"Racket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... challenged argumentatively. "I tell you, they all go to school to him. There ain't one of our advertising tricks, from Old Lame-Boy down to the money-back guarantee, that the others haven't crabbed. Take that 'People's Doctor' racket. Schwarzman copied it for his Marovian Mixture. Vollmer ran his 'Poor Man's Physician' copy six months, on Marsh-Weed. 'Poor Man's Doctor'! It's pretty dear ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... on the top rail, and shouted, "Hurrah!" Sally screamed, "Good-by, good-by!" at the top of her voice; and Carlo bristled up his hair, and barked loudly, wondering all the time what this strange creature could be, which made such a racket, and ran faster ...
— The Nursery, July 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 1 • Various
... Architecture disordered; so that I can compare em to nothing but to the Night-Goblins that take a Pleasure to over-turn the Disposition of Plates and Dishes in the Kitchens of your housewifely Maids. Well, after all this Racket and Clutter, this is too dear, that is their Aversion; another thing is charming, but not wanted: The Ladies are cured of the Spleen, but I am not a Shilling the better for it. Lord! what signifies one poor Pot of Tea, considering the Trouble they put me to? Vapours, Mr. SPECTATOR, are terrible ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... came round the house, Herbert trifling with a tennis ball and carrying a racket under his arm. Florence was peeling ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... of Indians and other things, when mother wakened me, shouting, "Where's the man's clothes?" I couldn't make out at first what all the racket was about. Then I heard men's voices talking in the yard, and recognized Mr. M., my Sunday-school teacher, and my employer, the man that was going to make a great engineer out of me. I went out on the porch and told him what I had done with the clothes, and he nearly ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney
... give me a boost up there and I'll travel right along the face till I find out where the racket comes from." ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Mr. Robert, who's running the thing, "you must be playin' for a frost. Now if you'd hire one of them Third-ave. halls and band, you might give 'em somethin' of a send-off; but it'll be hard to tell this racket from one of these noonday prayin' bees they has down in ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... sir," she said, opening the door; and there were Sanders and Bonamy like two bulls of Bashan driving each other up and down, making such a racket, and all them chairs in the way. They never noticed her. She felt motherly towards them. "Your breakfast, sir," she said, as they came near. And Bonamy, all his hair touzled and his tie flying, broke off, and pushed Sanders into the arm-chair, and said Mr. Sanders had ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... 'oney,—an' she's done many a kind thing for the village since. But I don't care for 'er friends. They've changed her like—they've made her forget all about us! An' as for Passon, she don't come nigh 'im no more, an' he don't go nigh 'er. Seems to me 'tis all a muddle an' a racket since the motor-cars went bouncin' about an' smellin' like p'ison—'tain't wot it used to be. Howsomever, let's 'ope to the Lord it'll soon be over. If wot they all sez is true, there'll be a weddin' 'ere soon, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... been born and bred out here in the West," he remarked, "while you are really only an importation. But what is that racket about?" ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... spun fast over the ground, and the westering sun threw long shadows over their path as they rolled farther and farther through the country lanes, leaving the racket of the streets far behind. The country was familiar to Tom, who had ridden over the same ground early in the year; but how different it all looked in the vivid green of early summer, instead of draped in a mantle of ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that big, bare room, done in hard wood, made me seem noisier still. He sort of stopped and twitched, and appeared to shrink back in his chair: I presume my tones went straight through the poor twisted invalid's head. He must have fancied me (from the racket I was making) as a sort of free-and-easy Hercules (which is not quite the case), if not as the whole football squad rolled into one. Whether he really saw me, then or thereafter, I don't know; he wore a sort of green shade ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... it? She wasn't tipping dice, exactly, but she sure was calling the turn. She was tall, as well as skinny, and our eyes weren't far apart. "Billy Joe," she whispered above the racket of the gambler in the casino, putting her mouth close to my ear. "I told you, sugar. And now you lost. You lost!" Her perfume was cheap, but generous, and pretty well covered up ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... doubt it. Come on; let's get away from this racket." He took Hugh by the arm and led him up-stairs to his own room, which was pleasantly quiet and restful after the noise they ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... Jack. Your mother and my father are blood cousins, and I don't want any bad feelings to grow out of this racket. I've apologized to Mr. Compton here, and now I'm ready to apologize ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... Tengga is not chief of the land instead of Belarab. A brave and foresighted man, however treacherous at heart, can always be trusted to a certain extent. One can never get anything clear from Belarab. Peace! Peace! You know his fad. And this fad makes him act