"Ace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you call it grub, now that it's come into your greasy hands!" drawled the miner, as he slowly started to leave the store. "I'd be afraid you'd deal me a dirty ace of spades instead of a decent slice of bacon." And, hands in pockets, he sauntered away, vaguely wondering what he ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... as ace of trumps, you should take your wife with you. Now for the excuse: I would sit down and write such a letter as you alone can write to The Times. You should set forth how you have been insulted by the Marquis of Queensberry, and how you went naturally to the Courts for ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... recklessly in the thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she realized, from ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... not weary the reader with Bob's experiences during the next few hours. In the letter he wrote to me about them, he gave but few details. Nevertheless, he told me enough to make me realise that for hours he was within an ace ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... 'tis gospel truth," and the speaker strode forward, candle in hand. "Here, now, you ace of spades," he cried impatiently, "hold the flame until I bid this paragon of the wilderness fit welcome in the name of Hawkins, who strangely seems to have vanished from the sylvan scene. Alas, poor Hawkins! two gentlemen ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... "They've let me know as much a'ready. There be two captains to their crew; one's the smoke-dried old sinner as brought yer in; the other a big nayger, as black as the ace o' spades. You saw the swab? He's inside the tent here. He's my master. The two came nigh quarrelling about which should have me, and settled it by some sort o' a game they played wi' balls of kaymal's dung. The black ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... me," he said, addressing Captain Bannister, "that both that young jay Dimsdale and Mrs. Delaporte saw me pass up that ace?" ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hole and plant it on some tenderfoot and get mine back!' You cain't make me believe in any of those Wall Street fellers! They all deal from the bottom of the deck and keep shoemaker's wax on their cuff buttons to steal the lone ace!" ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... the sixth round the lead came to me. Now, what should I have done? Finessed for the ace, or led straight ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... certainty lost an ace in the haystack. Besides our chum and heavens knows what others, he had sniped the road along which relief parties were passing up and down; and that same night one of the soldiers of an infantry battalion of the Warwicks, winding its way to the front trenches, got ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... the other. "But I nor no man else saw him die. And we know that these Spanish tombs do sometimes open and give up the dead. I'll throw for size-ace." ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... pots with a stripped deck, the joker going as a fifth ace or to fill a straight or a flush. Several hands were dealt without any stayers. The slender Mexican was dealing when the sensation of the game was ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... during a passing shower. The assent to the Laram Kotal is easy, and though the south face of this range is somewhat denuded of both fir and pine, yet the soil is sufficiently rich to allow of cultivation on its slopes. On this pass, whilst taking some plane-table observations, I was within an ace of being detected from an unexpected quarter. Four men armed with matchlocks showed themselves. Much quicker than it takes me to record it, the rule or sight vane was run up my long and open sleeve, and I began to pretend to be looking about ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... ve'y fon' of it," responded the Creole. "I was making seve'al i'onies ad those fwen' of mine juz now. We was 'unning a 'ace. An' thass anotheh thing I am fon' of. I would 'ather 'un a 'ace than to wuck faw a livin'. Ha! ha! ha! I should thing so! Anybody would, in fact. But thass the way with me—always making some i'onies." He ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... of Youtsey and Fry on one of the principal streets and was talking to Mr. Sydney Youtsey on the sidewalk, when I saw a splendid carriage drawn by two fine bay horses coming along the street. A Sambo, black as the ace of spades, was driving with a high sense of his importance; and in fact he handled the reins and whip like a professional. In the back seat reclined a portly gentleman, dressed in faultless style, and by his side his wife of ample proportions, also ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... fact, began (February 22) by appointing Montrose his Lieutenant-Governor and Captain-General in Scotland, though Lauderdale and Lanark "abate not an ace of their damned Covenant in all their discourses," wrote Hyde. The dispute between Montrose, on the side of honour, and that of Lanark, Lauderdale, and other Scottish envoys, ended as—given the character of Charles II. and ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... sooner or later. I was within an ace of death two months ago. The gallows wouldn't have been worse than a ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... bubbles," Scotty told them. "I talked it over with Tony, and came within an ace of diving after you, although I doubt that I could have reached bottom and found you. But we watched, and we couldn't see any bubbles at all. It was too dark, and we were right where the ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... was the first to cross the stream. His horse plunged in boldly, but was within an ace of being carried away by the still almost resistless current. There goes "Shoemaker," the easy, good-natured "Ned," as he is called. Yes, sure enough, there he does go, for his horse has plunged, and the torrent ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... as he surveyed his victim, "because a man looks sad at the opening of a jack-pot, it doesn't necessarily follow that he's only got ace-high." ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... Euchre Buck, giving his neighbor Dan a nudge in the ribs to call attention to this wonderful piece of girlish innocence. "Square a deal es George Washington mought ha' made." Then, as the greasy pasteboards were turned up, and his neighbour was handed the ace of clubs, he raised his voice and yelled out, "Bully for you, Dan! Cut away ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... pell-mell onslaughts and hand-to-hand struggles. Twice we were within an ace of being driven from our stronghold, when General Harris and his staff leaped recklessly upon the ramparts and hurled the besiegers heels over ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... it. Last February two men and a woman tried to smuggle a lot of diamonds through the customs at New York. I'll not go into details now further than to say they landed from one of the big ocean liners and came within an ace of getting away with the job. The woman was the leader. She was nabbed with one of the men at a hotel. The other man got away. He was on the passenger list as George Ritchie, of Cleveland, Ohio. The woman had half a dozen photographs of him in her possession. I've got a copy of one of 'em in my ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... time, with thumb and forefinger, the Eminent Person turned over his hand with careful adjustment and alignment. After much delay, he symmetrically arranged an Ace-full, face up, and regarded ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... heafy disgoosted Mit de boledicks of dis land, Dat his friendts couldn't barely keep him From trowin oop his hand, Vhen he helt shtraidt flush, mit an ace in his poot; Vich phrase ish all de same, In de science of de pokerology, Ash ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... you might know. He's an easy boss in a good many ways and I have still to run across a job that I'd swap mine for, the pay envelopes being fifty-fifty. But say, when it comes to usin' a private sec. free and careless he sure is an ace of aces. ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... divan but with it a special slave, the Slave of the Bed.... "Dat fat feller" had one of the prisoners perform his corvee for him. "Dat fat feller" bought enough at the canteen twice every day to stock a transatlantic liner for seven voyages, and never ace with the prisoners. I will mention him again apropos the Mecca of respectability, the Great White Throne of purity, Three rings Three—alias Count Bragard, to whom I have long since introduced ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... party consisted of a gentleman and two old ladies. The gentleman (a plump, black-whiskered elderly Cupid, with a vast expanse of shirt-front like an immense white ace of hearts, and a rose in his button-hole) was standing on the hearth-rug in a graceful attitude, with one hand resting on his hip, and the other under his coat-tails. Of the two old ladies, who seemed as if expressly created by nature to serve as foils to ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... was around Frederick a day or two in disguise, and sought to see you and her. Failing in that, he sent you by the landlady the packet that was afterwards taken from your overcoat by the secret-service men; and the next thing he came within an ace of being captured by his own colonel. Escaping, he was believed to be a rebel spy, and so implicated you. It was to search for him I was sent to Boston. There Miss Winthrop formally broke our engagement, and I would be a free man to-day, ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... times, but I yielded at last; take courage from that, and 24, Pleasant Terrace, may shortly become that Elysium—a woman's home," whispered Mrs. W., as she rolled gracefully to a card-table; and accidentally, of course, cut the ace of spades, which she exhibited to Collumpsion with a very mysterious shake ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... explained the circumstances as coherently as he could. "I told you so," he said. "A maid like her couldn't stay hid long, even in a place like this. But where is Grace? Let's have her down. Here—Gra-a-ace!" ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... if you want to, but you'll have to admit, just the same, that it's helped you stay sane once or twice yourself, figurin' whether or not I had an ace in the hole. Lonesomeness like what we've both seen ain't so very different from what he was fightin' at that very moment—not if the thing you're lonesome for and the thing you're thirsty for are things ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... out his foot, but fortunately, before setting it down, he poked what he took for a log with the butt of his gun. The supposed block of wood gave way a little, and the old squatter, throwing himself back, was within an ace of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... noise being heard abroad. There rose in the Court, I know not what confused murmurs, the origin of which could not be pointed out, publishing that either the State or Chamillart must perish; that already his ignorance had brought the kingdom within an ace of destruction; that it was a miracle this destruction had not yet come to pass; and that it would be madness to tempt Providence any longer. Some did not blush to abuse him; others praised his intentions, and spoke with moderation of faults that many people reproached him bitterly with. All admitted ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... your wife—not to pit up with it a day longer," said the subdued voice of Sir Alan. "Man! ye war in an ace o' ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... son of ould Rousin' Redhead's of Tullyvernon—young Con Roe, or the Ace o' Hearts—for he was called both by the youngsters—if you remimber him. His head's as red an' double as big, even, as his father's was, an' you know that no hat would fit ould Con, until he sent ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... needless miseries. I call them needless, because thou hadst more than enough before. Thou hast set thyself against God in a way of contending; thou standest upon thy points and pantables:15 Thou wilt not bate God an ace, of what thy righteousness is worth, and wilt also make it worth what thyself shalt list. Thou wilt be thine own judge, as to the worth of thy righteousness; thou wilt neither hear what verdict the word has passed about it, nor wilt thou endure, that God should throw it out in the matter ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... got a big proposition to offer you. One that will beat Mascola's like an ace beats a deuce. Because this one ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... 