"Stunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nations be judged thus? Is not a full indulgence of its natural tendencies essential to a people's greatness? Force the manners, dress, language, and constitution of Russia, or Italy, or Norway, or America, and you instantly stunt and distort the whole mind of ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... I was on gettin' to the front! I'd ginger for a dozen, and I 'elped to bear the brunt; But Cheese and Crust! I'm crazy, now I've done me little stunt, To sniff the air of Blighty in ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... so the minute we got in that canon, Moonstone Canon, you said. We're restin' up and enjoyin' the scenery. We need the rest, for only last week we resigned from doin' a stunt in a movin'-picture outfit. They wanted somebody to do native sons. We said we didn't have them kind of clothes, but the foreman of the outfit says we'd do fine jest as we was. It was fierce—and, believe me, lady, I been through some! ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... a good excuse to knock on her door. It 'ud be a stunt, wouldn't it, to raise an alarm of fire in this old tinder-box. Say, if there's ever a fire I bags the new roomer to save—that is until I get a look at her. If it's over a hundred and fifty, I'll give ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... to "play together" had saved my life. It was when we were in college and were out on a cross-country hike together; Benda suddenly caught my hand and swung it upward. I recognized the gesture; we were cheerleaders and worked together at football games, and we had one stunt in which we swung our hands over our heads, jumped about three feet, and let out a whoop. This was the "stunt" that he started out there in the country, where we were by ourselves. Automatically, without thinking, I swung my arms and leaped ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Mrs. Minturn's calm tones and placid acceptance of the swamp. The girl sent one searching look the woman's way, then came enlightenment. This was a stunt. Mrs. Minturn had been doing stunts in the hope of new sensations all her life. What others could do, she could, if she chose; in this instance she chose to penetrate a tamarack swamp at six o'clock in the morning, to listen to the notes of ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... had Andy found himself compelled to do such a queer "stunt," as he afterwards termed it; but he was braced to exert himself now to the best ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... has sent a message of thanks to everyone concerned," said Mr. Tommy Doremus. "I don't know whether he put Lady Betty at the top of the list or not, and if that's the way you feel about our nice little stunt, I expect it's just as ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the third. "Hot air. That's what it is. This tarnation Vigilance stunt sets folk whisperin' among 'emselves 'bout the hell goin' to be ladled out to all cattle thieves in general. Gives 'em visions of hangin'-bees, an' a sort o' firework display with guns an' things, an' when they hatched out, what's ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... story," laughed George, as they came alongside. "Don't rub it in too hard, fellows. Breakdown right when we were doing the best stunt of the trip. Only for that it would have been a record breaker of a run between second and third stations for the Wireless. Gee! but she can fly when she takes the bit ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... wild goat found only in Crete, of which he give a detailed description; down the measurement of its horns; exact, as sportsmen have found in modern times. He mentions the Kubizeteres, Cretan tumblers, who indulge in a 'stunt' unknown elsewhere. They perform in couples; and when he mentions them, it is in the dual number. Preternatural voices are an Homeric tradition: Stentor "spoke loud as fifty other men"; when Achilles roared at ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Maggie went leisurely down the zigzag steps, proud of the tremendous success of their adventure, the boy paused several times to execute an inspirational "stunt" that would in some ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... secure a turkey, which was picketed out near the Quartermaster's stores to wait for Christmas. The programme here was "Road Improvement," but all the same we had a slack time for ten days or so, when we were told what was to be the next stunt. We were to assist in a big turning movement in which we were to go along the Zeitun Ridge, the object being the gaining of some elbow room to the north of Jerusalem. The 60th Division were to make an advance up the Nablus road, with which was to be combined ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... acting—often beginning breakfast with a "stunt." The Madame sang well, and her little impromptu arias pleased her thin little lover immensely and he would improvise and answer in kind, and then take the part of an audience and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... key situation in the life of a cabman or a charwoman, and make them glow for a brief moment in the tender light of his sympathy. He does not run sympathy as a "stunt" like so many popular novelists. He sympathizes merely in the sense that he understands in his heart as well as in his brain. He has the most unbiassed attitude, I think, of any author in the world. Mr. Edward Garnett, in his introduction ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... Maybe you will smile—if it doesn't make you mad—but just wait, old fellow; give me time. Unless I am the worst fooled mortal that ever lived, I have got hold of the really big job—one that takes all that is in a man. Oh, it's easy to make money, and it's easy to do some stunt that wins applause; but after it all, when 'the tumult and the shouting dies,' ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... persuade him to come with me," thought Fandor. "I'd show him a stunt or two, and what a scoop it would make ... if it could be printed! He certainly is drunk, very drunk, and that ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... expect it so soon. They do not have the strength in ships. But the Croen must have some stunt figured out to ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... Bolt, "I might do the clergyman stunt myself in those parts. I've got some stuff. A bit of the old Wesley—'Quiet harbourage from the turmoil of city life, my dear lady. An occasional hour in your beautiful garden.' ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... no attention to her. Having completed what Herbert had taught them to call their "stunt" they now approached their ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... this in the tone of one who throws out a suggestion and he stopped to study the faces of his fellow conspirators. Equally they expressed horror and disgust. "All right," he said with equanimity. "I see you're like all human nature. You're determined to pull off this caveman stunt, but you want to do it with every appearance of chivalry and generosity. You're saving face. All right! I'm agreeable—although personally I think the quickest way the most merciful. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... comrade back under machine gun fire. When he got back to his own lines he would not trust him with the ambulance outfit, but carried him three miles to the emergency dressing station and then he ran back to the canal to get even. This little stunt saved his ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... from Kurna and we were chasing them up the river with an amazing medley of craft, like a nightmare of Henley regatta suddenly mobilized, the Shushan was in the forefront of the battle. Led by the sloops Espiegle, Clio, and Odin, the Stunt Armada came to Ezra's Tomb at twilight. The river was high and the land in between the great bends was a maze of rushes and lagoons. Hospital hulks like Noah's arks, little steamers, and loaded mahailas jostled each other in their endeavours to get ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... that time to learn this, I have to spend some more time learning to remember that I have remembered. Isn't it the awful stunt!" ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... Kenny, "to bring beer instead. No fault of mine, Max," he added, "if Jan comes down here and eats your cheese. He's a cheese lunatic. Blame Tony. He comes into my studio, does a Pied Piper stunt on his fiddle and the whole ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... they do not imprison themselves within the walls of the false version of the philosophy of relativity, which binds them over to acknowledge nothing beyond their five external senses, to identify the unseen with the unknown, and thereby to stunt and ultimately to atrophy the sublime powers, transcending the insignificant senses we share with the animal world, as the sky towers above earth, whereby this noble poem of the "Unknown God" was given ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... Rolls-Royce, and no end more...." She was drawing entirely on her imagination. "I saw him once when he brought two ladies round the works—dressed-up creatures they were, too! One of them spoke to me. I nearly told her to mind her own business and not try the district visitor stunt ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... Bertie. Something's gone wrong with the darned thing. My private impression is that, without knowing it, I've worked that stunt that Sargent and those fellows pull—painting the soul of the sitter. I've got through the mere outward appearance, and have put the ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... it's a queer stunt for you to forget anything, Andy Bird. But with dark coming along, and home some miles away, it's plain that we'll have to let the mending of that wing go ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... I said. I knew you all right when you first blew in, only I wasn't quite sure. Just had a glimpse of you once before. I naturally guessed your smoke-inspector stunt was a sham. So, I ran that Fred Karvan stuff in on you. You ate it up, which gave you clean away, for I never knew any guy of that name. Do you see the point, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... Lord he calls himself. I've been covering all that flyin' dope in England since 'way back, and I knew Lord Cholme had some stunt coming. Ah, that's it—Carville. Yep. His stage name's Lord. No, he can't come all the way at one lap. You must be crazy. He'd want a ship load of gasoline. We had it all planned years ago. North or south he must go. Barometer's been steady now all over the Atlantic, so he's ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... a shameful salary for it," he confided to Loring, "and I'm glad to get it because it pays up all my personal expenses during my forty-days' stunt and leaves ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... yesterday that's the way I'd a-talked my own self, but now I know better. What about your little stunt? Wasn't that warm enough for you? Didn't guns pop enough? Don't you ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... the whistling stunt," Will announced. "My, but that fellow on the engine has faith; or else the system's down real fine in these parts! He won't be back for a week. Those woolly-headed porters are going to save up ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... that there was one chance in a hundred of reaching the moon by being precipitated into space in some kind of torpedo, would volunteer for the adventure. They do these mad things alike for trivial and noble ends. They love a stunt even (or especially) at the risk of their lives. Half the aeroplane accidents are due