silly. The peace racket will get him into a row. It may cost him his life in the end. However, Tengga does not feel himself strong enough yet to act with his own followers only and Belarab has, on my advice, disarmed all villagers. His men went into the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... song, are out of place. Any sort of argument save the most powerful is wasted on a man whose soul is filled with the racket of a dominating passion, such ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... the sight of an attorney, just, for all the world, as some people have an antipathy to a cat: for it seems he was once at law, for striking one of his officers, and cast in a swinging sum. He is, moreover, exceedingly afflicted with goblins that disturb his rest, and keep such a racket in his house, that you would think (God bless us!) all the devils in hell had broke loose upon him. It was no longer ago than last year about this time, that he was tormented the livelong night by the mischievous spirits that got into his chamber, and played a thousand pranks about his hammock, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... into it if you like. I don't believe it will hurt you. And like the measles, the harder you have it, the sooner you'll get over it, and you'll never have it but once. By the way, they invited me to their Christmas racket,—and I'm going!" ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... but is played over a lower dividing line, and the ball is batted with the hand instead of with a racket; it is always played from a bound, never ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... Then he said: "Langton you're a bit different from what you were. In a way, it's you who have set me out on this racket, and it's you who encouraged me to try and get down to rock-bottom. You've always been a cautious old rotter, but you're more than ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... friend of Mrs. Racket; she is very jealous of young girls, and even of Mrs. Racket, because she was some six years her junior.—Mrs. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... which is a silencer on our engine that'll keep it muzzled, even if it does knock off a bit o' our speed when we happen to use it. Luckiest thing ever you managed to get the Big Boss to send us such a bully contrivance that seems to work jest great. Listen to the racket they're kickin' up right now—enough to tell any chump ten miles off a crate's headin' his way. Jerusalem crickets! but ain't I glad we're ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... if you do," cried John Berwick, as he and Jim leaped into the musty interior of the cab. Before they were fairly inside the vehicle was in motion. The driver hit his horse a clip, and away the hack rattled and jounced in furious pursuit, making racket enough for ten ordinary carts. The noise of the wheels upon the cobbles aroused the immediate interest of the street urchins on both sides of the thoroughfare. They threw compliments as well as stones. One, quicker than the others, ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... the huckster was yelling "Chestnuts! Fresh-roasted chestnuts!" The little charcoal oven in his push-cart sent out a shrill, continuous whistle, and Nan had an impulse to throw something at him. What business had he to come here and make such a racket that she couldn't hear what was going on in the next room. He passed slowly down the street, his call and the whistle of his oven growing fainter and fainter, and finally fading quite away as he disappeared in the distance. Nan pricked up her ears. Surely the sounds she heard were ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... you are a person," she said. "Think of the racket and torture this time last year. But now I couldn't stop unhappy if I tried. What a change—and all ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... wing, in which was situated our school-room, and a lofty, well-ventilated room it was. We had several lecture-rooms besides; and then the large old courtyard served as a capital playground in wet weather, as well as a racket-court; and in one corner of it we had our gymnasium, which was one of the many capital things belonging ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... second move. He approached the old man with the inquiry, "Why, what's the racket, Frosty? Something the matter with ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... "9th. A tennis racket—nay, start not. It is a part of the new regime, and the only new and neat-looking thing in the Museum. We'll soon mellow it—like the straw hat. My brother and I are teaching each other ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... wild racket of the guns, it seemed as though the sea itself whispered. On and on came the Red Cross ship. It approached so near that they could see that a couple of boats were being lowered. They were gasoline ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... chance at that sculling racket, anyhow, Max; never took a turn at the same, and so you'd better let me try it when we get ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... I did, and I wondered why you relieved him from that gag. If he keeps up that racket, he'll bring the whole fleet in ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... was bowled in attempting the most abominable of blind-swipes. He returned towards the pavilion, so far forgetting himself in his pleasure as to swing about his bat like a tennis-racket. What thunderous applause he received! It was his last term, and his last match. And I am glad that the final picture, which our memory preserves of White alive, shows us the sterling oaf departing after a glorious innings, surrounded by uproarious school-fellows, and smiling as only the righteous ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... be heard, for he makes a terrible noise, the toes of his shoes being faced with copper to prevent the youngster from wearing them out too soon. Olive asks Esther to please get the old pink scarf and tie his feet so that he will be unable to make such a racket, Esther does not move, but upon being requested a second time gets up rather reluctantly, goes to the hat rack in the hall, gets the scarf and ties the little fellow's feet, as requested. Upon reseating herself at the table it is noticeable that ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... and alarm, the schoolmaster grew thin and worn, his school fell off more and more; for many of the boys, whose rest was disturbed by all this racket, encouraged by the example of the boys of the place who had already been taken away, wrote privately ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... the amateur they are worse than useless; and even experts have great difficulty in running week in and week out without serious breaks and delays. To use a slang phrase, "They will not stand the racket." However "stunning" they look on asphalt and macadam with their low, rakish bodies, resplendent in red and polished brass, on country roads they are very frequently failures. A thirty horse-power foreign machine costing ten or twelve ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... who, with several volunteer helpers, seized hold of the rear framework and held the struggling aeroplane back with all their might. Her frame shook as if it was being swept by some mighty convulsion. The racket was terrific, ear-splitting. The wind from the propellers blew hats in every direction and streamed out the hair of the men holding the aeroplane back, as if they had been poking their faces into ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... had been represented there only by the venison and game which had been sent from Humblethwaite. Twice also she had spent the months of May and June in London; but it had not hitherto suited the tone of her father's character to send his daughter out into all the racket of a London season. She had gone to balls, and to the opera, and had ridden in the Park, and been seen at flower-shows; but she had not been so common in those places as to be known to the crowd. And, ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... landing, it rushed up the stairs with so much clatter that Diana imagined, though she could see nothing, that it must have on its feet, heavy lumbering boots. Filled with an irresistible curiosity, in spite of her alarm, Diana ran after it, and, on reaching the upper storey, heard it making a terrific racket in the room above the one in which she now slept. Nothing daunted, however, she boldly approached, and, flinging open the door, perceived its filmy outline standing before a shadowy and very antique ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... the corpulent duke, That is, the great duke, 'sdeath, I shall not shortly Racket away five hundred crowns at tennis, But it shall rest 'pon record! I scorn him Like a shav'd Polack: all his reverend wit Lies in his wardrobe; he 's a discreet fellow, When he 's made up in his robes of state. Your brother, the great duke, ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... so that she became frightened. The racket of the brook in his ears safeguarded her in a measure. She bent over nearly double, her rifle at a trail, ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... them. Natica Drayton wasn't the strain that needs spectacles to see through things. Then, too, I guessed the loving friend sympathy racket was being worked by some of the bridge whist aggregation which met up with her every fortnight. She laughed more than she ought to have done. This was a bad sign with her. Once or twice, when the three of us dined together, and she was almost noisy ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... you hear. Those pipes make noise enough to wake the dead. At first I thought I couldn't sleep because of the racket they made. Now I doubt if I could without it. Would you consider ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... anyway. Of course we may be able to find out who he really is, but the chances are small. Men like this chap don't go giving away anything more than they can help. They lie low and let their paid underlings stand the racket if it happens to come along. I know the type. I've come cross it before. Well, here we are. Now for it—but this time I happen to have brought ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... that she appeared the picture of health and was tall and athletic-looking. In one hand she had carried a tennis-racket in its case, in the other, a bag of golf clubs, as she alighted from the vehicle. These evidently were her household gods. The domestic vision which they ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... with his fore feet on the lower shelf. But alas, for his greed! His weight on the board that formed the shelf was too much, and it flew up in the air sending the fruit in all directions and making such a racket that the fruit dealer heard it and turned around just in time to see the ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... freaks of mental expansion. Let their first desire be to show themselves good, useful, hardy, serviceable citizens or subjects, and they will do much to remove the stigma from their profession. Let them be acquainted with the feeling of a bat or racket in the hands, or a saddle between the knees; let them know the rough path over the mountains, or the diving-pool amongst the rocks, and their mentality will not be found to suffer. A winter's "roughing ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... Ernstone, and Mabel had looked at its neat grey-green covers and red lettering with a little curiosity, for somebody had spoken of it to her the day before, and she took it up with the intention of reading a chapter or two before going out with her racket into the square, where the tennis season had already set in on the ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... to crown all, or to drown all, the insinuating liquor kava, followed when the festival was done by the sensuous but fascinating hula hula, danced by maidens of varying loveliness. Of these Van Blaricom, the American, said, "they'd capture Chicago in a week with that racket," and he showed Blithelygo his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the back garden, that the portion (like potatoes) might grow to young bullocks; filling the bellows' snout with gunpowder, that they may blow the fire up; putting the cat in walnut-shells upon the icy pond, and himself in the middle of it; playing racket in the drawing-room; and constructing a snow man against the back-door to fall in upon Sarah, almost frightening her to death; and many other experimental, philosophical tricks, too ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... along the branches of the trees, and jumped from one branch to another, and poked about on the ground and opened the chestnut-burs which had just fallen from the trees, and ate the chestnuts, or scampered over the roof just above David's head, and made a great racket. ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... I heard Aunt Gwen's angelic voice calling down. My first fear was that Uncle Philander had gone off on some sort of racket, and was returning in no condition for a gentleman, for which suspicion I humbly beg his pardon, for he's just as lovely as a man ever ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... semicircular file, or line of two ranks, back to back, facing the spectators, and moving slowly round. This continued about a quarter of an hour, when the strangers were surprised by a sudden loud and shrill whoop, uttered by a company of young men, who came in briskly, after one another, each with a racket or hurl in his hand. These champions likewise were well dressed, painted, and ornamented with silver bracelets, gorgets, and wampum, and having high waving plumes in their diadems: they immediately formed themselves in a semicircular rank in front ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... Castle" and it was only after the payment of fifty dollars that permission was granted for the erection of the tent. Here to the accompaniment of a raucous medley of sounds—the beating of tom-toms, the ballyhooing of the sideshows, the racket of the machinery exhibits and the cries of the peanut and lemonade vendors—the farmers' trading company was organized with provisional officers[1] and directorate in legal shape to start the wheels in motion as a ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... could," assented the other readily. "It was old Colchester's notion, though he was always threatening to give her up. He couldn't stand her racket any more, he declared; it was too much of a good thing for him; he would wash his hands of her, if he never got hold of another—and so on. I daresay he would have chucked her, only—it may surprise you—his missus wouldn't hear of it. Funny, ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... profoundly dines with the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin meals were somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old Ahab forbade not conversation; only he himself was dumb. What a relief it was to choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below. And poor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of this weary family party. His were the shinbones of the saline beef; his would have been the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help himself, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... "A Cattle-racket. The term at the head of this chapter was originally applied in New South Wales to the agitation of society which took place when some wholesale system of plunder in cattle was brought to light. It is now commonly applied to any circumstance of this sort, whether greater or less, and ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... against the house when the wind blew. That was what set him a-dreaming. In his dream he had no gun, so he picked up the first thing he could lay his hands on, and let drive at the dog. Smash! there was a great racket, and a jingling of glass. Paul was awake in an instant, and found that he had jumped out of bed, and was standing in the middle of the floor, and that he had knocked over the spinning-wheel, and a lot of old trumpery, and had thrown one of his grandfather's ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Green accused Spot. "You made a loud enough racket; but you took good care to keep out of the ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... mustache can just be seen through opera-glasses; I originate but flee from every row, And no one knows as well as I what "sass" is! The officers look down on me with scorn, The sailors jeer at me—behind my jacket, But still my heart is not "with anguish torn," And life with me is one continued racket. ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... isn't ended here there will be a ghastly scene some- where else. If only I'd written to her and stood the racket at long range! (To Khitmatgar.) Han! Simpkin do. (Aloud.) I'll tell you ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... accustomed to the smell of rancid oil and dyestuffs and the interminable racket of machinery she did not find her work at the knitting mill disagreeable. It was like any work, she imagined, an uninteresting task which had to ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... see them at their game? They'll put an egg into a hat; say, 'One, two, three,' and pull out a chicken. And then they say, 'One, two, three,' again and there's neither a chicken nor an egg. That's the way all this real-estate racket will end. Mark ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Without attempting to operate the factory, my reasoning ran, they had taken advantage of the stock's low price to double whatever they cared to invest twice yearly. It was a neat and wellshaped little racket and discovery, as the broker admitted, would have exposed them to legal action. Only my recklessness with the checks from the Weekly Ruminant and the Honeycomb had ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... been comparatively easy to have hoisted Woola aloft in one manner or another, but now it was too late. There was nothing for it but to stand our ground and take our medicine, though, from the hideous racket which now assailed our ears, and for which that first roar had seemed to be the signal, I judged that we must be in the midst of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the fierce, man-eating denizens of ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a cup of tea all to himself. A pretty young woman approached him, and deliberately snatched the cup from under his very nose—and without spilling a drop. The Indian judge sprang up, roared 'Hussy!' and knocked the table over with a prodigious racket, then proceeded to pick ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... for the captive, who was greeted with the most uproarious cries as soon as seen by the company, which numbered over a hundred bucks, squaws and children, exclusive of the dogs which added to the unearthly racket by their barking, yelping ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... making such a racket for?" he exclaimed in tones that thrilled to the heart of his employee; then, without waiting for an answer, he slightly glanced at the table, and asked, "Have ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... double duty allowed her was employed by Mopsey in scaring away the poultry and idle young chickens which rushed in at the back entrance of the kitchen in swarms, and hopped with yellow legs about the floor with the racket of constant falling showers of corn. Upon the half door opening on the front the red rooster had mounted, and with his head on one side observed with a knowing eye all that went forward; showing perhaps most interest in the turning of the spit, the impalement of the turkey thereon having ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... no note, he is well. for we have not lost one officer of any note—now will you conclude that we are beaten, and will be crying and roaring all night for Hanover. Lord! where do you live? If you had any ears, as I have none left with the noise, you would have heard the racket that was made from morning till night yesterday on the news of the victory(1051) gained by Prince Ferdinand over the French. He has not left so many alive as there are at any periwig-maker's in London. This is all we know, the particulars are to come at their leisure, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... April, we pass through what I call the "robin racket,"—trains of three or four birds rushing pell-mell over the lawn and fetching up in a tree or bush, or occasionally upon the ground, all piping and screaming at the top of their voices, but whether in mirth or anger it is hard to tell. The nucleus of the train is a female. One cannot ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... with which they herald the advent of a new day. In the apple-orchards and among the plum-trees of the few gardens in Stillwater, the wrens and the robins and the blue-jays catch up the crystal crescendo, and what a melodious racket they make of it with their fifes and ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... report of a rifle, and seemingly the gunner was not fifty yards from where my contemplations ended and my accelerated transit began. My erratic namesake, with little warning, gave proof of decided dissatisfaction at the racket, and with one reckless bound he unceremoniously separated me from my eight-dollar plug hat, with which I parted company without any assent, express or implied, upon my part. At a break-neck speed we soon arrived in a haven of safety. Meanwhile I was left ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... various grooms of the chambers, was indescribable. Doublets had to be brushed, ruffs plaited, hair curled, beards trimmed, and all with the greatest possible expedition; so that, as soon as day dawned upon Hoghton Tower, there was a prodigious racket from one end of it to the other. Many favoured servants slept in truckle-beds in their masters' rooms; but others, not so fortunate, and unable to find accommodation even in the garrets—for the smallest rooms, and those nearest the roof, were put in requisition—slept upon the benches in the hall, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the house. A feeling of weakness came over me for a short time, but I soon grew warm and courageous in the Spirit. The man then said to me, "I was sent here to break up your meeting. Complaint has been made to me that the people round here cannot sleep for the racket." I replied, "a good racket is better than a bad racket. How do they rest when the ungodly are dancing and fiddling till midnight? Why are not they molested by the watchmen? and why should we be for praising God, our Maker? Are ...
— Memoir of Old Elizabeth, A Coloured Woman • Anonymous
... engage even in it without depositing considerable stakes. An extensive meadow is chosen for this sport, and the articles staked are tied to a post, or deposited in the custody of two old men. The combatants being stript and painted, and each provided with a kind of battledore or racket, in shape resembling the letter P, with a handle about two feet long and a head loosely wrought with net-work, so as to form a shallow bag, range themselves on different sides. A ball being now tossed up in the middle, each party endeavours to drive it to their respective ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... tremendous racket Oscar came into the room, dragging behind him a drum, which he could not carry, because in one hand he had a large bunch of bells and in the other a ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... wake up to find that your racket has just smashed a lob on the bounce from near the back-net, scoring a clean ace between your paralyzed opponents, you ought to know that the racket was guided by that superior sportsman; and if you are truly modest, you will admit that your miraculous ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... mother had arrayed herself, then upon the subtly rouged and powdered face above it. "You are a marvellous person, mother! All the same, I think the heat must have been getting hold of you, for your eyes are tired. Don't racket too much!" ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Hooty was right close at hand. Mrs. Hooty is bigger and even more fierce than Hooty, and Blacky didn't want to frighten any of the more timid of his relatives. What he hoped down deep in his crafty heart was that when they got to teasing and tormenting Hooty and making the great racket which he knew they would, Mrs. Hooty would lose her temper and fly over to join Hooty in trying to drive away the black tormentors. Then Blacky would slip over to the nest which she had left unguarded and steal one and perhaps both of the eggs ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... spinning of wheels, the great car started,—faltered,—balked a bit,—then dragged crushingly across the Senior Surgeon's flattened body, and with a great wanton burst of speed tore down the sloping meadow into the brook—rods away. Clamping down the brakes with a wrench and a racket like the smash of a machine-shop the White Linen Nurse jumped out into the brook, and with one wild terrified glance behind her staggered back up the long grassy slope to the ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... can stand the racket. Of course her idea is, that if we find Miss Ray she oughtn't to come back alone with us, perhaps a long way, from some ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... natives to come and beat it in, and singing out it was a soul he wished to save, and that. He was in a rare taking, was the priest. But what would you have? Johnny had slipped his cable; no more Johnny in the market; and the administration racket clean played out. Next thing, word came to Randall the priest was praying upon Johnny’s grave. Papa was pretty full, and got a club, and lit out straight for the place, and there was Galoshes on his knees, and a lot of natives looking on. You wouldn’t think Papa cared—that much about anything, unless ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... excitement, had a mishap. While creeping along the upper rim of a galley he stepped on a round stone. Ned fell crashing into a heap of rotting limbs and went floundering from there to the bottom of the incline, making a racket that must have been heard clear ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... met the most wounded man who ever came out of France alive, it was my turn to be in hospital. He came to visit me there, and told me that he'd been all through the Vimy racket and was ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... sort of man. So I guess we'll have to take you out of the office. Still, I promised Welton to give you a good try-out. Then, too, I'm not satisfied in my own mind. I can see you are trying. Either you're a damn fool or this college education racket has had the same effect on you as on most other young cubs. If you're the son of your father, you can't be entirely a damn fool. If it's the college education, that will probably wear off in time. Anyhow, I think I'll take you up to the mill. You can ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... like a beggar, and I would give him something, which he would take to his wife. All the others immediately began to utter furious cries, cries of rage and jealousy; and I could not make the terrible racket cease except by ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... knocks on a door, but Jephthah Turrentine made considerable racket with the latch before he ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... find to rest your eyes upon, and mighty good writing it is. I wonder, though if when Mr. Norris adroitly mentioned the "clack and snarl" of the banjo "Landy" played, he remembered the "silver snarling trumpets" of Keats? After that, things went on as such things will, and "Blix" quit the society racket and went to queer places with "Landy," and got interested in his work, and she broke him of wearing red neckties and playing poker, and she made him work, she did, for she grew to realize how much that meant to him, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... and exciting day to me. I felt no more inclined than he did for the din and racket and lights of the public dining-room. So I followed his example and had something in my own apartment. Then I settled myself to a hookah, resolved not to take advantage of Isaacs' invitation until near the time when he expected Ram Lal. I felt ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... was making a frightful racket now, leaping back and forth from the floor at the broad window ledge, tearing at the masonry with his claws in vain attempts to reach me. But the opening was too narrow, and ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... like that of mighty thunder brought them startled out of the land of dreams. Instinctively both reached for their belts and pistols, which they had placed close to their hands on retiring. There was no need for their use, however, for the author of the deafening racket was only Chris who, with a grin on his face, was beating on a ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... pot and pan; and the steward made him a present of a pewter tea-spoon; and a steerage passenger gave him a jack knife. And thus provided, he used to sit at meal times half way up on the forecastle ladder, making a great racket with his pot and pan, and merry as a cricket. He was an uncommonly fine, cheerful, clever, arch little fellow, only six years old, and it was a thousand pities that he should be abandoned, as he was. Who can say, whether he is fated to be a convict in New South Wales, or a member of Parliament ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... better racket!" she sighed one night, "it's impossible to do very much with a wretched old thing that's half sprung. You should have seen my serves when Netta ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... that's her way of carrying it off. A month or two in the season might be very well; see the world, and get the tone of it; but to racket about with Ratia, and leave Honor alone for months together, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tied slackly around his waist and his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, he turned out, in a dizzy orgy of production, The Physiology of Marriage, the short stories constituting the Scenes of Private Life, At the Sign of the Cat-and-Racket, The Ball at Sceaux, The Vendetta, A Double Family, Peace in the Household, Gobseck and Sarrasine, besides studies, criticisms and essays for newspapers ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... don't hear him," said Sahwah. "You'd think an animal as large as that would make a great noise running through the woods. Just listen to the racket Slim is ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... more, and would not have been heard had he gone on, for my father roared, my mother fairly shrieked with laughter, and I went into hysterics, while Mam' Chloe and Gilbert joined in the general racket from the doorway. ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... spoke, the sound of distant firing fell upon the ears of the party and the unmistakable stammer-hammer racket of ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... middle of a sunny day," says Mr. Haydon, "when all was quiet, save the occasional cracking of a racket ball, while some were reading, some smoking, some lounging, some talking, some occupied with their own sorrows, and some with the sorrows of their friends, in rushed six fine grenadiers with a noble fellow ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... Robin Hill over three years ago. It was as if he had been getting younger every spring, living in the country with his son and his grandchildren—June, and the little ones of the second marriage, Jolly and Holly; living down here out of the racket of London and the cackle of Forsyte 'Change,' free of his boards, in a delicious atmosphere of no work and all play, with plenty of occupation in the perfecting and mellowing of the house and its twenty acres, and in ministering to the whims of Holly and Jolly. All the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... laughed. "If it was just disease it wouldn't matter a lot, but it isn't. There isn't a fool man or woman born into this world that doesn't reckon he or she can put right the fool notions and acts of other fools. And when the other feller persuades them the game's not the one-sided racket they guessed it was, then they get mad, and start groping and scheming how to boost their notions on to a world that's spent a whole heap of time fixing things, mostly foolish, to its own mighty good ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... we have done without him? I only wish we had more like him. Think how all my detachment has become scattered. If we had them here now I could push out and drive the Indians to the rocks and far beyond all possibility of annoying you with their racket. Of course you are safe ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... about in the trees, plunging into the little snowbanks on the twigs, sometimes standing in them up to their white bosoms, and often brushing a segment to the ground, thus making numerous breaches in the white drifts. The racket they made with their scolding and piping might have been called a musical din. Deciding to watch them a while, I flung myself down upon the snow. This act was the signal for a precious to-do among the nervous little ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... and produced also the sound as of thunder rolling in the big, empty hall. It was deafening, distressing, and vaguely alarming as if it could bring the house down. At the same time the futility of it had, it cannot be denied, a comic effect. The very magnitude of the racket he raised was funny. But he couldn't keep up that violent exertion continuously, and when he stopped to rest we could hear him shouting to himself in vengeful tones. He saw it all! He had been decoyed there! (Rattle, rattle, rattle.) He had been decoyed into that town, he screamed, getting more ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... got into you all this morning? Have you forgotten it is Sunday?" said Mr. Sherwood, appearing at last. "How can anyone sleep with all this racket going on, Dexie?" he added, stepping into the parlor. "What on earth made you rout us out of bed at this hour? Why, it is not ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... should think you'd know better than