"Trick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but undeterred, "those honest folks who really do own the country show signs of waking up and wanting to pay off the mortgage the politicians hold on it; and those radicals who think they're going to own the country right soon, now, believe they can turn the trick overnight by killing off the politicians and browbeating the proprietors. It looks to me as if the politicians and the real owners better hitch up together on a ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... up, you know,' he said. 'These fools of Turkish police said the Dutchmen were dead, but I had the happier inspiration. I believed the good God had spared them for me. When I got Rasta's telegram I was certain, for your doings reminded me of a little trick you once played me on the Schwandorf road. But I didn't think to find this plump old partridge,' and he smiled at Blenkiron. 'Two eminent American engineers and their servant bound for Mesopotamia on business of high Government importance! It was a good lie; but if I had been ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... hastily to go to his assistance, even those of them who were well acquainted with Cousin Ronald's powers, thinking for an instant that the alarm was real. But a laugh of amusement from him and his son let them into the secret that it was but a false alarm, the trick of a ventriloquist, and they resumed their seats as hastily as they had arisen ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... selfishness in its meanest form is at the bottom of all gambling, though many gamblers may not quite see the fact. I want your money. I am too proud to ask it. I dare not demand it. I cannot cajole you out of it. I will not rob you. You are precisely in the same mind that I am. Come, let us resort to a trick, let us make an arrangement whereby one of us at least shall gain his sneaking, nefarious, unjust end, and we will, anyhow, have the excitement of leaving to chance which of us is to be the lucky man. Chance and luck! Dick Sharp, there is no such condition as chance or luck. It is as surely ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... really can't say how.—(Recollecting himself.) But you need not have taken advantage of it to try to do me out of going to Nuremberg—it was a shabby trick! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... a foreign service. Perhaps he sought adventure. McGee, however, made no secret of the motives back of his entrance. When word reached him that his brother had been killed while doing observation work in a captive balloon, young McGee, not yet eighteen, employed a trick (which he thought justified) to gain entrance to the Air Force. He felt that he must carry on an unfinished work, and few will find fault with him if his actions were motivated by a slight spirit of revenge. After all, ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... contrived a great plot against the coming of the Provincial; that I was to have no fear,—He would help me. I repeated this to the rector, and he told me that I must go by all means, though others were saying I ought not to go, that it was a trick of Satan to bring some evil upon me there, and that I ought to send word to ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... Sprat would eat no fat, His wife would eat no lean, Now was not this a pretty trick ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... because he's little more than a snub-cushion—holds any amount of them as easily as pins. Besides he goes to afternoon bores, like Teas and At Homes and Days, for which free and untrammelled men can only be obtained by subterfuge and trick or some extraordinary bribe. To a young man like Bobbie Lawsher afternoon affairs are a sort of happy hunting ground, a social grab bag, where he can never be sure there isn't a dinner invitation, or one for the opera, or a luncheon, to be secured if one is clever ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... One day it occurred to him to throw a handful of pine-needles in his grandfather's face, and tell him that they had fallen from the tree. The old man believed him, and that made Jean-Christophe laugh. But, unfortunately, he tried the trick again, and just when he had raised his hand he saw his grandfather's eyes watching him. It was a terrible affair. The old man was solemn, and allowed no liberty to be taken with the respect due to himself. They were estranged for more ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... By night, attired so sightly and so smelly, With countenance as luminous as jelly, Bobbing and bowing! King of hearts and knave Of diamonds, I'd bet a silver brick If brains were trumps you'd never take a trick. ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... Key on recognizing the gateway into which the mysterious lady had vanished was so great that he was at first inclined to believe her entry THERE a mere trick of his fancy. That the confederate of a gang of robbers should be admitted to the austere recesses of the convent, with a celerity that bespoke familiarity, was incredible. He again glanced up and down the length ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... him allus good and kind, And never strike him with a stick, Ner aggervate him, and you'll find He'll never do a hostile trick. ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... out? That's all I did, you know, really. It was a kid's trick. He lost out because it was coming to him anyway. Poor Theodore saw to that. He turned the town against Everard when he killed himself. It wasn't turning fast, but it was turning. I did give it a shove and make it turn faster, but I didn't even have sense enough to know I ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... with great eagerness to this conversation; and he said to himself when he heard Beatrice loved him, "Is it possible? Sits the wind in that corner?" And when they were gone, he began to reason in this manner with himself: "This can be no trick! they were very serious, and they have the truth from Hero, and seem to pity the lady. Love me! Why it must be requited! I did never think to marry. But when I said I should die a bachelor, I did not think I should ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... such a madcap bagatelle; [3] but what particularly weighed upon my mind was that I did not choose to lend the light of my countenance in that illustrious sphere to some miserable plume-plucked scarecrow. All these considerations made me devise a pleasant trick, for the increase of merriment and the diffusion ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... hand. Billy, becoming excited with his master, began to swear also; and these two companions cursed Madame Midas and all that belonged to her most heartily. If Slivers could only have seen the interior of Madame Midas's dining room, by some trick of necromancy, he would certainly not have been able to do the subject justice in ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... back to the Method of Satan's tempting