to the fact that many men prefer risk to safety. To do some things that other people cannot do seems to them the only way of justifying ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... a starman," Hawkes said suddenly. "That's why I picked him for our little stunt tonight. I thought it was about time I ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... types each is, often insensibly, but usually very effectually, improved. Men differ greatly in their requirements of intellectual sympathy. A perfectly commonplace intellectual surrounding will usually do something to stunt or lower a fine intelligence, but it by no means follows that each man finds the best intellectual atmosphere to be that which is most in harmony with his ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... may happen," says a contemporary, "the final decision as to Stockholm rests with the Government." Our contemporary is far too modest. A few months ago the final decision would have rested with the stunt Press. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... that, even if we should have the hard luck to get wet," Fred told him. "I always carry a waterproof matchsafe, so we could go in the woods somewhere, start up a bully hot fire, and dry off. All the same, here's hoping we don't have to try that stunt out. It sounds well enough, but in this cold air a fellow'd shiver so he'd think his teeth were dropping out. We'll keep a bright watch for those same ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... said Bill, putting his feet up on the table comfortably and lighting a cigarette. "Pity the frat. dance is over. He needs to get him a girl. Be a great stunt if he'd fall for some jolly girl. Say! I'll tell you what. I'll get Gila ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... got a hoss," said Davy proudly, "I've got the finest hoss west of the Big River. He can do tricks too. By spring I can have him doing stunts that will make Bill Reviere's act look like a practice stunt." ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... effect was beautiful. What was their surprise when the whole song was finished to have her say, "Now everybody whistle the chorus softly," and then pucker up her own soft lips to join in. That completely finished the whistling stunt. Jed realized that it would never work again, not while she was here, for she had turned the joke into beauty and made them all enjoy it. It hadn't annoyed her ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... earth, and fruit trees blossoming, enter into our sub-consciousness with a power but seldom appraised. Prison life, factory service long continued, a clerk's stool, a housewife's day-long duties—these things stunt and transform the human animal as nothing else, because of all experiences they most restrict, most impoverish the natural environment. And it is the especial function of nature books to make vivid ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... you that to do, has she? Some stunt, I'll say. Gee, she's got her gall with her, old Simone, puttin' that off on the public as something new. If I had a dollar for every time Mamie Gunn has walked in and out to show it to customers I'd buy a ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... theater regularly, for the habitues are often invited to come upon the stage on "amateur nights," which occur at least once a week in all the theaters. This is, of course, a most exciting experience. If the "stunt" does not meet with the approval of the audience, the performer is greeted with jeers and a long hook pulls him off the stage; if, on the other hand, he succeeds in pleasing the audience, he may be paid for his performance and later register with a booking agency, the address of which is supplied ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... not in such a hurry," commented Kitty, "and don't ever try that stunt again, Mopsy. My arms ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... by several. Growing alarmed, the ringmaster took to his heals and disappeared in the direction of the dressing-tent, whence his young victim had already gone. Then the band struck up, and the manager of the show sent out the clowns to do an extra stunt to ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... his daily stunt of practice, but was heightened mightily in spirit by noticing in the hangar where he had usually gotten his machines a bright new scouting plane, small, with a tail like a dolphin's, an up-to-date machine gun mounted along the top, just where the one ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... Gierstien, was a man who had seen much of the world, and was, I have reason to believe, a very good seaman; so was Mr Stunt, the first lieutenant, who was a disciplinarian of the most rigid school; and certainly the ship was in very good order as a man-of-war. But there was a sad want of any of the milder influences which govern human ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... if I really thought there was great danger, but I do not. You will not lose me and if I go now I can sit still next time and say "I have done better things than that." If I had not gone it would have meant that I would have had to have done just that much harder a stunt next time to make people forget that I had failed in this one. Now do cheer up and believe in the luck of Richard Harding Davis and the British Army. We have carte blanche from The Journal to buy or lease any boat on the coast and I rocked them for $1000 in advance ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... wanted you fellows to be sure to be on hand to-night," resumed Bob, as they walked along, "was that I saw in the program of the Newark station in the newspaper this morning that Larry Bartlett was down for an entirely new stunt. You know what a hit he made ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... to us, the truth is this: he had fubbed out the cigar when he met Mildred Brace on the lawn, and it had occurred to his calculating mind that it would be well, when he chose to give the alarm, to use the cigar stunt as evidence that he hadn't been engaged in quarrelling ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... half ashamed of any outward show of emotion. "You're all right, Sis. When I find a girl like you I'll do the wedding ring stunt, too. Now, since we've thrown bouquets at each other let's get to work. What may I do if I'm debarred from the ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... fighting in France. One met it everywhere. "Hello, you know Siegfried Sassoon then, do you? Well, tell him from me that the more he lays it on thick to those who don't realize the war the better. That's the stuff we want. We're fed up with the old men's death-or-glory stunt." In 1918 appeared 'Countermans' Attack': here there is hardly a trace of the 'paradise' feeling. You can't even think of paradise when you're in hell. For Sassoon was now well along the way of thorns. How many lives had he not seen spilled apparently to no purpose? Did not the fact of war arch ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... of course!" admitted Carroll. "And then, again, they might have been crossed on purpose. It's a new stunt—electrically shocking an old lady before you bang her over the head or stab her, but it's a good one. I'll have a look at that switch. I thought maybe I might find something interesting here when I heard about the shock to the old servant, ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... the device we employed to navigate the rapids of the Des Moines—the one-two-one-two, head-boat-tail-boat proposition—was not originated by us. I learned that the Chinese river-boatmen had for thousands of years used a similar device to negotiate "bad water." It is a good stunt all right, even if we don't get the credit. It answers Dr. Jordan's test of truth: "Will it work? Will you trust your ...
— The Road • Jack London
... scout stunt?" Pepsy asked. Pee-wee performed this astounding feat for her edification, catching the liquid by-product with true scout agility. Whether from scout gallantry or scout appetite, he did not put Pepsy ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... know who it was asked me those questions, and I hope I never shall know. You've all been very kind to me, and I'd hate to think that any of you wanted to make me uncomfortable. I'm sure it was simply an initiation stunt, and I for one shall ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... thought you had sense enough to know that this should be kept quiet! She's pulled this stunt before, and we always managed to quiet things down before anything happened! We've managed to keep everything under cover and out of the public eye ever since she was fifteen, and now you blow it all up out of proportion and create a furore that ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... to, while I ride your horse! Or, have you got to? Is it just movie stuff, where a man rides behind on a horse, and lets the girl ride in front? I mean, is it feasible, or just a stunt for pictures?" ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... the avenue. That's nonsense, in the first place. The avenue is wide, and the tracks will be in a grass plot in the centre. For the sake of keeping tracks off that avenue he would deprive people of attractive homes at a small cost, of the good air they can get beyond the heights; he would stunt the city's development." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... grunted. Then, with his beady little eyes as keen and cold as flint, he said: "Buell, Leslie knows you daren't harm the kid; an' as fer bullets, he'll take good care where he stings 'em. This deal of ours begins to look like a wild-goose stunt. It never was safe, ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... when I first came in here!" he burst out suddenly, wheeling on Pinkie Bonn and the Pug. "I'm sure of it now. I was wonderin a minute ago how you were goin' to keep your lamps on Pete and Marny from here, or know when they were goin' to pull their stunt, or ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... at length. "You hit upon that thought out of kindness to me. You don't like my project, and you wished to save me from its dangers. I understand. Hearty thanks, but I have made up my mind. I won't stunt my life out of regard for an imbecile superstition. The dangers are not great; and if they were, I should prefer to risk them. You electioneering! ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... and the money-drunken host confided the price of three of them to him. The messenger honorably returned, the pennygrabs were bisected with the new knife, and all of them but Merle smoked enjoyably. He, going back to his candy and lemon, admonished each and all that smoking would stunt their growth. It seemed not greatly to concern any of them. They believed Merle implicitly, ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... some beef back of that stunt of yours to-day. Say, Kid, it was the funniest and the best thing I've seen at the university in ten years—and I've seen some fresh boys do some stunts, I have. Well... Kid, you've a grand whip—a great arm—and we're goin' to do ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... just about worn out. For a boy of fourteen, with a big gash across his chest, and a gun to carry, and a little boy to look after, it had been a tough stunt—that fifteen-mile tramp by night and day, on ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... Dick dryly, "I don't believe you would. As I proposed the guard stunt, I'll take the first dose of my own medicine. Later in the night I'll call Dave, and when he's through he'll call Tom. All you fellows pile back into ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... suppose I do," she admitted. "Ever since I can remember, I've looked upon life as a big impromptu stunt. I got ready for a year abroad once in half an hour, and I gave the American ambassador to Italy what he said was the nicest party he'd ever been to on three hours' notice, one night when mother was ill and ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... Exchequer than this merchant prince who, however, has had enough of politics and is going back very gladly to his desk in the City. He is not in the least soured by the public ingratitude, and rightly judges it to be rather the voice of unscrupulous and stunt-seeking journalism than the considered judgment of the nation. But he has a very poor opinion of the way in which the Government of the country ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... her arm full of knockouts. Honest, I needed the dope myself for fair by that time, what with the lady bein' that way I'm 'a tellin' you, and Kelly, the crazy Irishman—I could hear him off in one corner givin' his reg'ler stunt about his friend, O'Houlihan, lately landed and lookin' for work, comes to a sausage factory and goes up to the boss and says, 'Begobs!'—you know the old gag—say, I run out in the snow and looked over to the crowd around the fire and thought of Prof. pokin' around in that dressin'-room ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... same, to dig a dainty out of your pocket once in a while and give an animal a nibble, always makes a hit with the audience. That's about all it's good for, yet it's a good stunt. Audiences like to believe that the animals enjoy doing their tricks, and that they are treated like pampered darlings, and that they just love their masters to death. But God help all of us and our meal tickets if the audiences could see behind the scenes. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... myself; but I've tole 'em, I don't know how many times, that ef they chaw it'll stunt 'em in their growth. And I've got several of 'em that was smokin' cigarettes on the sly to promise me they'd quit. So I don't figger ez I've done them boys any real harm by goin' round with 'em. And I believe ef you was to ast 'em they'd all tell ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... diving stunt with Mynie Boltwood," Burton answered, "and see if I can't get together ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... know, until we all wear one of Saint Peter's halos. Look at the elaborate system of the Incas, even with their docile and uninitiative subjects. In the matter of Omnipresence; it would be pretty hard to find a hole on the Canal Zone where you could pull off a stunt of any length or importance without the I.C.C. having a weather-eye on you. When it comes to the no less indispensable ingredient of benevolence one glimpse of those mild blue eyes would probably reassure you in that point, even without the pleasure of watching the despot sit in judgment on his ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... should always whisper, or just nod your head each time you open a new bottle, as it makes it appear as though you were accustomed to ordering wine. You see, Jim, that's where I go off my dip. That wine affair is an awful stunt for a fellow who makes not over two thousand a year, carries ten thousand life, and rooms in a flat that's fifteen a month stronger than he can stand. But to continue, I lost the push I started out with, and got mixed up with a fellow named Thorne, or Thorpe, or something like that, and we got ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... I always knew my mouth was rather wide, but I did think I had Billiken to the bad. Do you do that sort of Candid Friend stunt with her?' She pointed to the photograph on the mantelpiece. It was the first time since the night when they had met that she had made any allusion to it. By silent agreement the subject had been ruled out between them. 'By the way, you never ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Jack, "if he runs at all, it'll likely be backwards—if it ain't a dancing-bear stunt on his hind feet. You can gamble it'll be what yuh don't expect and ain't got any money on; that there's ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... trying to build up a concept of the framework wherein psi seems to function," I told him casually, just as if it were all a formularized laboratory procedure. "I had to pull last night's stunt to prove something." ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... operations. A feeling of proprietorship soon sprang from uninterrupted user, and signs of jealousy appeared of any attempt at permanent settlement. This local feeling, combining with interested influence at home, did much to stunt the growth of the colony; the old colonization theory inherited from Spain was still powerful, for the American Revolution had not yet revealed ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... by the stars," suggested Toby, eagerly. "I saw you taking their positions about the time we crept in for a snooze. I must learn how to tell the hour of the night by the heavens before we finish this camping trip. It must be a great stunt, I should think, Jack." ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... Jesu Krist geboren wart, do was es kalt; in ain klaines kripplein er geleget wart. Da stunt ain esel und ain rint, die atmizten ueber das hailig kint gar unverborgen. Der ain raines herze ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... He was hot and looked it. "I thought you were satisfied about that. Look here; go ahead, pull whatever stunt is up your sleeve. I give you my word that if you see Leyden and feel as you do about him then, we'll hold back our own vessel until he's under weigh, no matter what we lose by it. Does that ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... there wasn't much to it when I came in. This mining stunt developed later out of those letters Westcott sent East. This man Beaton here offered me so much to do a small job for him, and I named my price without caring a whoop in hell what it was all about. ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... and the ceaseless drum of guns—neither the time, the place nor the ideal accompaniment to philosophy, you might think. Blackie was as nervous as a squadron commander may well be who has sent a party on a midnight stunt, and finds three o'clock marked on the phosphorescent dial of his watch and not so much as a ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... desperate fighter in behalf of the loved one. Here we are face to face with the contradictions that we always meet when we personify a quality or make an abstraction. Love may do the most hateful things; love may stunt, the character of the lover and the beloved. In other words, love, tender feeling, must be conjoined with intelligence, good judgment, determination and fairness before it is useful. It would be a nice question to determine ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... Bart, as he stood with an arm flung over the shoulders of Tom and Billy, while Frank, on his knees, vigorously rubbed and manipulated his ankle. "I'll be all right in a minute. It was a boob stunt for ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... scruple seems to be felt about communicating a man's name to strangers, and no ill effects appear to be dreaded as a consequence of divulging it; harm is only done when a name is spoken by its owner. Why is this? and why in particular should a man be thought to stunt his growth by uttering his own name? We may conjecture that to savages who act and think thus a person's name only seems to be a part of himself when it is uttered with his own breath; uttered by the breath of others it has no vital connexion with him, and no harm can come to him through it. Whereas, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... have any of them loaded. That would be a fool stunt." Shelton had pulled the starting handle of a motor-generator and its rising whine accompanied ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... which must be done by some one, if human beings are to live at all; it had only been the outcome of the needlessly elaborate life of a highly organised community. It had filled his life full of a futile intellectual toil. And then, the effect upon his own character had been to hamper and stunt his natural energies. It had given him ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to them all when he saw that they had ridden up close that they might hear what he was saying, "I've been hollering so loud for the meek-and-mild stunt. When I slapped him on the jaw, and he stood there and took it, I saw his game. He had a witness to swear I hit him and he didn't hit back. And when I saw them Dots in our field again, I knew, just ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... to himself, noiselessly descending the stairs, "what if she had screamed before you had pulled yourself together and thought of that stunt? You didn't get old Tibb's money, but you ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... heroic stunt for nothing," he remarked. "The fool can't be found, so I guess he went ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... promised the doctor. "They will never get any evidence on this case, if I am right, and neither will we—for the present. Our stunt is to lie low and wait for the next attempt of this nature and thus accumulate some evidence and some idea of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... from hidden and inward, as well as from obvious and external causes; and female education does its best to weaken every physical counterpoise to this nervous mobility—tends in all ways to stimulate the emotional part of the mind and stunt the rest. We find girls naturally timid, inclined to dependence, born conservatives; and we teach them that independence is unladylike; that blind faith is the right frame of mind; and that whatever we may be permitted, and indeed encouraged, to ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... of yours that pulled us through, Joe," declared McRae. "That stunt you pulled of whirling on your heel and shooting it over to third was a pretty bit of inside stuff. And there wasn't anything slow either about spearing ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... I was getting ham-handed and mutton-fisted, flapping the old things every day; felt I wanted to stunt about ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... reformer, eh?" said the colonel. "I didn't know the police went in for that sort of stunt. And when did he take this sudden ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... cause sunburn, prematurely age human skin and produce skin cancers. As early as 1840, arctic snow blindness was attributed to solar ultraviolet; and we have since found that intense ultraviolet radiation can inhibit photosynthesis in plants, stunt plant growth, damage bacteria, fungi, higher plants, insects and annuals, ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