to make yourself so cheap. You give Mr. Todd back that racket right away, and tell him Mrs. Gemmell said you were not to keep it, and the next time he brings you down flowers or chocolates you do ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... four, and the sun did not set until near eight o'clock. Up-stairs the poor child had to go, and then his mother found some quiet. Her babe slept soundly in the cradle, undisturbed by Tommy's racket, and she enjoyed a new novel to the extent of almost entirely forgetting her lonely boy shut up in ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... been stretching her neck to its full length to catch his words, straightened up. "Ye'll have to get out. I'm no long-distance telephone, and the racket of them horse-cars is enough to ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had been hung by the kitchen stove, were damp and wrinkled. Mr. Racket came to my room ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... got out I found Mrs. Perkins at the door. She had heard the racket, and had sped out to the stable, her only thought being of me and three stove-lids which she had under her arm, and one of which she was about to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... also. I did not faint, but my stool, which was none of the steadiest on its three legs, suddenly tipped from the excess of my emotion, and, though I caught myself from falling entirely, I yet made what sounded to my horrified ears a deafening racket. In reality I suppose it was only a slight scuffling noise, but it was enough to catch the quick ears of the First Consul ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... I take to city ways just like a duck to water; I like the racket and the noise and never tire of shows; And there's no end of comfort in the mansion of my daughter, And everything is right at hand and money freely flows; And hired help is all about, just listenin' to my ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... cried the landlady, laughing. "But just hear what a racket those soldiers are making again ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and she felt also that the days were never ending. It was six weeks at first; and then all at once, as it seemed, there was only one week; and then it was "tomorrow!" All that last day there was a terrible racket in the house, and she was hardly left alone a single moment, and was therefore thankful when finally, late at night, she managed to escape to her own room—not that she was left long in peace even then, however, for ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of the racket on Douglas Island, and expecting to inspect the mine later on, we returned across the water and made fast to the dock in the lower end of Juneau. This settlement has seen a good deal of experience for a young one. It ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... reasonable suggestions. But truly the town seems to afford little hope of it. We make our way out of the crowd with some difficulty and more patience, and are sensible of a colder nip in the January night-air as we emerge from it into the neighboring streets. But even there, though the racket gradually becomes less as we leave the piazza behind us, there is in every street the braying of those abominable tin trumpets, and we shall probably turn wearily in our beds at three or four in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... slowly up the stairs, followed by the bewildered Flanagan. All this time Dr. Renton was listening to the racket from the bar-room. Clinking of glasses, rattling of dishes, trampling of feet, oaths and laughter, and a confused din of coarse voices, mingling with boisterous calls for oysters and drink, came, hardly deadened ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... Mummie dear, I have to amuse Clive!" was always Merle's excuse. "If I didn't keep him quiet he'd kick up no end of a racket and disturb Aunt Nellie. It's really ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... that! I heard a step coming up the stairs, and as I thought the room was hardly big enough for three, I excused myself to Mr. Jim Matheson—alias Matthews, the coachman—and made for the hall. We passed each other at the head of the stairs, and I cluttered down, making as much racket as I could; then at the foot of the stairs I took off my boots and crept upstairs again, more to hear the fellow's voice than anything else, so I ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... the boom of the cannon continued. Finally, one morning there was a great racket in the court-yard of our house. Cries, threats, oaths! The noise came up and up. Great blows with the butt ends of muskets were struck on the wardrobe doors. They were smashed in and we perceived eight or ten slovenly looking, dirty, and bearded men. Among these men ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... darkness, to direct their movements, and impossible to stop the firing. In the meantime a new danger threatens. Spear's Tennesseeans have been sent to support us, probably without any definite instructions. They are, most of them, raw troops, and, becoming either excited or alarmed at the terrible racket in the woods, deliver scattering shots in our rear. I ride back and urge them either to cease firing or move to the left, go forward and look after our flank. One regiment does move as directed; but the others are immovable, and it is with great difficulty ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... with a flurry of bluster and racket, Went crowding and crowding right under his jacket; And it lifted him off from his two little feet, And it carried him bodily over the street. Mike laughed "He-he!" and he laughed "Ho-ho! Do you call this flying, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various |