her, viz. by whispering to her in her sleep; 'twas a cunning Trick, that's the Truth of it, and by that means he certainly set her Head a madding after Deism, and to be made a Goddess, and then back'd it by the subtle talk ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... began to think that his eyes must be playing him some curious trick, for the figure at which he was staring remained strangely still and motionless. Was it possible that his mind, dwelling constantly on Flossy, had evoked her wraith? But, no, looking up in startled silence at the still figure standing before him, he realized that not ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... cleverly carried on that it had at last ended by the running ashore of one of the big slaving craft, and the pounding of the other till in desperation the skipper, who proved to be the cunning Yankee hero of the lugger trick,—the twin brother of the scoundrel Huggins who had met his fate in the explosion,—set his swift craft on fire before taking, with the remnants of the crew, ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... Lalage: staring; clapping like a madman in the middle of her songs; getting into the way of everybody and everything, and so on. Then a couple of fellows we knew turned up, and we got chatting at the wing with some girls. At last a fellow came in with a bag of cherries; and we began trying that old trick—you know—taking the end of a stalk between your lips and drawing the cherry into the mouth without touching it with your hand, you know. I tried it; and I was just getting the cherry into my mouth when some idiot gave me a drive in the ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... to gammon me, 'case I knows by the way that yer does—that yer knows all 'bout the trick. But I say, can't ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... with their staffs and escorts, had ridden into the notch to have a look at the enemy's guns—which had straightway obscured themselves in towering clouds of smoke. It was hardly profitable to be curious about guns which had the trick of the cuttle-fish, and the season of observation had been brief. At its conclusion—a short remove backward from where it began—occurred the conversation already partly reported. "It is the only place," the general repeated thoughtfully, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... prisoner here in this miserable hut of his, he was bored by him, and for him to answer every naughtiness with a smile, every insult with friendliness, every viciousness with kindness, this very thing was the hated trick of this old sneak. Much more the boy would have liked it if he had been threatened by him, if he had been ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... of information about Sara Copia. Her conversion became a passion with the highstrung priest, taking complete possession of him during the last years of his life. He brought to bear upon her case every trick of dialectics and flattery at his command. All in vain. The greatest successes of which he could boast were her promise to read the New Testament, and her consent to his praying for her conversion. Sara's arguments in favor ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... the conclusion that he was a "fraud," trying to play some trick upon me, in the interest of Captain Boomsby, or some other designing person, when he produced the letter. He handed it to me. I instantly recognized the peculiar handwriting of my father. It thrilled me to my very soul. I glanced at the superscription. It was ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... Mick. "Such a slow coach won't do in these high-pressure times. We are going to do the trick and no mistake. There shan't be a capitalist in England who can get a day's work out of us, even if he makes the operatives ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... were a professional faster, I would hardly hesitate to say his claim was fraudulent, for I am fully convinced that all the professional fasters are frauds. They are simply adept sleight-of-hand men. They work out some adroit trick by which they may get nourishment into their systems in spite of the always more or less negligent or suspicious watchers, and then advertise for a forty days' ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... was so insulted and hurt at this trick that, not being able to wreak any other vengeance, he began (accompanied by many others) the following night to torment the poor Catolona with visions and cruel threats. Already undeceived as to the weakness of her ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... up the stairway and disappeared. For a few seconds I stood irresolute. Was it a trick, a plant? Should we be safe on deck—or targets for Chinese bullets, or receptacles for Chinese ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... she had a light about her somewhere. I need hardly say that there was no comfort for us the rest of the night. 'If anyone is trying to frighten us out of the place, I'll be even with him yet,' said I. My wife believed that a trick had been played upon the children, and ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... editor to procure that he should reprint this article with approval. Of course that promising journalistic venture, the Conservative, was at once ruined by so gross an indiscretion. This was hard on its confiding editor, and it is not to Lincoln's credit that he suggested or connived at this trick. But this trumpery tale happens to be a fair illustration of two things. In the first place a large part of Lincoln's activity went in the industrious and watchful performance of services to his cause, very seldom ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... made up their mind to oppose Lord George Bentinck's bill. But seeing that he had a large following, and that the Irish members, and many independent English members too, would support him, they had recourse to the stale trick of weak governments—the threat of resignation. The affairs of the country were at the moment in a most critical position, and every hour's delay in sending relief to Ireland would add hundreds to ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... reached his house, the coffin was found to contain a fine assortment of medicines for the use of Van Dorn's army. Thus under the pretense of a first-class funeral, they had carried through our guards the very things we had tried to prevent. It was a good trick, but diminished our respect ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Englishman, good-humoredly. Well, this old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump, runs all afoam into the pod, and goes to snapping furiously at my fast-line. Aye, I see! —wanted to part it; free the fast-fish —an old trick —I know him. How it was exactly, continued the one-armed commander, I do not know; but in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth, caught there somehow; but we didn't know it then; so that when we afterwards pulled on the line, bounce we came ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... be prepared to take some risks. We can't fight that crowd in the open, they are too many for us. We'll have to outwit them and put the Indians on their guard without letting the convicts suspect that we have had a finger in the pie. It would be an easy trick to turn if it were not for that renegade Indian with them. I guess there isn't anything much that escapes those black, beady ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... was a surprisal; old society was taken unawares; and the people proclaimed this political stroke a great historic act whereby the new era was opened. On the 2d of December, the February revolution is jockeyed by the trick of a false player, and what is seer to be overthrown is no longer the monarchy, but the liberal concessions which had been wrung from it by centuries of struggles. Instead of society itself having conquered ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... clever as it was infamous. To the world it would have seemed fair enough, and only those familiar with South African politics would have understood what a shameful trick ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 22, 1897, Vol. 1, No. 24 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... had at last reached downtown after his late breakfast, Keith found it in a fair turmoil. Knots of men stood everywhere arguing, sometimes very heatedly. Eureka members were openly expressing their anger over what they called Taylor's "dirty trick" in putting hirelings on the brakes, men who did not belong to the Monumental organization at all. If it had not been for that the Monumentals could never have "sucked" at all. On the other hand, the Monumentals and their friends were ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... for the Abrograzians were upon them. The eager Clergy made this Ecclesiastick Engine sound as loud and make all the Noise they could, and no Men in the Nation were so forward as they to acknowledge that it was a State-Trick, and they were drawn in to make such a stir about the pretended Doctrins of absolute Submission, that they did not see the Snare which lay under it, that now their Eyes were opened, and they had learnt to see the Power and Superiority of Natural Right, and would be deceiv'd no longer. ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... one of his precious limbs shot away, Bold Nelson knowed well how to trick 'em; So, as for the French, 'tis as much as to say, We can tie up one hand, and then lick ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... restrain himself from seizing her from the giants and carrying her away; Rinaldo turned as red as fire, while Malagigi, who had discovered by his art that the stranger was not speaking truth, muttered softly, as he looked at her, "Exquisite false creature! I will play thee such a trick for this, as will leave thee no cause to boast of ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... when they were not amused, of showing their white teeth while smoothing their gloves at the wrist, and while modestly looking down of giving a vibration to their voices like the striking of glass, which cannot fail to attract attention. They had, too, the trick of stopping short in the midst of a movement and posing that you might see the turn of a shoulder or a graceful arm, and of turning their profile to you to show a pretty nose, of catching up their skirts and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... contrary something of a flourish. It struck Strether into the bargain as doing something to meet the most difficult of the questions; though perhaps indeed only by substituting another. Wouldn't it be precisely by having learned to be a gentleman that he had mastered the consequent trick of looking so well that one could scarce speak to him straight? But what in the world was the clue to such a prime producing cause? There were too many clues then that Strether still lacked, and these clues to clues were among them. What it accordingly amounted to for him was ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... this composition do not lie beneath the surface. They are very much in the way of clumsy fingers and heavy wrists. Presto 88 to the half is the metronome indication in all five editions. Klindworth does not comment, but I like his fingering and phrasing best of all. Riemann repeats his trick of breaking a group, detaching a note for emphasis; although he is careful to retain the legato bow. One wonders why this study does not figure more frequently on programmes of piano recitals. It is a fine, ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... was between amusement and irritation at her words, for, after all, I considered that it was not a time to talk of duty when I had been the victim of a trick, and had, after my own poor fashion, paid so heavily for it. I might even have looked for a sentence of thanks for my zeal. But the Princess was a princess still, despite that she was also Miss Morland and the sister of ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... That's the passengers' glass. I told the steward to put it out of gear so that you might not be frightened; it is an old trick. Look at this," and he produced one of the portable variety ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... a terrible passion. "Cheated for once in my life! sold, if ever a fellow was! it's a regular trick that was played! They wanted to get rid of their beggar's brat, and palmed her off upon me, with that humbug story of the nabob of an uncle. I'll nabob her! And there's her ticket, which I was fool enough to pay for, and the carriage hire, and my trouble with ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... a very curious thing it is too, but it's some trick of those black fellows," he whispered. "Jacob was telling me that they have meetings at night and play all sorts of pranks. I caught sight of the figure of a man just now, between us and the fire, and I could ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... annexed to our first number, not on account of its superior merit, but because it was the most recently published of any that has yet come to our hands, will, on the most superficial reading, be discerned to be of the true German cast. The old trick of grouping the characters at the end of a scene, and dropping the curtain upon them, by way of leaving it to the general conception of the audience to guess the rest, as is done in the Stranger, and all others of that ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... the elephant is the forest, or green plain, near which is a river, or lake: water he must have, for both in freedom and captivity, bathing seems to be a necessary condition of his existence. This propensity reminds me of the often-repeated trick of the before-mentioned elephant of the Jardin des Plantes. His stable opened into a small enclosure, in the midst of which was a pond. In this pond he constantly laid himself, and was so hidden by the water, that nothing of him appeared, except the end of ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... wrong with him when he was young, just after he left college. Some kind of a crash. Woman scrape, I suppose. Have you ever noticed that women make all the trouble in the world? Well, he never got over it. He told me once that Life wouldn't play but one trick on him. 'We're always going to sit down on a chair—and Life pulls it from under us,' he said. 'It won't do that to me twice.' He's not given to being confidential, but that put me on the track. And now he's got Elizabeth on ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... been bent, who boasted never to have forgotten or forgiven any thing, that domestic tyrant, had become quite a debonair personage. He had referred to the expedient imagined by Mlle. Gilberte only to laugh at it, saying that it was a good trick, and he deserved it; for he repented bitterly, he protested, ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... telling me such a lie? What are you trying to gain by it? Do you think you'll get rid of me for to-night, and that to-morrow, by some trick, you'll escape from me ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... saddle, and accoutrements. It was an affair of business,—an advertisement for the cafe! He would ride the horse himself before the gates of the park. It would please his customers. Ha! he had learned a trick or two ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... miserably. "We had to. They thought you'd trust us because we look almost human. It was a trick that worked before." Tears streamed across his face, matting the golden fur. "You see, the radioactive planets your men reported, ...
— Alien Offer • Al Sevcik
... move until his friend arrived. While they were arguing the carriage drove up, and his friend got his ticket; and then at last the obstinate old gentleman left his dangerous position, and they went off in the train together. The trick had been successful, though it was a very dangerous and ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... buying a part of the island from Blent on installments, and had paid the old rascal a good part of the price. But when Blent found out that uncle's papers were buried under the landslide he thought he could play a sharp trick and resell to Mr. Tingley. You see, the installment ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... flowed on for ever, with aggravating pauses, with a smile of sublime, unruffled satisfaction, that made the position ten times as aggravating as it otherwise would have been. To smile and smile, and play such a villanous trick as this on a suffering House was worse than most disordered ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... see its red path as it struck the sphere of the machine. The next instant there was a dull explosion and the whole machine disintegrated into a smother of flying fragments. The expanding dynol had done the trick where lead had failed. There would be no more ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... still lay along the pinon limb, every sense on the alert. He was not sure that it was not a trick to draw him out. He already was too good a woodsman to be caught ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... of a heavy coal-scuttle and let it fall. This noise was not repeated, and by a treble rap I mean the sound was like an arpeggio chord. I feel certain it was not against the false window outside, indeed it had the sound of being in the room. The kettle-drum sounds might easily have been a trick of the wind, though the night was still, but the only natural explanation of this noise that I can give is practical joking, as the noise might have come from my dressing-room. The coal-scuttle was standing between the fireplace and door-post, ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... Victoria is very clever, and it will give you great pleasure to see the development which takes place with children just at that time of life. What you say of Ernest is unfortunately but too true; that trick of exaggeration is one of the worst I almost know, and particularly in people in high stations, as one finally knows not what to believe, and it generally ends with people disbelieving all such individuals do ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... "Impossible," said he in a fright, "it cannot be; yet the voice appears the same." Here his tongue faltering, he ceased to speak. When he had somewhat recovered his recollection, he ejaculated, "In the name of God, do tell me who you are? Is it a trick, or do I dream?" "Neither," replied the unknown; and continued, in the same tone of voice, to describe several particulars relative to his family, and in what manner many things were placed in the drawers belonging to his deceased wife, which none but himself ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... battle-scarred old warrior wore the stoic mask of his race, which only now and then is lifted for an instant by some sudden and unexpected happening. Behind that face, immobile, almost expressionless, worked a mind alive to every trick and secret of the vast solitudes, and even before his young comrades had gained the use of their tongues he was, in his savage imagination, traveling swiftly back over the trail of the monster bear to the gun that had fired the golden bullet. Wabigoon understood ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... more importance since Carlyle, and so many of us who follow him as admirers of Knox, have adopted the modern trick of speech of calling him a Prophet to his time. It is assumed that Knox took the same view,[22] and that he held himself to have had, if not a prophet's supernatural endowment and vocation, at least a special mission and an extraordinary call. The question is complicated ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... disappointment? The nest was not to be found within a radius of a rod from the point where the little diplomat went down. A few days later I made my way to the hilltop, and do you know that the shrewd bird played me the same trick? He scuttled down into the bushes at almost the same point as before, and no nest rewarded my search. I went home just about ready to give up my search for Kentucky warblers' nests, for I had been hunting them for a number of years ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... the final proof for Saint-Antoine. ...But the aforesaid old book will not be published until the first of April (like an April fool trick?) because of the translations. It is finished, I am not thinking any more about it! Saint-Antoine is relegated, as far as I am concerned, to the condition of a memory! However I do not conceal from you that I had a moment of great sadness when I looked at the first proof. It is hard to ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... think I know a trick or two, would turn Their flanks;—but it is hardly worth my while With such small gear to give myself concern: Indeed I 've not the necessary bile; My natural temper 's really aught but stern, And even my Muse's worst reproof 's a smile; ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... O slave." Jimmie Dale laughed back—and slipped his hand, a trick of their old college days together, through Carruthers' arm as they left ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the uplands, the darting flame-bird of La'a, While smoke and mist blur the woodland, Is keen for the breath of frost-bitten flowers. A fickle flower is man— 5 A trick this not native to you. Come thou with her who is calling to thee; A call to the man to come in And eat till the mouth is awry. Lo, this ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... story begins," muttered Pound. "I think I understand his professional trick. But I don't seem to have got hold ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Easter eggs hard as agates, which you gave to my poor brother Recollets for the use of our convent? Tell me that, pray! All the salts and senna in Quebec have not sufficed to restore the digestion of my poor monks since you played that trick upon them down in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the censorship, though she pretended ignorance of it. So long as John was in London she did not care who followed her; but I well knew that when Manners should return, Dorothy would again begin manoeuvring, and that by some cunning trick she would see him. ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... for air, contracts, and extends but to mingle with the darkness. They would be nobler, better, boundlessly good to all;—to those who have injured them to those whom they have injured. Alas! for any definite deed the limit of their circle is immoveable, and they must act within it. The trick they have played themselves imprisons them. Beyond it, they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... He wuz too 'shame' ter come back, an' he bin so 'shame' er de trick uver sence dat he hide hisse'f way in de daytime an' nuver come out 'twel de dusk, an' den he go sweepin' an' swoopin' 'long on dem gre't big sof' wings, so quiet dat he ain' mek de ghos' uv a soun', jes' looks lak a big shadder flittin' roun' in de dusk. He teck dat ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... once heard the phenomenon of the vanishing rope trick discussed at some length between a number of clever people. She had paid very little attention to what had been said at the time, but she now strained her memory to recapture the sense of the words which had been uttered. One of the men present, a distinguished scientist, had actually ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... cried out again before his spirit passed: "Have I followed the sea for thirty years to die in the dark at last? Curse on her work that has nipped me here with a shifty trick unkind — I have gotten my death where I got my bread, but I dare not face it blind. Curse on the fog! Is there never a wind of all the winds I knew To clear the smother from off my chest, and let me look at the blue?" The good fog heard — like a splitten sail, to left and right she tore, And ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... know what to do. He certainly did not wish to impoverish the Church by marrying Miss Mackenzie without any fortune. But might it not all be a trick? That she had been rich he knew, and how could she have become ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... the ground with my head; and lay there till near dawn, when I sneezed and the Bhang issued from my nostrils. With this, I opened my eyes and found myself naked and cast out among ruins; so I buffeted my face and said in myself, 'Doubtless this is a trick al-Sandalani hath played me.' But I knew not whither I should wend, for I had upon me naught save my bag-trousers.[FN340] However, I rose and walked on a little, till I suddenly espied the Chief of Police coming towards me, with a posse of men ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... But his cleverest trick is that, observing that freedom of speech, is both spoken of and reckoned as the peculiar and natural voice of friendship, while not speaking freely is considered unfriendly and disingenuous, he has not failed to imitate ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... dinner at a certain house, proceeded thither in her carriage, and gave the alarm of fire. The company started from table, and Law among the rest; but, seeing one lady making all haste into the house towards him, while every body else was scampering away, he suspected the trick, and ran off ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... they can go out on Saturday and Sunday; but on Monday morning they are sure to be sick again, then they return to the hospital and remain very poorly till Friday evening, when they get well all at once, and ask permission to go out. The overseer saw into the trick; but he could find no medicine that could cure the negroes of that intermittent sickness. The Antigua planters discovered the remedy for it, and doubtless Mr. D. will make the grand discovery ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... "Yes, and you needn't look at me as if I were some sort of a bug you hadn't ever seen before and didn't approve of, because I've seen you try that high-and-mighty trick too often for ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... who, having concealed their master in the house, took the body of one of the slain, cut off the head, put a gold ring on the finger, and showed it to Marius's guards, and buried it with the same solemnity as if it had been their own master. This trick was perceived by nobody, and so Cornutus escaped, and was conveyed ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the team, was a fighting Irishman with a peppery temper and a bullying disposition. This chap had a trick of bulldozing umpires and opposing players, and he generally played what is ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... Sandy was so deep. It was a gey trick. Sandy was determined to pey aff Pottie in his ain coin, an' he had gotten Bandy Wobster to kollig wi' him to gie ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... use. How could I argue against three, moreover, having you to defend! Three, did I say? Why! Even Peter, the old fisherman, attracted by the laughter, left his porter's lodge and came to upbraid me for the trick you have played on his priests, taking away from them all their parishes, regardless of the fact that they had been in these islands long before you, and that they were the first to baptise in Cebu ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... it is true, might with more propriety quit the Faro Bank, or card-table, to guide the helm, for he has still but to shuffle and trick. The whole system of British politics, if system it may courteously be called, consisting in multiplying dependents and contriving taxes which grind the poor to pamper the rich; thus a war, or any wild goose chace is, as the vulgar use the phrase, a lucky turn-up of patronage for the minister, ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... had happened that excited the men. Ed Hall the superintendent had played a trick on his fellow townsmen. He had put on overalls and gone to work at a bench in a long room with some fifty other men. "I'm going to show you up," he said, laughing. "You watch me. We're behind on the work and I'm going to show ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... were treachery and craft, fled to the protection of the Spaniards. Bowles, among other feats, plundered the stores of Panton, a white trader in the Spanish interest, and for a moment his authority seemed supreme; but the Spaniards, by a trick, got possession of him and put ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... your nature, Simon," Nell was so good as to say. "A man in love is always dull, save to one woman, and she's stark-mad. Come, can you feign an inclination for me, or have you forgot the trick?" ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... For training infant villanies, new ways Of wringing treasure out of tears and blood, Unheard oppressions nourished in the dark To try how much man's nature can endure —If he dies under it, what harm? if not, Why, one more trick is added to the rest Worth a king's knowing, and what Ireland bears England may learn to bear:—how all this while That man has set himself to one dear task, The bringing Charles to relish more and more Power, power without law, power ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... out at the same time of day. Thereafter I made it my business to pass the lady on the bridle path day after day. I pride myself on few things, but my horsemanship is one of them. Many a hard tussle and bleeding nose I got riding Brumbies across the wild tracks of Australia. I also learned a trick or two among my Tuareg friends which I exhibited for the lady's benefit on various occasions. I did not hope to gain an introduction, but only to attract attention and familiarize her party with my appearance, applying one of the test points of human psychology. I employed the theory of the ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... my sire!" she said, "O childly duty! passion's heat Has struck thee dead. Whence came I? death, for maiden's shame, Were little. Do I wake to weep My sin? or am I pure of blame, And is it sleep From dreamland brings a form to trick My senses? Which was best? to go Over the long, long waves, or pick The flowers in blow? O, were that monster made my prize, How would I strive to wound that brow, How tear those horns, my frantic eyes Adored but now! Shameless I left ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... young Lester J. Dimmik, age three, put to rout his younger brother, Carl Withney Dimmik, Jr., age two, in their matutinal contest to see which can dispose of his Wheatena first. In the early stages of the match, it began to look as if the bantamweight would win in a walk, owing to his trick of throwing spoonfuls of the breakfast food over his shoulder and under the tray of his high-chair. The referees soon put a stop to this, however, and specified that the Wheatena must be placed in the ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... declared Harry Cresswell, tossing the letter back to his father. "I tell you, it is a damned Yankee trick." ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... being written by one who takes his craft with a becoming dignity of purpose. One peculiarity of the Master has not only been borrowed by Mr. BORLEY, but exaggerated to his own undoing: I mean the trick of introducing a character or group of characters so clogged and obscured by the adhesions of the uncommunicated past that not till this has been gradually flaked from them do they emerge as figures in whom ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... the afternoon, Polly had seen Douglas shut himself up in the study, and she was sure that he was writing; so when the village children stopped in on the way from school for Mandy's new-made cookies, she used her customary trick to get them away. "Tag—you're it!" she cried, and then dashed out the back door, pursued by the laughing, screaming youngsters. Mandy followed the children to the porch and stood looking after them, ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... sure that all was well with the boys, had resigned his care for their safety and had returned to Asgard, and thus the giants were able to play him a trick, which they did by causing the wind to veer round, whereby Agnar was carried away to ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... in, found me there, and throwing down their money dared me to play. Well, I knew it was play or fight. I took of my coat and went for them. They cleaned me out, I can't tell how. I could not get on to their trick. Then, determined to find out, I put up that—that other money, you know—and I was losing it fast, too, ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... presently at the head of an army of giants, whom Rama defeats single-handed, while his brother guards Sita. The giantess then betakes herself to her brother, the terrible ten-headed Ravana, king of Ceylon. He succeeds in capturing Sita by a trick, and carries her off to his fortress in Ceylon. It is plainly necessary for Rama to seek allies before attempting to cross the straits and attack the stronghold. He therefore renders an important service to the monkey king Sugriva, who gratefully leads an army of monkeys to his assistance. The ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... aware—through heredity and race memory, no doubt—that looking through keyholes was caddish, a trick unworthy of any lady who was at heart a gentleman. But there are exceptions to all keyholes, and this was one, because, as none save ghosts and fairies lived or moved behind it in the garret, there was nobody to spy upon. You looked through to stimulate the ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "A mean, vile, cowardly trick played upon my blindness! Oscar! your brother has been imitating you; your brother has been speaking to me in your voice. And that woman who calls herself my friend—that woman stood by and heard him, and never told me. She encouraged it: she enjoyed it. The wretches! ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... famous chemist, Lavoisier, about ninety years ago, how to burn a diamond in oxygen—and a very difficult trick that is; and Lavoisier found that the diamond when burnt turned almost entirely into carbonic acid and water, as blacklead and charcoal do; and more, that each of them turned into the same quantity of carbonic acid, And so he knew, as surely as man can know ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... the jackass. The jackass was browsing on thistles in the desert. It took all his time to gather enough of the scanty vegetation to keep him alive. One day the jackass noticed the lion comfortably eating a lamb, whereupon he said "That's the scheme for me. I will do the same trick as Mr. Lion," and forth-with the jackass found a dead lion and covered himself with the lion's skin, hoping that with the lion's skin he would appear as a lion and thus be able to catch game in large portions, and relieve himself of this slow monotonous, hard ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... of course be to her advantage to let them know that she had seen, and that they were in her power, but it might be still more to her advantage to conceal the fact so long as there was a chance of additional discovery in the same direction. Through the success of her trick it came about that Malcolm, chancing to look up from Honour's back to the room where he always breakfasted with his new friend, saw in one of the windows, as in a picture, a face radiant with such an expression as that of the woman headed ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... mean that," said Vilda argumentatively, "I don't call writin' poetry any great test of smartness. There ain't been a big fool in this village for years but could do somethin' in the writin' line. I guess it ain't any great trick, if you have a mind to put yourself down to it. For my part, I've always despised to see a great, hulkin' man, that could handle a hoe or a pitchfork, sit down and twirl ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Godmother?" said the Princess, and she sat up in bed and courtesied. Which is a very difficult trick, indeed, and it is not every Princess ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... head while he danced. Finally he called out that the bead had vanished, but when he lowered the plate, it was still there, and he left in chagrin. He was succeeded by a dumb female spirit named Damolan, who undertook to do the trick in which her predecessor had failed. Holding the plate high above her head, she danced furiously, and from time to time struck against the side of the dish with the medium's shells. Twice when she lowered the dish, the bead was there, but on the third attempt it had vanished. The ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... this time (1864) about thirty-five years old. He had been a private in a regiment of Kentucky infantry during the Mexican War, but what the length of his service may have been I do not know. But in his Mexican War experience he had at least learned every possible trick and device that could be resorted to in "playing off," as the boys called it; that is, avoiding duty on the plea of sickness or any other excuse that would serve. He was not a bad man, by any means, but a good-hearted old fellow. He had re-enlisted, along with the rest of us, when the ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... stood in his trance, as motionless as if some genii out of the "Arabian Nights" had suddenly turned him into stone (a trick they were much addicted to), and destined him to remain there an ornamental fixture for ever. Ormiston looked at him distractedly, uncertain whether to try moral suasion or to take him by the collar and drag him headlong down the stairs, when a providential ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... trying in vain to attract the attention of the hitherto prompt and friendly storekeeper. Tommy Tinktums, the cat, seeing that his master was sitting down, came forward with the expectation of being told to perform his famous "bouncing" trick, a feat that was at once the wonder and delight of the youngsters around Hillsborough. But Tommy Tinktums was not commanded to bounce; and so he contented himself with washing his face, pausing every now and then to watch his master with ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... master in the art of wrestling; he knew three hundred and sixty sleights in this art, and could exhibit a fresh trick for every day throughout the year. Perhaps owing to a liking that a corner of his heart took for the handsome person of one of his scholars, he taught him three hundred and fifty-nine of those feats, but he was putting off the instruction ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... men will never take any trouble to find out what specially excites a woman. A woman, as a rule, is at some pains to find out the little things which particularly affect the man she loves,—it may be a trick of speech, a rose in her hair, or what not,—and she makes use of her knowledge. But do you know one man who will take the same trouble? (It is difficult to specify, as what pleases one person may not ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... job. It's the finest fullest intention of the lot, and the application of it has been, I think, a triumph of patience, of ingenuity. I ought to leave that to somebody else to say; but that nobody does say it is precisely what we're talking about. It stretches, this little trick of mine, from book to book, and everything else, comparatively, plays over the surface of it. The order, the form, the texture of my books will perhaps some day constitute for the initiated a complete representation of it. So it's naturally ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... bore no signature. It was written in some red fluid—blood perhaps—a mean and sorry trick! On the outside was scrawled a direction to Mademoiselle de Caylus. And the packet was sealed with the Vidame's crest, ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... the winking of an eye, and for a moment it seemed to Jimmie Dale that he could not grasp the full significance of what had happened—that Slimmy Jack, his sleeve catching on the hinge of the safe as he had finally succeeded in jerking his revolver from his pocket, had, a grim, ironical trick of fate, accidentally shot himself! Mechanically, automatically, Jimmie Dale's hands went to his pockets and produced his own flashlight and revolver—but he did not move. His eyes now were on Birdie Lee, who, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Mrs. Diana Trapes, the Tally-Woman and she will make a good Hand on't in Shoes and Slippers, to trick out young Ladies, upon their ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... them, for Dr. Mosheim speaks of "the endless frauds of those odious impostors, who were so far destitute of all principles, as to enrich themselves by the ignorance and errors of the people. Rumours were artfully spread abroad of prodigies and miracles to be seen in certain places (a trick often practised by the heathen priests), and the design of these reports was to draw the populace, in multitudes, to these places, and to impose upon their credulity ... Nor was this all; certain tombs were falsely given out for the sepulchres ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... some time, at a loss what judgment to form of this letter, and unresolved whether he should slight the advertisement or not; and fancying it a trick of his enemies to frighten him into an absence from parliament, would have determined on the former, had his own safety been only in question: but apprehending the king's life might be in danger, he took the letter at midnight to the earl of Salisbury, who was equally puzzled about the meaning ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... first story, that he suspected the two boys to be engaged in some nefarious trick, and he had watched them from the time they borrowed the wheelwright's punt. He went on to describe how he had offended them by keeping his eye upon their movements, and told how they had tried to smother him by leading him into a dangerous morass, ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... once. I didn't want to care for you. I'd been too badly hit before. Cowardly, you'll say, perhaps—you were never a coward, were you, Ann? Well, it may have been. Anyhow, I did go away and I tried to forget all about you. It wasn't easy, God knows, and then, by a trick of fate, I found you again, at my cottage—living there, sister of the man with whom I'd just made a pact. After that it was a struggle between my joy at finding you there and my determination never to let myself care again ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... and all for setting some free as t' press-gang had gotten by a foul trick; and he were put i' York prison, and tried, and hung!—hung! Charley!—good kind feyther was hung on a gallows; and mother lost her sense and grew silly in grief, and we were like to be turned out on t' wide world, and poor ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Cardinal, "that I have been duped. I will pay for the necklace; my desire to please your Majesty blinded me; I suspected no trick in the affair, and I ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... cunning only when they have fools to deal with. Why don't my girl play me such a trick? Let her cunning over- reach my caution, ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... I have had plenty of time to think things over, and now I am at a loss to understand why I have done this. Suppose it is a piece of stupidity—a carefully planned and irrevocable folly? Suppose my irritable nerves have played a trick upon ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... had won the bet; It cost him something of a sweat; Back in the one-horse shay he went; The parson wondered what it meant, And murmured, with a mild surprise And pleasant twinkle of the eyes, That funeral must have been a trick, Or corpses drive at double-quick; I should n't wonder, I ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the sword even sheathed was a more natural weapon, and he laid about him on all sides with it as with a stick. The man who had the walking-stick found his blows parried with promptitude; and a second after, to his great astonishment, found his own stick fly up in the air as by a conjuring trick, with a turn of the swordsman's wrist. Another of the revellers picked the stick out of the ditch and ran in upon MacIan, calling to his companion to ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... different. They seem different—worth while. So they marry and have children, which seems worth while too—different from other people's children, at any rate, or they wouldn't be able to bear the sight of them. What you call love is just a sort of trick played on you. If crowds are of any use I suppose it's justified. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... between. Snatches of other voices seemed often to intertrude themselves in the parley; and your loyal effort not to overhear these was complicated by your fear of missing what Eva might be twittering. "Oh, you certainly haven't, my dear, the trick of propinquity!" was a thrust she had once parried by saying that, in that case, he hadn't—to which his unspoken rejoinder that she had caught her tone from the peevish young women at the Central seemed to him (if not perhaps in the last, certainly in the last but one, analysis) ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... imposing entrance, one of those palatial residences that cover the space of four ordinary houses and stamp its owner as a multi-millionaire. As he nervously pulled the bell, he upbraided himself for having dared to think that she was like his child. It was a trick of the fading light, an optical illusion. His reflection was cut short, for the door was opened ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... wants a word beginning with the letter G, or the letter M, or the letter F, as the case may be. On the second page of Greene's Arbasto is this sentence: 'He did not so much as vouchsafe to give an eare to my parle, or an eye to my person.' Greene learned this trick from Lyly, who was a master of the art. The sentence represents one of the common forms in Euphues, such as this: 'To the stomach quatted with dainties all delicates seem queasie.' Sometimes the balance is preserved by three ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... her brother, "this is some trick you are trying to play on us. Why isn't there any breakfast and why aren't there any people. Come on, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... his sword and was actually running upon her before I could get mine clear. But I was in time to beat down his point and then—for he was slow-witted and three-parts drunk—with a trick of wrist that luckily required little strength, I disarmed him. His sword struck the farther edge of the table, smashed a decanter of wine ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... for a planet. Republic. Bunch of screw-balls, again. Out in the vicinity of Sirius. Based their system on Plato's Republic. Have to go the whole way. Don't even speak Basic. Certainly not. They speak Ancient Greek. That's going to be a neat trick, finding interpreters. How'd ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... concerned, an extraordinary cunning and pertinacity; he was universally regarded as one of the shrewdest men of business in that part of Yorkshire, and report credited him with any number of remarkable meannesses. It was popularly said that 'owd Dick Dagworthy' would shrink from no dirty trick to turn a sixpence, but was as likely as not to give it away as soon as he had got it. His son had doubtless advanced the character of the stock, and, putting aside the breeding of dogs, possessed many tastes of which the old man had no notion; ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... the Indian trick of seeing only what they look for, and so of separating an animal instantly from his surroundings, however well he hides. That is why the whole hillside seemed suddenly to vanish, spruces and harebells, snow-fields and drifting white clouds all grouping themselves, ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... reference to the intensity of suggestion that may reside in the stray figure, the unattached character, the image en disponibilite. It gave me higher warrant than I seemed then to have met for just that blest habit of one's own imagination, the trick of investing some conceived or encountered individual, some brace or group of individuals, with the germinal property and authority. I was myself so much more antecedently conscious of my figures than of their setting—a too preliminary, a preferential interest ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James |