2.] and no sorrow was spared to him that belonged to what the Jews and Jewish Christians called 'the pangs of the Messiah.' It is true, crucifixion does not appear among Baha-'ullah's pains, but he was at any rate within an ace of martyrdom. This is what Baha-'ullah wrote at the end of his stay at Adrianople:—[Footnote: Browne, A Year among ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... just old lightnin' on chuck-a-luck. Now the way I bet is this: I lay down, say on the ace, an' it don't come up; I just double my bet on the ace, an' keep on doublin' every time it loses, until at last it comes up an' then I win a bushel o' money, and mebbe bust the bank. You see the thing's got to come up some time; an' every time ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... accidents happened. The king pointed out to the prince the impropriety of his conduct. Radziwill added, that the bears were not cross, as whip, gold, and patience can put in order every thing; He added also, that, sometimes the ace beats the king at cards, and paid liberally the damages. After some time, he gave a splendid party, to which he invited all the ambassadors, and all the leading personages in Poland, and displayed extraordinary luxury. ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... people of that ilk are not fit subjects to discuss with you. All that I know of the woman is that she has travelled pretty well over the world; that some six or eight months ago she was in Ceylon with a—er—a certain member of her crew, and came within an ace of falling foul of the law. She had put up a plan to loot the depository of the Pearl Fisheries Company at a period when there were thousands of pounds worth of gems awaiting transport. With her usual luck she slipped out of the net and left the country before she could be arrested. But ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... troops, sepoys and sailors, some two thousand men in all. Hordes of Persian cavalry charged him through the mist, but they were beaten off, and Clive forced his way through the enemy's camp until he came near the Nawab's own tents, pitched in Omichand's garden. Sirajuddaula himself was within an ace of being captured. His troops made but a poor stand against the British, and by midday the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... a fool, Dolly. Gretchen is fair and young, and the woman is old and black as the ace ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... stopped halfway in his reach for the enormous pile of chips. The Queen laid down her four clubs—Ace, King, Queen and ten—and for the first time flipped over her ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... I had an ace full, can't I? Anybody can play poker when he's got a mitt full of big ones. Show me the man that can make two pair back an all-blue hand ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... that Theodore was so near the Abbaye," said Jacques Collin. "I came in to save a poor little chap who scragged himself here yesterday at four o'clock, and now here is another misfortune. I have not an ace in ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... indifferent grown, Still happier he who ne'er hath known! By absence who hath chilled his love, His hate by slander, and who spends Existence without wife or friends, Whom jealous transport cannot move, And who the rent-roll of his race Ne'er trusted to the treacherous ace. ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... world has known nothing. But with a more or less famous man the public is thoroughly informed. Why look there! What an example you have close at hand! You are sitting back to back with the Comtesse Marie Vandenesse, who was within an ace of committing the utmost folly for a more celebrated man than Lousteau—for Nathan—and now they do not even recognize each other. After going to the very edge of the precipice, the Countess was saved, ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... waited for the local, Shoop rolled a cigarette. "Jest statin' it mild and gentle," he said, yawning, "the last couple of weeks has been kind of a busy day. Guess the fun's all over. Sundown's got a flyin' start; Loring's played his ace and lost, and you and me is plumb sober. If I'd knowed it was goin' to be as quiet as this, I'd 'a' brought my ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... Therefore I turned the car into a small wood, and destroying my genuine license and hiding the genuine number-plate, I took the next train to Winchester, and thence by express to Waterloo after a very wild and adventurous night. That I had been within an ace of capture was palpable. ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... shot; but the skill of Herr Rodiger, the author's father-in-law, was really wonderful. Though his hand trembled constantly from an attack of palsy, I don't know now how many times he pierced the centre of the ace of hearts. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... connected with it. We refer to the great railroad raid in Georgia during the year 1862, when a handful of intrepid heroes invaded a hostile country, deliberately stole a locomotive, and came within an ace of getting it safely delivered into the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... expressions upon him, of which he was utterly undeserving; but my attentions were quite thrown away, and might as well, for any good they produced, have been bestowed upon a rocking-horse. At length, after a final struggle, in which we were both within an ace of falling into a water-course which crossed the park in that direction, I gave the matter up as hopeless; and with a sigh (for I love not to be foiled in anything I have attempted, and, moreover, I could not help looking upon it as an unlucky omen) dismounted, 285 and leading ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... matter of principle with all of them. They can justify themselves seven ways to the ace. Keep an eye on him, or let us do ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... theirs. This is nothing new to me; it is when one laughs out at their idols that one angers people. I do not wonder now that Sir Philip Sydney was the darling hero, when Lord Herbert, who followed him so close and trod in his steps, is at this time of day within an ace of rivalling him. I wish I had let him; it was contradicting one of my own maxims, which I hold to be very just; that it is idle to endeavour to cure the world of any folly, unless We Could ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... ace of surprising the king at Monceaux, and he never forgot, says Montluc, that "the Protestants had made him do the stretch from Meaux to Paris at something more than a walk." It was around Paris that Conde concentrated ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the ladies of Moscow and St. Petersburg, seeing that they dressed with taste, drove about in carriages in the latest fashions, and never went out without the escort of a footman in gold-laced livery. Again, they looked upon a visiting card—even upon a make-shift affair consisting of an ace of diamonds or a two of clubs—as a sacred thing; so sacred that on one occasion two closely related ladies who had also been closely attached friends were known to fall out with one another over the mere fact of an omission to return a social call! Yes, in spite of the best efforts of husbands ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... had been within an ace of discovery, but the man's mind had closed again against us in obedience to some racial or religious instinct outside our comprehension. He had been on the verge of taking ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... influence intervened and kept the New Cavalry Brigade from falling upon Strydenburg. In the present case the intervention was to be made by the elements, and even then the energy and wit of the capable soldier who was in command brought the brigade within an ace of a success which would have made all concerned famous in the history of ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... had gone home, but Rodwell stopped to tell her we had come as he went down with the cart, and she exclaimed, "Pray day come for me go see Miss Hayiut." In the morning she came early into my chamber, bright and eager. I knew Robert was black as the ace of spades, but they both of them did look blacker than anything I ever saw before, but it was good ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... of the Downs to get them, seven miles there and back, when you wouldn't think she could walk seven hundred yards, and as likely as not had lain there on the dewy grass, looking up at the sky, as he had come on her sometimes. Poor Alicia! And once he had been within an ace of marrying her! A life spoiled! By what, if not by love of beauty! But who would have ever thought that the intangible could wreck a woman, deprive her of love, marriage, motherhood, of fame, of wealth, of health! ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... perhaps, if they promenaded the street, to have the joy of seeing a light in the radiant being's window. The pretty girls of the household vanished with murmured excuses, leaving us at the mercy of the boy, who sighed grievously, dropped a sugar bowl, and spilled coffee within an ace of ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... cards apiece had been dealt, young Vaneski was ahead with a king high. On the fourth round he grinned when he got a second king and Mike dealt himself an ace. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... power they had conferred on Rome by passing the words Legatis proponentibus.[43] The principle involved in this phrase continued to be hotly disputed all through the sessions of the Council. But Pius knew that so long as he stuck fast to it he always held the ace of trumps, and nothing would induce ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... recall what I had heard of cannibals. I was within an ace of calling for help. But the mere fact that he was a man, however wild, had somewhat reassured me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in proportion. I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Fred, carelessly, as he proceeded to deal the cards for Casino. "There, you have an ace and little Casino right before you. Go ahead, ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... with Yancey. We might get separated, and if I draw an ace for myself, I should give Yancey as ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... process of natural transformation, he wrote for "The Westminster Review" another important essay, "A Theory of Population deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility", towards the close of which he came within an ace of recognising that the struggle for existence was a factor in organic evolution. At a time when pressure of population was practically interesting men's minds, Darwin, Wallace, and Spencer were being independently led from a social problem to a biological ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... "Percival, old ace," said Frederick, with admiration, "you'll rank among the world's great thinkers yet. Turn on the current again and tell me what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... 97, give or take a few out on other jobs. It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make. It gave us a day and a half. We would ...
— Dead World • Jack Douglas
... I've just been watching, that you're in the habit of seeing farther than to the end of your own nose. However, I may as well point out to you that if you had killed yourself, as you richly deserved, and as you came within an ace of doing, the run would have been stopped for the season. We should all have been deprived of the Grand National, and I, who come up here solely to ride the Cresta, which I have done regularly every winter for twenty years, would have had my favorite occupation snatched from me at an age ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... lordship," he went on, scanning the judge still harder. "I do mind his vurry voice. It was 'im, no doubt about it. I've zeed a zight o' people, since I zeed 'im that day, but I do mind his voice, and I do mind his 'ands, and I do mind his ve-ace the zame as if it wur yesterday. Now I come to look, blessed if it wasn't ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... liquor and addle their silly pates to fill my purse. And I have something, boy, put snug away in Dorchester town that will give us bread to eat and beer to drink, even if the throws run still deuce-ace. But we must seek a roof to shelter us when the Why Not? is shut, and 'tis best we leave this Moonfleet of ours for a season, till Maskew finds a rope's end long enough to hang himself withal. So, when our work is done tomorrow night, we will walk out along the cliff to Worth, and take a ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... or Gloomy Mountain Gorge, particularly nasty during mid-river season. Just about here, in 1906, the French gunboat Olry came within an ace of destruction by losing her rudder. Immediately, like a riderless horse, she dashed off headlong for the rocky shore; but at the same instant her engines were working astern for all they were worth, and fortunately succeeded in taking the way off her ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... years, you'll learn that the value of it lies chiefly in losing. You'll try like the devil to win, of course, but you'll learn not to wish for it. To win is nothing but an endless piling up of the right cards, beginning with the ace and ending with the king, and it only means more shuffling for next time. But every time you lose you will ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... supposed successor to the house and lands of Herst, receives even more attention; while Molly, except for her beauty, which outshines all that the room contains, is in no way noticeable. Though, when one holds the ace of trumps, one feels almost ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... in this lonely, silent gorge. There were some flat stones made into a rude seat under the balsam-tree, and a swift, yard-wide stream of clear water ran by. Observing something white against the tree, Joan went closer. A card, the ace of hearts, had been pinned to the bark by a small cluster of bullet-holes, every one of which touched the red heart, and one of them had obliterated it. Below the circle of bulletholes, scrawled in rude letters with a lead-pencil, was the name "Gulden." ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... picture brings a high price. Every great book has a large sale. That is what greatness in art means." Her own brand of talk was not in conflict with what she would have called her then creed. She never said a thing was very black. She never said it was as black as the ace of spades. She always said it was as black as the proverbial ace of spades. Once I ventured to insinuate that perhaps it would be more nobly new to say "as black as the proverbial ace of proverbial spades," but the suggestion ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... married early—for love, and the issue was disastrous. Above her right temple, just at the roots of the hair, a scar was discoverable; it was the memento of an occasion on which her husband aimed a blow at her with a mantelpiece ornament, and came within an ace of murder. Intimates of the household said that the provocation was great—that Mrs. Lessingham's gift of sarcasm had that morning displayed itself much too brilliantly. Still, the missile was an extreme ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... on board the Liffy frigate, which, by a combination of circumstances, is now lying in Cork Harbour,—fortunate for us, but which might have proved disastrous to her gallant officers and crew, for she was dismasted in a gale, and was within an ace of being driven on shore. But a miss is as good as a mile; and when under jury-masts she scraped clear of the rocks, and got into port in safety. Here my letter, after wandering about for many a day, found ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... something droll." Morcerf entered, and in place of the usual target, he saw some playing-cards fixed against the wall. At a distance Albert thought it was a complete suit, for he counted from the ace to the ten. "Ah, ha," said Albert, "I see you were preparing for ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to much, For old Oom Paul was quick on the ball, and headed it back to touch; And the whole first flight led off with the right as The Saint took up the pace, And drove it clean to the putting green and trumped it there with an ace. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... my excellent model husband, if no one got drunk, or gambled, or smoked, or hunted, in a word if we had neither vices, passions, nor maladies in France, the State would be within an ace of bankruptcy; for it seems that the capital of our national income consists of popular corruptions, as our commerce is kept alive by national luxury. If you cared to look a little closer into the matter you would ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... France and Switzerland, during his last Cambridge vacation; then, in November of 1791, he crossed to France, ostensibly to learn the language, made the acquaintance of revolutionaries, sympathized with them vehemently, and was within an ace of throwing in his lot with the Brissotins, to give them the steady direction that they needed. When it came to this his relatives cut off his supplies, and he was obliged to return to London toward the close of 1792. But still ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... sighs, as with thumbs in his waistcoat pocket he seems to signify that the end of such torment is not yet even nigh at hand! Vain is the hope, if hope there be, to disturb that meagre doctor. With care precise he places every card, weighs well the value of each mighty ace, each guarded king, and comfort-giving queen; speculates on knave and ten, counts all his suits, and sets his price upon the whole. At length a card is led, and quick three others fall upon the board. The little ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... not ignorant of the fact that for some time past, Lucien Granet had been manoeuvring for his appointment to any office whatever, the most important obtainable. He was within an ace of becoming a member of the last Ministerial Coalition. He might have been Vaudrey's colleague instead of his rival. Sulpice was as glad to have him as an opponent in the Chamber as a colleague in the ministerial council. He was, however, not an adversary to be trifled with. Granet ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... they rushed on, the bows were within an ace of diving into some wave, and the keel must often have shown, but by a dexterous turn of the tiller Kenneth avoided the danger just at the nick of time, and nothing worse happened than the leaping ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... who does not personally know what a run of bad luck is judge another. What color is a lemon? Why, it is lemon-colored, to be sure. And behold, fortune produces you a lemon black as the ace of spades. When fortune goes against you, you cannot be right. The favorite falls down; the great jockey uses bad judgment for the first time in his life; the foot-ball team that ought to win is overtrained; the yacht carries away her bowsprit; your four kings are brought face to face, after ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... noticed there before. It was about the size of a wafer when she first observed it, but it speedily grew as large as the palm of her hand, and then she could perceive that it was red. The oblong white ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the appearance of a gigantic ace of hearts. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... deliberately forced on the war. They knew perfectly well that when they put up a German Prince as candidate for the throne of Spain it would bring on a war with France. Why, we ourselves were within an ace of going to war with France when Guizot brought about the Spanish marriage, although it was comparatively of slight importance to us that Spain and France should be united. But to the French this thing was an absolutely vital question, for with Germany and Spain ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... captain was still playing cards, and whether he was winning or losing, the old historians do not tell us, but very suddenly a newcomer took a hand in the game. This was Peter the Great, and he played the ace of trumps. With a great pistol in his hand, he called upon the Spanish captain to surrender. That noble commander glanced around. There was a savage pirate holding a pistol at the head of each of the officers at the table. He threw up his cards. The ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... did not wait for a second hint, but shoved the lever over so hard that the wheels spun and the whole train came within an ace of bucking off the track. And before the caboose had passed us Ayisha was alongside Grim abusing him for not having broken the locks ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... far. This transgression of a lower law, which was no longer of the stature of mankind, had been preparing for a very long time; but it was within an ace of being hideously punished. It succeeded only by the aid of a part of those who formerly swelled the great wave which they are to-day resisting by our side, as though something in the history of the world or the plans of destiny had altered, or rather as though we ourselves had at last succeeded ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... an ace of shooting," said Joe, "before I thought of what you had said. I pulled the trigger with all my might before I remembered that you said I musn't shoot till you told me, but as good luck would have it, my musket wasn't cocked." Boone went to each of the other loopholes, and after ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... arranged that they should meet Spennie at Paddington station. Accompanied by Spike, who came within an ace of looking almost respectable in new blue serge, Jimmy arrived at Paddington with a quarter of an hour to spare. Nearly all London seemed to be at the station, with the exception of Spennie. Of that light-haired and hearted youth there were no ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... opposite direction. Lord De Roos, long suspected of cheating at cards, would never have been convicted but for the resolution of an adversary, who, pinning his hand to the table with a fork, said to him blandly, "My Lord, if the ace of spades is not under your Lordship's hand, why, then, I beg your pardon!" It seems to us that a timely treatment of Governor Letcher in the same energetic way would have saved the disasters of Harper's Ferry and Norfolk,—for disasters they were, though six months of temporizing had so ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... exercised upon them. Among the most beautiful of such cards we take the set designed and engraved by Virgil Solis, the celebrated Nuremberg artist and engraver, in which the suit signs are Lions, Peacocks, Monkeys, and Parroquets. In Fig. 7 we have the Ace of Peacocks. The aces are lettered with the distinctive suit-titles of the German cards, viz., "Grun," "Eicheln," "Schellen," and "Herzen." The pack consists of fifty-two, divided into four suits of thirteen cards each; the date of these cards is between ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... together. In playing at cross and pile, the description of cases concerned are throws, and the probability of cross is one-half, because if we throw often enough cross is thrown about once in every two throws. In the cast of a die, the probability of ace is one-sixth; not simply because there are six possible throws, of which ace is one, and because we do not know any reason why one should turn up rather than another—though I have admitted the validity of this ground in default of a better—but because we do actually know, either ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... seconds; in truth, he had been wholly unprepared for the event; for it is a singular fact, that before the public, or rather the booksellers, had given their decision, he no more knew whether he had written well or ill, than whether a die thrown out of a box was to turn up a size or an ace. However, he instantly resumed his spirits, and expressed his wonder rather that his poetical popularity should have lasted so long, than that it should have now at last given way. At length he said, with ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the General, his face as black as the ace of spades, (which, by the way, is blue.) "I might go to Nova Zembla for a quiet smoke, and some sneaking politician would crawl out from the ice with a petition. I went fishing in Pennsylvania, and I found twenty of those fellows ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... thinking of Maria Dolores? revolving still her cryptic valediction?), all at once, as his eye rested on the shimmer at the valley's end which he knew to be the lake, lifted up his hand and clapped his brow. "By Jove," he muttered, "if I wasn't within an ace of clean forgetting!" The sight of the lake had fortunately put him in mind that he was engaged to-day to lunch with Lady Blanchemain ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... Donnegan was jarred, and he came within an ace of opening his mind to her, of pouring out the truth about Lou Macon. Love is a talking madness in all men and he came within an ace ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... beyond seeing fair play. Madam Esmond has helped me many a time, tended my poor wife in her lying-in, and doctored our Betty in the fever. You ain't a-going to be very hard with them poor boys? Though I seen 'em both shoot: the fair one hunts well, as you know, but the old one's a wonder at an ace of spades." ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'what's this?' and they looked at it, and it was a book of Hoyle's games instead of a hymn book. Gosh, wasn't the minister mad! He had started to read a hymn and he quit after he read two lines where it said, 'In a game of four-handed euchre, never trump your partner's ace, but rely on the ace to take the trick on suit.' Pa was trying to explain how the book came to be there, when the minister and the deacons started out, and then I poured the two quart tin pail full of soft soap on the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... to marry is a Custom I' the world; for look you Brother, Wou'd any man stand plucking for the Ace of Harts, With one pack of Cards all dayes ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... ace of diamonds, and on its face let him the house and premises on a repairing lease for three years, rent L5 a year: which was a good bargain for both parties, since Percy was sure to lay out a thousand pounds or two on the property, and to bind Julia more closely to him, who was ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... entrusted with a number of especially dangerous missions, and had met with considerable success in putting these through. Like most other ambitious young fliers, they hoped soon to merit the title of "ace," when they could point to at least six proven victories over rival pilots, with that number of planes sent ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... strategy. She flew up and a yard away, then returned to the attack. She flew about in swift circles over his head, preparatory to darting in again. But Eurypelma was ready. As she swooped viciously down, he lunged up and forward with a half-leap, half-forward fall, and came within an ace of striking the trailing blue-black abdomen with his reaching fangs. Indeed it seemed to Mary and me as if they really grazed the metallic body. But evidently they had not pierced the smooth armor. Nor had Pepsis in that breathless moment of close quarters ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... appearance presented by a central plate in the cuirass of the Pterichthys. It is of a lozenge form, and, occupying exactly such a place in the nether armature of the creature as that occupied by the lozenge shaped spot on the ace of diamonds, it comes in contact with four other plates that lie around it, and represent, so to speak, the white portions of the card. And Sir Philip now found, that instead of lying over, it lay under, the four contiguous plates: they overlapped it, instead ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... along the curve, then ahead down the steep mountainside. "We never could turn in this pla—ace, but it isn't possible to drive through. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... got us a big ace in th' hole—th' Range boys don't know as how I'm with Kitchell, not yet. That's how we took you so easy back to th' water hole. I jus' rode up to Jose—got that there Pima listenin' to me till Lutterfield sneaked up an' put him outta business. Lutterfield, he don't ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... shillings, which sure very large is; Yet that would not serve, but I must bear his charges; And yet for all that, rode astride on a beast, The worst that e'er went on three legs, I protest: It certainly was the most ugly of jades, His hips and his rump made a right ace of spades; His sides were two ladders, well spur-galled withal; His neck was a helve, and his head was a mall; For his colour, my pains and your trouble I'll spare, For the creature was wholly denuded of hair; And, except ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... speech. This latter is a real soldier whose life is conducted in every particular on the lines laid down in military text-books. He asks himself always, "Is it soldierly?" and never "Is it common-sense?" He is at present in trouble with his superior officer for having frozen on to his ace of trumps long after he should have parted with it. But those text-books say, "Keep your best forces in reserve," and so the little trumps must needs be put in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... or a Harrison,' he says. 'I may've read it in th' Bible, though I think I saw it in a scand'lous book me frind Rhodes left in his bedroom las' time he called on me, that ye shud niver discard an ace to dhraw to a flush,' he says. 'I deplore th' language but th' sintimint is sound,' he says. 'An' I believe ye'er intintions to presarve peace ar-re honest, but I don't like to see ye pullin' off ye'er coat an' here goes f'r throuble while ye have ye'er arms in ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... an ace farther: the whole world shall not bribe me to it; for my conscience will digest these gross enormities ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... always boasted that honesty was the best policy and that he was invariably willing to put his cards on the table. The Millionaire had once professed himself likely to be satisfied if the Iron King would only remove the fifth ace from his sleeve, and a certain coolness between the two men resulted. In general, however, he had the reputation ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... understood at last what Destiny had always been trying to tell him—that love and happiness were not for him. He was consecrate to great causes: His Will, entangled with that of others, grew feeble, fruitless. Women were truly enfants du diable. He had been within an ace of abandoning his historical mission. Now he would arise, strong, sublime: a mighty weapon forged by the gods, and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... upon it, Phil, if he knows how to watch for it; but there are so many men who get tired and go to sleep before their chances come to them. I've wasted a good deal of time, and a good deal of labour; but the ace of trumps is in the pack, and it must turn up sooner ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... an ace of driving his fist into the face of his boorish visitor, but held himself awkwardly in check. Everybody rose. Lake lost his head and caught himself on the verge of saying, 'Must you go?' Then began the farrago of leave-taking. 'So nice of you—' 'I am awfully sorry' 'By Jove! ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... land short of the service line, it is obviously not possible to overpower your opponent for a service ace—as contrasted to the services in Squash Racquets or ...
— Squash Tennis • Richard C. Squires
... his hostess. His last words were an invitation to me to get into the carriage and start with him. When I suavely declined, he told me that I should regret it. It comforts me to think that his prophecy, though more than once within an ace of the most ample fulfillment, yet in the end was set at naught by ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... the nest that the Reverend Orme built by the sweat of his brow to harbor his little family, which, at the beginning of this history, consisted of himself; Ann Leighton, his wife; and Mammy, black as the ace ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... of movement. pal'ace, a splendid dwelling, as of a king. par take', share; take part in. patch, small piece of any thing, as of ground. paus'es, short stops; rests. pave'ments, coverings for streets, of stone or solid materials. peb'bles, small, roundish ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... announced that this time a Kookwes—a burly, beastly villain, not two points better than his cousin the Chenoo—was coming to play at rough murder with them. And, verily, by this time the Micmac began to believe, without bating an ace on it, that all of these tall people were like the wolves, who, meeting with nobody else, bite one another. So they were bound and bundled up as before, and put to bed like dolls. And again they heard the horrible shout, the moderate shout, and the smaller shout, until ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... him through the thin layer of snow. Under these circumstances he took a good, firm hold of the sledge-lashing, or of a special strap that had been made with a view to these accidents. But familiarity breeds contempt, even with the most cautious, and some of the drivers were often within an ace of going ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... Turkish side have suggested that the naval operations were within an ace of succeeding, and that they only had to be pressed a little further to achieve their object. An examination of the books by Mr. Morgenthau and others does not bear this out. The Turks imagined that our fleet had been beaten off by gun-fire on the 18th, and they appear to have ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... spake an elder mon, That held the Spade its Ace— "God save the lad! Whence comes the licht ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... life. We see that the rule has been that everywhere the lower forms of life precede the higher. In the plant world flowerless plants precede the flowering ones. The coal we burn to-day is mainly the remains of the wonderful growth of the flowerless vegetation of the Paleozoic Ace. When flowering plants appear, it is the lower ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... backed in, and, seizing the right moment, the men jumped on to the rock just as the water was only ankle-deep, had a good search round, and came back, to be picked up again safely, though the boat was within an ace of being capsized. ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... happened to one of the soldiers.... He called ace of diamonds, lost his reckoning and dropped his cards. He started and laughed ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... steed along the coast. She proved a very "wicked" animal, and a few yards prancing and capering made me heartily wish that I was safely on terra firma. Suddenly a volley was fired, and as suddenly the horse gave such a lurch that I was within an ace of being pitched where I wanted to get—though not quite so precipitately. Volley after volley was fired, and I lost all command over the snorting steed, which was flitting along at the rate of so many miles an hour. Had it not been for a heavy guard-cloak which I was wearing, and which by ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... venture had proved successful beyond hope. Artistic and critical London had hailed him as a newcomer of promise, amounting to genius: and Lilamani Sinclair, daughter of Rajputs, had only escaped becoming the craze of the moment by her precipitate withdrawal to Antibes, where she had come within an ace of losing all, largely through the malign influence of Jane—her evil genius during those wonderful, difficult, early ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver |
