stories you can invent. Please set me right. If you are stuffing me the joke is certainly on me, for these incredible tales seem true: if they are true the joke is doubly on me. As I am the butt, either way, don't be too hard on ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... bare feet were from a pair of high boots such as the stranger at the camp-meeting had worn, though his ankles were richly shaded in three colors from the road, the field, and the barnyard. He liked the joke so well that the hurt of it could hardly keep him from laughing as he thumped his mare's ribs with his naked heels and bade her ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... a wire. That isn't the joke, though. You see he got into a hopeless muddle about which side of the veil he had come out on; and he went off with the other ones, and they wouldn't have him, and he got lost in the veil, running ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... thing be appalling. The natural remark, in the almost lurid light of such an indictment, would be that if these things are left out, everything is left out. The American knows that a good deal remains; what it is that remains—that is his secret, his joke, as one may say. It would be cruel, in this terrible denudation, to deny him the consolation of his national gift, that "American humour" of which of late years we have ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.

... Samaritan? She came ashore beneath here; right beneath our feet; by no fault or carelessness. A light-house on a coast like this—a coast without a harbour—is a joke set in a death-trap, to make game of ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... "that is a good joke! I'll pitch you into that raven's nest up there to teach you to make less ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory

... a difference between love and making me a laughing-stock. Yet what else could be the meaning of your little sister's running out to you, and saying "He thought I did not see him!" when I had followed you into the other room? Is it a joke upon me that I make free with you? Or is not the joke against HER sister, unless you make my courtship of you a jest to the whole house? Indeed I do not well see how you can come and stay with me as you do, by the hour together, and day after ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt

... "Devilish incomprehensible! They must know we're here. Been waiting fifteen minutes now, begad! Getting beyond a joke—deuced exasperating, Perry, y' know. Dammit, man, why can't you say something, do something, instead of sitting there so devilish calm and serene, staring before ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... needful is to come out here as early as he can get over the ground, to see if we want him. He had better fire a gun, or shout. If we are alive we shall answer him. If we don't answer, he had better see about it. I don't want to scare you, but this is not a joke, and I can't afford to be misunderstood. Now I'm going to tell him all ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... It is worthy of notice, as a stern Venetian joke, that when the Jesuits eventually returned to Rialto, they were bade walk in processions upon ceremonial occasions between the Fraternities of S. Marco and S. Teodoro—saints amid whose columns on the Molo ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... not try to explain," snapped Bickley. "I am perfectly aware that you deceived me somehow, which no doubt you think a good joke." ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... school on that Friday evening. She was still wearing the blue serge school dress that she and her aunt had made for her high-school debut, also some coarse, faded brown stockings, and stout cheap shoes, not to mention an unmentionable hat of no style at all. She had taken that unfortunate joke of the trust company's president literally: she must not waste her substance upon clothes. Even without this inhibition she had scarcely the skill and the courage necessary to spend her two hundred dollars to advantage in three days. So she had bought ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... to a girl," said Dicky. "We wouldn't do such a thing. We sent it for a—for a——" I think he tried to say for a joke, but he couldn't with the fiery way the old man looked at him—"for a sell, to pay a porter out for stopping me getting into a train when it was just starting, and I missed going to the Circus with the others." Oswald was glad Dicky was not too proud to explain to ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... at this sally, and all the company followed his example, in the midst of which M. de Lauzun turned on his heel and left the room. His joke soon spread all over the Court and the town, and in the evening was told to the King. This was all the thanks M. de Villeroy obtained from M. de Lauzun for the honours he had paid him; and this was M. de Lauzun's consolation for his ill-success at ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... mine and Looey's always made 'em turn around and look at us agin. I never wisht I had on them Injun duds so hard before in my life. But I couldn't think of nothing bright to say, so I jest reads the name of that book over to myself agin, kind o' grinning like I got a good joke I ain't going to ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis

... Bengal (Resort to Simla was the exception, not the rule, in these days!) to the cheerfulness and unconstraint of Burma, with its fine landscapes and merry-hearted population. "It was such a relief to find natives who would laugh at a joke," he once remarked in the writer's presence to the lamented E. C. Baber, who replied that he had experienced exactly the same sense of relief in ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... angulo; so that we listen to their little gossip with interest. They had been setting men, it seems, by the ears; and the drollest little atrocities they do certainly report. Not but we have seen better in the Nenagh paper, so far as Ireland is concerned. But the pet little joke was in La Vendee. Miss Famine, who is the girl for our money, raises the question—whether any of them can tell the name of the leader and prompter to these high jinks of hell—if so, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... load, without ceremony placed it on my back, and, giving me a poke with his spear, made a sign to me to carry it to a canoe floating close to the beach. The rest laughed, and seemed to think it a good joke. I tried hard to keep up my temper and courage; so, as soon as I had deposited the load in the canoe, I came back, and assiduously began to collect another, which in like manner I carried to the canoe. When, however, I had collected a third, rather ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... get this load for me,—you will have no responsibility about it. I have never had anything to do with moonshiners before," he went on, "but Raymond got in with 'em and thinks it would be a huge joke to send a lot of their whiskey to his friends in these 'dry towns,' and that prohibition business has riled me so that I promised I would help pass the stuff along. Raymond's going to hang around the saloon and the station to see that the coast is clear o' government ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins

... take it as a joke. His eyes flashed a moment and he replied: "You know very well, Senor Alferez, that, during these days, I am not the ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... would never do a thing like that," she pleaded. "You're just trying to scare me with a joke. Be a good fellow and untie my hands and take ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... Harry, and off he sped, thinking it a great joke on Leslie that he should keep his word, and because she was causing the delay, run off to the cottage ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks

... be kindness, lofty souls, Great Brains, and whatso ne'er grows older, Him the Material controls: He shrugs a sleek, good-natured shoulder. Time scatters dalliance, joy, and joke; Your choicest vintage passes; e'en your Supreme tobacco ends in smoke— And so will poor DON ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various

... perhaps two seconds for the joke to dawn on the other officers at the long mess table. Then an explosion of laughter sounded, and every eye was ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock

... rushed from the room and taken the night-mail back to the Five Towns, and never any more have ventured into the perils of London, if Carlo Trent had not turned his head, and signified by a curt, reluctant laugh that he saw the joke. For Edward Henry could no longer depend on Mr. Seven Sachs. Mr. Seven Sachs had to take the greatest pains to keep the muscles of his face in strict order. The slightest laxity with them—and he would have been involved in another ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... foreign cities. On the contrary, she felt in herself yearnings for a fuller and freer life of beauty and grace. She wasn't sure that Peter ever felt such yearnings; he seemed quite contented with the ugly rooms in the ugly street, and the dingy lace curtains and impossible pictures; he could make a joke of it all; and things one could make a joke of couldn't really hurt, ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... mother, reprovingly; but his father, who looked upon it as a good joke, remarked, good-humoredly, ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger

... "Go on, Colonel, you're always havin' yer joke. I'm sure I don't know what ye mean by Indypendence, or Westport. But if you want to get uptown, the street cars is four blocks yan. Er maybe ye'd like ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... our hero, there had been a practice of long standing among the workmen of "testing" every new hand that came in, by playing what was believed to be a smart trick upon him. The joke consisted in sending the new hand in company with a fellow workman to bring from a distant part of the shop a pair of wheels, one of which was of iron and weighed over four hundred pounds, while its mate was made of wood and finished off to look exactly like its companion. ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood

... fact that when the blind shall lead the blind both shall fall into a ditch! But Chinese decorum forbade my falling behind. I had determined to walk across China, every inch of the way or not at all; and the chair coolies, unaware of my intentions presumably, thought it a great joke when at the western gate, through which I departed, I gave instructions that one hundred cash be doled out to each man for his graciousness in escorting me through ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... from the old board landing. His friend, Mr. Draper, was with him. It was below the Falls where the river had rapids and rocks. They tipped over and were so soaked that St. Paul had to get along that day without them. It was considered a great joke to ask the dominie if he was converted to immersion, ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... for us. To-morrow, at twelve o'clock, ten million of dollars is due to be paid to the agents of Prince Victor of Normandy, by the Credit Lyonnais of Paris. To-morrow morning, the New York Herald, in great type, exposes as a gigantic joke the whole affair! It will give the names of the American citizens, and the titles which their contribution to the Royalist cause in France is to secure. To-morrow, all New York will be convulsed with laughter—and ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... consider; "that's just what I can't do. Alice's ways are not my ways, and if I copied her it's kilt I'd be entirely. She never likes to see a smile on my face, and she can't abide to watch me if I dance a step, and she wouldn't take a joke out of me if it was to save her life. To please Alice I'd have to be the primmest of the prim, and always stooping over my horrid lessons, and the end of it there'd be no more of poor Kathleen O'Hara—- it's dead and in her grave she'd be, the creature. Indeed, I'm glad I'm not ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... murdering wretch only replied to my threat with another mocking laugh, which his companions echoed, as if enjoying a joke, while I noticed them dragging at a shapeless mass from the ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... joke, or it's the black rabbit getting in his work," answered Bud. "It's from an unknown ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... and held her fast, Maurice advanced upon her, she struggled, and gave a scream of real terror. The matter was no joke to any one but Reginald, for Maurice was very angry and really meant to ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with anybody who lets me and mine alone. He finds fault with Romany, forsooth! why, L—-d A'mighty, what's Scotch? He doesn't like our songs; what are his own? I understand them as little as he mine; I have heard one or two of them, and pretty rubbish they seemed. But the best of the joke is the fellow's finding fault with Piramus's fiddle—a chap from the land of bagpipes finding fault with Piramus's fiddle! Why, I'll back that fiddle against all the bagpipes in Scotland, and Piramus against all the bagpipers; for though ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... what folks mean when they talk about a howlin' wilderness. Always thought 'twas one o' them figgers o' speech, but I'll tell the world it ain't no joke! Gosh! Think of all the things that's layin' out there and bellerin' and waitin' for us pore li'l' fellers to come in amongst 'em and ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... every day, promenading the deck with her in the fresh salt air. I would slide back my window and hear their laughter as they passed, above the throb of the engines and the wash of the sea. Sometimes they would look in upon me and joke, and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to retire up the canyon until he could recover his gravity. There he confided the joke to the tall pine trees, with many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire—for the air had grown strangely ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... interested in bonefish. I never failed to ask questions. But bonefishermen were scarce and as reticent as scarce. To sum up all of my inquiries, I learned or heard a lot that left me completely bewildered, so that I had no idea whether a bonefish was a joke or the grandest fish that swims. I deducted from the amazing information that if a fisherman sat all day in the blazing sun and had the genius to discover when he had a bite he was learning. No one ever caught bonefish without days and days ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... dulled by Farr's radiant good nature and wholesome frankness, went away about his business, but he halted long enough beside Dodd's chair to repeat "the corn-grower's" joke regarding the young man who had ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... getting into the boat, and shoving her off into deep water, they did not seem pleased, but tried to persuade them to land again. Finding they could not succeed, one of them threw his piece of fire-wood at them; but it falling short, the matter was treated as a joke, and laughed at. On this, another ran into the water, and threw his also, but it likewise fell short: he then took the hooked stick, and slipping off the hook, which it seems was only lashed or tied on, produced a spear, with which he ran up to the middle ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... heart. You wouldn't have known he had one. He only left it to the physical laboratory at Waterbury for the benefit of science, since he considered it to be quite an extraordinary kind of heart. And the joke of the matter was that, when, at the age of eighty-four, just five days before poor Florence, he died of bronchitis there was found to be absolutely nothing the matter with that organ. It had certainly jumped or ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... for proof to the dead branches from which new leaves spring, that life is endless, and that the soul, leaving the worn-out shell, takes up its dwelling in another form. Another with scorn tells us that all life is a joke and we are the butts of the cruel will of an Omnipotent power. And still ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... I don't for a moment think you will stop with one good joke of this kind. Youth, with a heart like yours, ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... going to? Have you accepted?" he took up her joke as she held him pinioned; while Mrs. Spragg, behind them, stirred in her ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... Button—big Tom, fighting Tom so loud o' tongue and ready o' fist—Tom as have cowed so many—there is he fast by the neck and a-groaning, see ye, gossips, loud enough for six, wish I may die else! And the best o' the joke is—the key be gone, as I'm a sinner! So they needs must break the lock to get him out. Big Tom, as have thrashed every man for miles." But here merry voice and laughter ceased and a buxom woman thrust smiling face ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... himself back with a roaring laugh, and hereupon Gid added: "It takes the Major a long time to get over a joke. Told him one just now and it tickled him mighty nigh to death. Well, I must be going now, and, madam, if I should chance to see anything of your charming daughter, I will tell her that you desire a conference with her. William," he called, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... which the Boche had left behind him when he fled. Finally, when all our plans were complete, we were notified that the point of attack had been shifted to N——, a village about four miles away. This practical joke we thought in extremely bad taste, but there was nothing for it but to pack up and move as quickly as possible. We learned that our troops at N—— had tried twice to break through the German lines by bombing. A third attempt was to be made, and ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh

... the mountains, often eating only once a day, and occasionally going two or three days without food. I had a few friends who were concerned about me, and who were afraid I might some time starve to death. So, partly as a joke and partly in earnest, they would mail me a package of something to eat, whenever they knew at what post-office I was likely to turn up. At Alma, the morning I hired Midget, the prize package which I drew from the post-office contained salted peanuts. I did ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... Bo-peep fell fast asleep, And dreamed she heard them bleating; When she awoke she found it a joke, For they ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various

... Venetian craft lying in the harbour, and took possession of them, and shut us all up in prison. There we were till Messer Polani got news, and sent out another ship to pay the fine demanded. That was no joke, I can tell you, for the prison was so hot and crowded, and the food so bad, that we got fever, and pretty near half of us died before our ransom came. Then at Constantinople the Genoese stirred the people up against us once or twice, and all the sailors ashore had to fight for their lives. ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty

... he said, laughing, "you going to meeting? That's a good joke!" If she had heard him, she would have turned away. But her hand was on the latch; the door had swung upon its noiseless hinges; the pealing organ drowned his voice. She went in and sat down in an empty slip close by the door, looking about her ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... asleep, And dream'd she heard them bleating; But when she awoke she found it a joke,— Her ...
— Simple Simon - Silhouette Series • Anonymous

... for curiosity," said McElvina, continuing his mirth. The proprietor of the dog, a young Frenchman, dressed very much "en calicot," did not, however, seem quite so much amused with this practical joke; he cocked his hat fiercely on one side, raised his figure to the utmost of its height, and walking up, en grand militaire addressed McElvina, with "Comment, monsieur, vous avez fait une ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... lad's bright, clear eyes looked frankly into the captain's as he continued. "I have been making a fool of myself, Captain. Got into some mischief with a crowd of fellows at school. Of course, I got caught and had to bear the whole blame for the silly joke we had played. The faculty has suspended me for a term. I would have got off with only a reprimand if I would have told the names of the other fellows, but I couldn't do that, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... know of the West Coast of Africa, the more you realise its dangers. For example, on your first voyage out you hardly believe the stories of fever told by the old Coasters. That is because you do not then understand the type of man who is telling them, a man who goes to his death with a joke in his teeth. But a short experience of your own, particularly if you happen on a place having one of its periodic epidemics, soon demonstrates that the underlying horror of the thing is there, a rotting corpse which ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... it said (since in our modern days every hero must have his weak heel), that now he had gone this distance it was difficult to recede. It would be no laughing matter to tell his solemn Harriet that he had been playing her a little practical joke. His temptations to give it up were incessant and most agitating; but if to advance seemed terrific, there was, in stopping short, an awfulness so overwhelming that Andrew abandoned himself to the current, his real dismay adding to his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... counted on easily tracking them and buying them back. He would force Mr. Harley to give him the very money that was to buy them. The thought lighted up his cruel face like a red ray from the pit; it would be such a joke—such a triumph over the pig American! Meanwhile he would bully Mr. Harley, who did not know but what the ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... Athol When the conductor noticed among the new passengers a young man of intelligent appearance. He asked for the young man's fare, and the latter handed him a ticket to Miller's Falls and with it a cent. For a moment the conductor suspected a joke, but a look at the passenger's face convinced him ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger

... Hans knew what he was about, he was thrown off, and lay on his back by the road-side. His horse would have ran off, if a shepherd who was coming by, driving a cow, had not stopped it. Hans soon came to himself, and got upon his legs again, sadly vexed, and said to the shepherd, 'This riding is no joke, when a man has the luck to get upon a beast like this that stumbles and flings him off as if it would break his neck. However, I'm off now once for all: I like your cow now a great deal better than this smart ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... upon the side of the cliff. Will had usually found it cold at such a height, but now the beams struck directly upon him and his face was soon covered with perspiration. He was assailed also by a fierce, burning thirst, and a great anger lay hold of him. It was a terrible joke that he should be held there in the hole of the cliff by an invisible warrior who used only arrows against him, perhaps because he feared a shot from a rifle would bring ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... whether there is any more reason for refraining from the stork fiction than from the Santa Claus one. When Santa Claus is found out, the whole thing is generally understood as a joke, a pleasant sort of fairy tale. There was nothing hidden behind the fiction. In the other case, if the child chances somewhere to hear the facts stated in a coarse manner, he will be likely to feel instinctively that the new tale is the true one, and will naturally ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... to the Delphic oracle for some means of cure. The god prescribed a peculiar form of sacrifice, which would be effective if they could carry it through without laughing. They did their best; but the flimsy joke of a boy upset their unaccustomed gravity, and in this way the oracle taught them that even the gods could not prescribe a quick cure for a long vitiation, or give power and dignity to a people who in a crisis of the public wellbeing were ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... soul cannot do, as the body cannot fly. Nobody could have explained to my husband. Nobody could do it now. If you said to him in so many words, 'Champion is stealing your wife,' he would think the joke a little vulgar: that it could be anything but a joke—that notion could find no crack in his great skull to get in by. Well, John was to come and see us act this evening, but just as we were starting he said he ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... cut off a thick round of melon as they arose from the table, and put it in the refrigerator for Emmy Lou. "It seems a joke," she remarked, "such a baby as Emmy Lou going to school anyhow; but then she has only a square ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... a villain!" muttered Horatio. "Ask Miss Kellerton; she knows him. But, villainy aside, what a stupendous joke it is to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various



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