... in a barbed wire country," Pink exploded, "but I'll be darned if I ever saw a stunt like ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... ready to take 'em to the noon train. They went. It was given out that they was travelin' abroad, and if it hadn't been for the omelet part of the incident they'd been forgotten long ago. That was a stunt that stuck, though. ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... be regarded with discouragement, as something which will stunt and dwarf the life and mar its beauty. It should be accepted rather, when it comes, as part of God's discipline, through which he would bring out the noblest and best possibilities of our character. Perhaps we would be happier for the time if we had easier, more congenial ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... what we say to him is to become of value we must see to it that his mind is put in proper shape to receive advice. Be sure that he laughs, or smiles at least, before we seriously take up his case. And when we have done our stunt in the way of advice let's send him away with a fine good humor. A friendly pat on the back as he goes out our doorway may mean a bracer to his determination. "You'll put it over," we shout after him—and thus we have been of real help. He ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... these deft and cunning masters of the wood and the water circumvented the well laid plans of evil men and cooeperated with their brother scouts in a good scout stunt, which brought fame to the quiet camp community ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... way that I can find To stop this car colliding stunt Is cutting off the end behind ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... of the character of Mrs. Joshua?" asked Polk, admiringly, but slipping down from his intellectual attitude of mind and body and edging an inch nearer. "Bet she had a strong mind or Joshua never could have pulled off that sun and moon stunt." ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... can laugh it off as a publicity stunt and get them laughing with you. Who knows, it might even stop this mad fad of career women having babies without a proper home and a father ...
— Mother America • Sam McClatchie
... Chinatown. No! No! I don't drink and I don't hit the pipe. I gamble. My luck is unbelievable. And when the fit is on me, I'd gamble my very soul away. Jonas found me. Jonas is a colored porter in the City Hall who has rather adopted me. And Jonas said, 'Boss, how come you to do a stunt like this? The Police Commissioner say to the Mayor and I hear 'em, an Italian black hander take you for somebody else and he have him run in. I tell 'em you gone down to Atlantic City. You come home with me, Boss.' ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... This involves correct discrimination between what it necessary and what is superfluous. A writer should never be brief at the expense of being clear, to say nothing of being grammatical. It shows lamentable want of judgment to weaken the expression of a thought, or to stunt the meaning of a period for the sake of using a few words less. But this is the precise endeavor of that false brevity nowadays so much in vogue, which proceeds by leaving out useful words and even by sacrificing grammar and logic. It ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... we were resting on the road that day, looked like he was a bad egg. If ever I saw what my dad calls a hang-dog look on a man's face, he was all to the good. I hope I don't meet the same when I'm doing my lone stunt through the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... is at war, and you've been on a recruiting stunt. That will suit me. Recruit me, ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... but it was a good stunt, just the same, to get me the line and come around in this chop the way you did, and then haul me aboard before I knew what you were about—you kept your head beautifully, and knew what to do—and you only a kid, ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... long years took their course The trainer's skill came farther to the front, Until, through gentleness and moral force, One wolf achieved the "trust-and-paid-for" stunt. Topical, this produced unbounded fun, Coming when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... star was a lucky enough one to send you a motorcycle then, Nat," laughed Peter. "You know this going off riding by myself is no sort of a stunt. I don't have any fun at all. Why, I would rather tramp the country on my two feet with you than to ride all over it without you. Somehow you've got to get a motorcycle, Nat—you've ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... narratives of Jock Mo-ghoal. He belonged to a curious class, known by specimen, in, I suppose, almost every locality, especially in the more primitive ones—for the smart ridicule common in the artificial states of society greatly stunt their growth; and in our literature—as represented by the Bobadils, Young Wildings, Caleb Balderstons, and Baron Munchausens—they hold a prominent place. The class is to be found of very general development among the vagabond tribes. I have ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Billy thus slangs the devil; and being themselves, poor fellows, at their wits end to draw the crowd, they watch and see how he does it, and then return to their own churches and try the same stunt; so the manners of the baseball diamond spread like a contagion. I open my morning paper, and find a picture of an intense-looking clerical gentleman, the Rev. J. Whitcomb Brougher, pastor of the Baptist Temple. He is discussing ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... side that goes down with his own set. Besides, he's done, gone, past, burnt out, burst up; thinks he is our leader and is only our rag and bottle department. But you may depend on me. I will work this stunt of yours in. I see its value. [He begins moving towards the door with Conrad]. Of course I cant put it exactly in your way; but you are quite right about our needing something fresh; and I believe an election can be fought on the death rate ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... these swing-bridges without assistance; human arms are no longer suited to brachiation. I might have managed it once; but at present, except as a desperate final expedient, it was out of the question. Rafe or Lerrys, who were lightly built and acrobatic, could probably do it as a simple stunt on the level, in a field; on a steep and rocky mountainside, where a fall might mean being dashed a thousand feet down the torrent, I doubted it. The trailmen's bridge was out ... but what other ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... Divisions were moving. There had been, there was going to be, a stunt. A battalion marched over the hill and sat down by the road. They had left the trenches three days march to the north and had come to a new country. The officers pulled their maps out; a mild breeze fluttered them; yesterday had been winter and to-day was spring; but spring in a desolation ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... dozen average men are banded together and condemned to make the best of each other's society for a prolonged period, there is apt to be a stagnation of ideas as well as of aspirations, which tends more or less to develop the physical, and to stunt the spiritual, ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... time there is a controversy about the use of our public schools. Whenever a harassed editor in Fleet Street cannot think what to put in those two spare columns, he works up a 'stunt' on the use or otherwise of the public schools. This is always exciting, as the public schools hardly ever see the controversy, being blissfully immersed in the military strategy of Hannibal or the political intrigues of the Caesars. Thus the controversy is conducted ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... directly. "I should have to explain, but I know you won't tell. This is going to be my piece de resistance, my grand stunt. I'm going to bring it off the last night." She stopped long enough for Verrian to revise his resolution of going away with the fellows who were leaving the middle of the week, and to decide on staying to the end. "I am going to call ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... such flights I have asked myself: "If a person can do that, why cannot he fly?" Perhaps human beings will some day be seen flying about in the air like birds. It only requires an extension of the trapeze "stunt". Travelling in the air by means of airships or aeroplanes is tame sport in comparison with bird-like flights, whether with or ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... delight. "You betcher life I will," he shouted excitedly. "Is it for a revival stunt? You 'aint goin' to live there, ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... to be a regular sus-stunt of his, this rescuing people from drowning," muttered Springer. "Hear them yell! Bah! What fools people are! Why didn't I think quick enough to ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... intended doing a similar vamoosing stunt. It happened, however, that his horse was more frightened than those of the others. When he jerked at the bridle the beast whirled with such a vicious fling that the boy, totally unprepared for such a move, and unable to get the grip with his knees that a cowboy always ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... it's a custom, courtesy stunt you know, to show a poor guest some of the presents," ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... "Say, ain't it a beaut, honest!" She gave herself over to contemplation once more. "He says to me how he's on Easy Street now, or will be pretty soon. I says to him 'Have you got a job, then?' He says to me 'Now, I ain't got a job, but I'm going to pull off a stunt to-night that's going to mean enough to me to start that health-farm I've told you about.' Say, he's always had a line of talk about starting a health-farm down on Long Island, he knowing all about training and health and everything through having been one of them fighters. I asks him ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... said Myron next, "is to be strawberries. I want to raise strawberries. Mr. Marsh, on the Longmeadow Farm, has offered to give me some plants. I'll do the corn stunt; aren't you ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... greatest gang of liars that never threw a diamond hitch! Ride? I've got a ten-year kid home that would laugh at 'em all. But I'll show 'em up. Want to know my little stunt?" ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... a shrinkable flannel after its first trip to a handless hand laundry. I can make it stand out like the colonel of the Forty-fourth Regiment at a Little Mothers' Bazaar. And I've seen you work. I know what you can do with the other part. But business is business. How much do you get a week for the stunt ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... was by no means the first to turn shrewd eyes upon wonder-workers and show the clay feet of these popular idols. And since his time innumerable marvels, held to be supernatural, have been exposed for the tricks they were. Yet to-day, if a mystifier lack the ingenuity to invent a new and startling stunt, he can safely fall back upon a trick that has been the favorite of pressagents the world over in all ages. He can imitate the Hindoo fakir who, having thrown a rope high into the air, has a boy climb it until he is lost to view. He can even have the feat photographed. The camera will click; nothing ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... came, accoutred as he was,—coatless, hatless, but not latherless, nor towelless. Like the rest of us, his only thought was to see those sheep do their "stunt." With glasses in hand, we watched them descend those perilous heights, leaping from point to point, finding a foothold where none appeared to our eyes, loosening fragments of the crumbling rocks as they came, ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... how it was that the mischief done was not more clearly perceptible, and that the young men and women grew up as sensible and goodly as they did, in spite of the attempts almost deliberately made to warp and stunt their growth. Some doubtless received damage, from which they suffered to their life's end; but many seemed little or none the worse, and some, almost the better. The reason would seem to be that the natural instinct of the lads in most cases so absolutely ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler |
