"Deviltry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by a group of righteously irate citizens," said Judge Carter. "Which I would very warmly deserve. On the other hand, suppose we 'treated' people to feel anguish at thoughts of murder or killing, theft, treason, and other forms of human deviltry?" ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Any other tribe of Indians this side of the Rocky Mountains would not have left one of you to have told the tale, and it is just such darned fools as that man that stir up the Indians, to do so much deviltry." ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... whimpering fear have stirred him to further elemental cruelties? Would he have ended by killing her? ... Physically weak as he was, he could still feel the thrill of cruelty that had shaken him at the realization of Brauer's dismay. As a child, when a truant gust of deviltry had swept him, he had felt the same satisfaction in pummeling a comrade who backed away from friendly cuffs turned instantly to blows of malice. Even now he had occasionally a desire to seek out Brauer again and worry him further. He was fearing indifference. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... came tumbling down the stairs, ripe for deviltry; but for the moment here was wine to be had for the taking, everything ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... Deveaux is a brute," said John. "His deviltry came near being the end of us. When we get home, we must see to it that he is punished as he deserves. But we must keep it out of the papers now, as it will look, in case we get beat, as if ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... they all; but the white dust assoils 'em! Paradise without a spice of deviltry would cloy. Heavy is my pack till I meet with Jerry Abershaw, The gay Golden Farmer and the ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... distinguish himself will leave the maternal udder any time to chew one leg off a new pair of "boughten" pantaloons or absorb the flowing narrative of a "biled" shirt. The calf learns bad habits as readily as an Indian, and the man who did not have a youthful masculine bovine for partner in his boyish deviltry looks back upon ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Other emotions also may be unwisely stimulated by art. In times of international friction, war-songs, "patriotic" speeches, or martial processions may arouse an unreasoning jingo spirit. The love of deviltry is fostered in boys by many of the penny novels, by sensational "movies" and newspaper "stories"; a famous detective has said that seventy per cent of the crimes committed by boys under twenty are traceable to "suggestions" received from these sources. Should art be censored ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... here to those who know the women. So this bunch of Bols has been laying low the last few days. They've hired a boat and go fishing in the lake. They don't fool me, though—not much they don't. They're up to some deviltry, you can bet your sweet life, and we'll be hearing ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... enough. But the Lost Nation folks use it as an excuse for a debauch. They gather in some sizable shack, set the stove out into the yard, soak themselves in aromatic spirits of deviltry and dance from Saturday night until ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... favor and refuse a service. Doubtless he might refuse, but in that case he must resign. The amusement of making Presidents has keen fascination for idle American hands, but these black arts have the old drawback of all deviltry; one must serve the spirit one evokes, even though the service were perdition to body and soul. For him, no doubt, the service, though hard, might bring some share of profit, but for the friends who gave this unselfish decision, all would prove loss. For one, Adams on that ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... attempts to explain matters, they simply look upon it as the good-natured and well-intentioned efforts of the doctor to deceive them and to cover up the shortcomings of some frail mortal. Many a poor fellow has to leave this world under a cloud of mistrust and a bad odor of past deviltry to which he is not entitled, and suffer all this in addition to all his physical ills, owing to his having been ornamented through life with an annoying prepuce,—the luckless heritage of having been born a Christian. Columbus in chains ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... noiselessly from under the car and sped away. He had heard enough to know that deviltry was afoot. There was no doubt in his mind that the Pet was the late Mr. Winterberry, for if ever a man deserved to be called "Pet," Mr. Winterberry—according to Mrs. Garthwaite's description—was that man. There was no doubt ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... fences broken down, and everything that vile men could imagine or work up by studying deviltry was done to make life a burden to me. I had raised over seven thousand bushels of corn, and everyone had a good crop. I had a large lot filled up in the husk, and I let my cattle run to it so as to keep them fat during the winter, that I might drive them over the plains in the spring. My ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... knocked me cold, and got away with it! Boys, take a long, lastin' look, for the pack o' you're goin' out o' that door inside of ten counts! God bless 'um! Just look at that there Jap get-up! Sure as God made big fish to eat the little fellows, Peter Moore's up to some newfangled deviltry, or I'm a lobster!" ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... return to the cottage, the ghosts commenced their deviltry again with redoubled violence. He had no sooner entered the house than all the chairs in the parlor—and there were seven by actual count—fell over. Concluding not to remain in that room, he went to the dining room, when the chairs in that, his favorite ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... see that central, roped-off space given over to reckless deviltry, sheer impudent, brazen-faced, bold, discipline-defying er—er—wickedness. I had heard that people did things like that, but this was the first time I had ever caught a glimpse of such carryings-on in the broad open daylight, right before everybody. I stood there ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... can generate much deviltry to a square mile. The calm of death and the burn of perdition are in its bosom. Cholera, glutted with victims, steals to his couch in the China Sea; and since it is the pool of a thousand unclean rivers, the sins of Asia find a hiding-place there. It has ended for ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... "how can you be such a combination of bigness and petty deviltry? You are a monster of self-indulgence. It's a God's mercy there aren't more men with your selfishness ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... some deviltry among cherry trees and apple orchards—some lawlessness born of sheer exuberance and superb health—some malicious trespassing, some harrying of unpopular neighbours. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... thieves. We bound eight of them, thrusting a stretcher across their backs, under their arms, and lashing the fins to the same by good stout lanyards, we were proceeding to stump our prisoners off to the boat, when, with the innate deviltry that I have inherited, I know not how, but the original sin of which has more than once nearly cost me my life, I said, without addressing my superior officer, or any one else directly, "I should like now to scale my pistol through that coffin. If I miss, I can't hurt the old woman; and ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... restless, roving disposition, that unfits them for the laborious and uneventful life of a husbandman, many of them remain even to the present day loafers about the villages, maintaining themselves nobody seems to know how. The belief appears to be unanimous, however, that they are capable of any deviltry under the sun, and that, while their great specialty and favorite occupation is stealing horses, if this becomes slack or unprofitable, or even for the sake of a little pleasant variety, these freebooters from the Caucasus have no hesitation about turning highwaymen ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... all out of him before he'd finished with the Black. Ha, ha, ha, ha! I can hear him still, with the sweat running off his face like oats spilling from a feed bag. I says to Paddy, 'Rub his nose a bit,' for I could see it was more nervousness with the horse than sheer deviltry. 'With what?' says Paddy, 'the hammer? Be gor! You're right, though,' says he, and with that he tries to put a twister on Diablo's nose. Holy mother! Diablo reached for him, and lifted the shirt clean off his back. Say, there was a scared Irishman, if you ever saw one in your life. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... they saw the vessel get quickly under way. She steamed from the pest-ridden harbour with scarcely so much as a glance behind. Then they shouted and screamed after her, almost maddened by this final, convincing proof of the consummate deviltry against which ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... out my tongue the moment I had spoken the words, and the dark look she shot at me as she flashed around gave a measure of her latent deviltry. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... chuckle that mingled triumph, deviltry and the sheer joy of living, Mr. McGraw picked up his suit-case, backed to the door, opened it and fled along the corridor. On the driveway in front of the capitol he saw an automobile standing, throbbing. He ran to it and leaped ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... boys! What deviltry are yu up to now?" he asked. Buck leaped from his mount, followed by the others, and shoved his sombrero back on his head as he ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... has hitherto escaped flat violation: we are supporting the war as a war on war, on military coercion, on domineering, on bullying, on brute force, on military law, on caste insolence, on what Mrs. Fawcett called insensable deviltry (only to find the papers explaining apologetically that she, as a lady, had of course been alluding to war made by foreigners, not by England). Some of us, remembering the things we have ourselves said and done, may doubt whether Satan can cast out Satan; but as the job is not exactly one for ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... was more than well named. His black eyes were full of good-humoured deviltry. He was a type, in his picturesque buckskin, familiar enough among the trail men of the Northland. Tough, as his nickname suggested, hard, unscrupulous, ready for anything that the gods of fortune passed down to him, nothing concerned, nothing mattered so that ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... fallen on the floor? As to the Baron pretending that he was drunk and thus excusing himself, I do not believe one word of it; he drank nothing but water. There were times this evening when he appeared very strange indeed! There is some deviltry underneath all this; Monsieur de Carrier, rest assured there is some deviltry underneath ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... deviltry, Cummings did likewise, followed by Cook, and gave chase to the flying horseman. It was nearly dawn. The gray light was brightening the landscape, and, observing his game more closely, Cummings saw something familiar in his form; and when he glanced over his shoulder ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... and could not know that an "outlaw" is a horse so utterly abandoned to ways of broncho crime and equine deviltry that no man is able to break him—that having conquered man after man, perhaps even with fatal results to his riders, he has become absolutely depraved and impossible of submission. She only knew that her heart ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... had sent for me to thrash a fellow named Smith, who lived over at Sutton Junction. He said that he was a mean cuss who drank all his life, would drink whenever he got the chance, was all the time running after the women and, to cover up his deviltry, he goes round preaching temperance, and raising the devil with the hotel keepers. They wanted to chase him away and get him out of the business. Howarth went on to say that Smith, who is station master at Sutton Junction, was so mean ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... your troubles.... Dorn looks like a human bein' this mornin'. The kids have won him. I reckon he needs that sort of cheer. Let them have him. Then after a while you fetch him out to the wheat-field. Lenore, our harvestin' is half done. Every day I've expected some trick or deviltry. But it hasn't ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... and then, and what he heard tore him up worse than the other had, for the girl's husband couldn't wear the harness long, and, having taken away what good there was in her, he made up in deviltry for the time he had lost. She stood it pretty well, and never whimpered, even when her eyes were open and she saw what a prize-package she had drawn. The fact that she was game enough to stand for ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... was ready for you," he said with a wink; "see how you like it." With a gesture of impatience he pushed aside the menu, squared his arms on the table, and looked suddenly at his pursuer with the deviltry of a schoolboy glistening in his eyes. "Well, Bub, I went into ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... O'Mally, "is that the prince beat his nag out of pure deviltry, and the brute jumped into the gorge with him. The carabinieri claim that they saw a man in the gorge. They gave chase, but couldn't find hide ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... "Girty has been here several times of late. I saw him conferring with Pipe at Goshhocking. I hope there's no deviltry afoot. Pipe is a relentless enemy of all Christians, and Girty is a fiend, a hyena. I think, perhaps, it will be well for you and the girls to stay indoors while Girty and Silvertip are in ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... do you? Quiet! And you prancing home from every ball game with a black eye or else the clothes half torn off you!" She chuckled mischievously. "But you're not telling me where you've been. Up to some deviltry, I'll be bound, or you wouldn't be so anxious to get it ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... butcher-boy's basket, received a slap, and from that time he always tried to nip his enemy. Fabu threatened to wring his neck, although he was not cruelly inclined, notwithstanding his big whiskers and tattooings. On the contrary, he rather liked the bird and, out of deviltry, tried to teach him oaths. Felicite, whom his manner alarmed, put Loulou in the kitchen, took off his chain and let him ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... the chief spy!" thought Fandor. "Never set eyes on the fellow before, nor heard his voice, either! Now, whom shall I meet to-night at this cursed rendezvous, and what is the business? Some traitorous deviltry, of course!" ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... with shouts of laughter, during the continuance of which Mr. Pat Kegan stood before the inspector, with hat in hand, and a face as demure as though no deviltry was at work ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... said Hardenberg, smiling, and tearing the paper in small pieces; "it is true, she is a diavolezza, but one of the most amiable and charming sort, and perhaps ere long I shall, notwithstanding her deviltry, consider her an angel, and believe her charming comedy to be entirely true and sincere. But this is no time for thinking of such things. The grave affairs of life require our exclusive attention. Kockeritz, then, has been convinced, and even Kalkreuth has been shaken in his stupid belief in the ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... to me. I don't believe Uncle Phil was a saint, either, was he, Granny?" he appealed. "I'll bet the kids get some of their deviltry by direct ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... reached the camp before we returned, and heard from the chattering Professor the story of the finding of the scrap of paper, it would be reasonable to suppose that he would consider the moment had arrived for the perpetration of any deviltry he had planned. ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... clothes in Montreal, presenting myself in good repair. They gave me hearty welcome, those good friends of my mother, and I spent a full year in the college, although, to be frank, I was near being sent home more than once for fighting and other deviltry. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... Mr. Brown, let her up!" Mr. Brown did let her up, and the way the Triton took head down and heels up and a roll to windward, did not speak so well for the nautical menage of the officers as it did for the quiet deviltry of the salt-water Joe Millers. The avalanche of brine inundated the decks, making the sailors look quite asquirt, and driving Mr. Lollypops, an ancient voyager or two, and sundry other travelling gentry—very suddenly into the cabin. The next day the same performance followed; the appearance ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... mentioned that makes me suspect YOUR hand in the matter. Patty refused to discuss it with me, but the look of blank astonishment in her face, when I referred to that note, convinced me there's a bit of deviltry SOMEWHERE. And I ascribe it ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... sad, and then smiled a sickly sort of a smile, at the failure of his plan to puncture the boy, and then he said, "Well, how was it? The policeman didn't seem to know much about the particulars. He said there was so much deviltry going on at your house that nobody could tell when anything was serious, and he was inclined to think it was a put ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... by a davit, so that two men who approached along the deck did not see him, and as they passed Tarzan caught enough of their conversation to cause him to fall in behind them, to follow and learn what deviltry they were up to. He had recognized the voice as that of Rokoff, and had seen that his ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... be chimes at St. Victor and guns in Geneva, which is a Church city." The bargain was struck, as a vote in the records of the city council shows to this day. But it was the beginning of a quarrel with the duke of Savoy which was to cost Bonivard more than he had counted on. There was reckless deviltry enough among all these young liberals, but some of them—not Bonivard—were capable of seriously counting the cost of their game. On one occasion—it was at the christening of Berthelier's child, and Bonivard was godfather—Berthelier took his friend aside from the guests and said, "It is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... eyes and as though telling him to squeeze just as hard as it seemed necessary for his convenience, we should not wonder so much at the synod hauling him over the coals for cruelty to himself, but a cold quadrille has no deviltry in it. ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... ain't sure just what it means, but Thirkle ain't the man to leave such work to Buckrow. You can bet Thirkle will know how to find the gold again without asking Buckrow for the bearings. There is some deviltry afoot, and my best guess is that the pirates ain't getting along none too well among themselves ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... thus endeavoring to get the thought firmly lodged in his brain. "He 's ben made a deputy sheriff. He kin turn that crowd o' toughs over thar into a posse, an' come over here with the whole law o' the State backin' them in any deviltry they decide on, even ter killin' off the lot o' us for resistin' officers. Es Sam Hayes said, if we shoot, we 'll be a-shootin' up Gulpin County. An' yet, by thunder, we 've plumb got ter do it, er git off the ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... into her clothes-bag and took out articles which were certainly of no service to them, for mere deviltry. There are so many sufferers in this case that it makes it still worse. The plantation just below was served in the same way; whole families fired into before they knew of the intention of the Yankees; was it not fine sport? I have always been an advocate of peace—if ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... looked curiously at her. "I believe you've got some deviltry in your head, Sissy. Now, you mind me and let your sister alone. There! I'm all right now. I can go all right the rest of the way when I'm once started down your infernal stairs. I ought to charge your father double rates for risking my old bones on them. Yes, it's all right now. It's only the ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... disturbed Smilax, no less myself. There was deviltry afoot, yet hardly a plan for capturing the girl as other punts were available. But the next moment we breathed easier, for the men broke into a boisterous laugh, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... seventh heaven was a duel with an infuriated husband; incorrigibly lazy, but with the Italian laziness, as of the panther who sleeps in the sun, and with such episodes of romance, mischief, love, and deviltry in his twenty-five years of existence as would leave behind them all the invention of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... at last, under a growing deviltry, "you seem to be a favorite. Now I don't think you're worth eight hundred dollars ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... a stuffed soldier!" cried Joyce, rolling the ingeniously contrived bundle over with his foot; "and here, the lad's ball has passed directly through its head! This is Injin deviltry, sir; it has been tried, in order to see whether our sentinels were or ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... you don't. Her mother has reason to believe that there is some deviltry on foot between her and Sibley. I'm to find out and thwart her if I can. I suppose I shall have to say, in substance: 'Since you will throw yourself away on the fellow, go through all the formalities that society demands. In such case your family will ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... Devil came and saw He said: "By Thine eternal law Of growth, maturity, decay, These all must quickly pass away And leave untenanted the earth Unless Thou dost establish birth"— Then tucked his head beneath his wing To laugh—he had no sleeve—the thing With deviltry did so accord, That he'd suggested to the Lord. The Master pondered this advice, Then shook and threw the fateful dice Wherewith all matters here below Are ordered, and observed the throw; Then bent His head in awful state, Confirming ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... hard-boiled kid," said one of the men as Pete unsaddled and led Rowdy to the corral. "Did you catch his eye? Black—and shinin'; plumb full of deviltry—down in deep. That kid's had to hit some hard spots afore he ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... within a dozen leagues. But stop a bit—it is just possible that Aunt Jo can manage the matter. Aunt Jo is the sister of my wife's mother, and one of the cleverest witches in the country. She stands very high in her profession and is thoroughly schooled in every branch of deviltry; and with the exception of my wife's mother, I can think of no person whose society is less desirable. But one day in each year she takes a day off, during which she is as affable and benevolent an old dame as you can possibly imagine; really, you would never know it ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... acquaintance were fair and fragile, and the Africans of St. Croix were particularly hideous, being still of parent stock. But these creatures were tawny and magnificent, with the most superb figures, the most remarkable swing, that ever a man had looked upon; and glorious eyes, sparkling with deviltry. On their heads the white linen was wound to a high point and surmounted by an immense hat, caught up at one side with a flower. They wore for clothing a double skirt of coloured linen, and a white fichu, open in a point to the waist and leaving their gold-coloured arms ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... long as she herself was away. But the moment she appeared, all my weapons became useless. She made me feel like one drunk. I could not withstand the wild-fire of her eye, nor the charm of her merry talk, nor the wonderful attraction of her whole person. At the same time there was not a trace of deviltry about her: it was simply an attraction which I could not resist. And when she laid her soft hand on me, I bent under it, and gave myself up entirely. And she did what she wanted: where buttons were missing, she sewed them on; and where a patch was ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... Saturday in town, Jack concocted a piece of deviltry which was as dangerous as it was foolish. The result was that an explosion took place, and the author of the gun-powder plot had all the skin on both hands blistered. Burnett, in escaping, fell and broke his collarbone ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... was as lively as Bill Greenleef he wood have cougt us. well he went round the house and then old Missis Hobbs she came to the door and said what is it William, and he said it is some more of that Purington boys deviltry, and she said i wood speek to his father and old Hobbs he said he wood and then they went in. jest as we was going to ring the bell agen a man come walking quick down the street and went up to the door and rung ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... that made me gasp with astonishment. But I am inclined to think of this act as only a slip, a slight aberration, on the part of the falcon, so universal is the sense of relationship among the kinds that have the rapacious habit; or, at the worst, it was merely an isolated act of deviltry and daring of the sharp-winged pirate of the sky, a sudden assertion of over-mastering energy and power, and a very slight offence compared with that of the crow when he carries off and devours his callow little cousins of ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... told of late visits; of strolls in the dusk of evenings on unfrequented streets; of little suppers after the opera; of all the small things that deviltry can suggest and malignity distort. Wickersham cared little for having his name associated with that of any one, and he was certainly not going to be more careful for another's name than for his own. He had grown more reckless since ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... before the war, and that's about all you do know yet. One bitter cold night, I was going my rounds for the last time, when, as I turned a corner, I saw there was a trifle of work to be done. It was a bad part of the city, full of dirt and deviltry; one of the streets led to a ferry, and at the corner an old woman had an apple- stall. The poor soul had dropped asleep, worn out with the cold, and there were her goods left, with no one to watch 'em. Somebody was watching ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... requested and then departed. Something else! That was the very feeling which had assailed him vaguely at times, that some deviltry which he couldn't understand was going on beneath the surface. As he made for the corral, a sudden possibility flashed into his mind. With her title so precarious, might not Mary Thorne be at the bottom ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... man ejaculated, holding Jose's arm and starting down the gangplank. "What new deviltry is ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... think you know? I'm afraid you've kinda taken it for granted I'd be mixed up in any deviltry you happened to hear about. I've got in bad with you—I know that—but just the same, I hate to be accused of everything that takes place in the country. All this is sure interesting news to me. Whereabouts was they taken from? And when, and where to? ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... when the royal army arrived the next day we were safe; but ye might as weel ha' let the matter gang on—better, indeed, for then I should be deed instead o' suffering. This wark," and he pointed toward the remains of the house, "is redskin deviltry. A fortnight sin' a band o' Indians fell upon us. I was awa'. They killed my wife and burned my house and ha' carried off ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... I have no doubt," he announced, "I will leave you, then, while I see what deviltry you have ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fire the savages looked like fiends ready for any act of deviltry. Now and then three figures larger than the rest stood together as if in conference, and then the shouts grew louder, and the line about ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... our fellows, Lord, we are but weak and human men. When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed: curse them as we curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have done to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and home. Have mercy ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... sneer on his lips, turned to the Minister: "Play him, Dewani, as you love us. There is some rare deviltry afloat." ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... debate was still on. He soon noted that something was at work in Josh's mind to make him so silent and glum, so different from his usual voluble, flamboyant self. "What's up, Josh? What deviltry are you plotting now to add to poor ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... trusted. What had Nevins been doing? or rather, what that he had been doing was he to be held to account for? Why should the colonel so eagerly ask where they could reach Blake? Time was when Sancho flattered himself that there was no deviltry going on in Arizona, except such as originated with the Indians, in which he had not at least the participation of full knowledge, yet here came two officials, hastening by stage instead of marching with military deliberation and escort, and ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... on him. She was evidently in a prostitute's tantrum of malicious deviltry. Presently she would begin to lash ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... shirked, race enterprises languish, and the best blood, the best talent, the best energy of the Negro people cannot be marshalled to do the bidding of the race. They stand back to make room for every rascal and demagogue who chooses to cloak his selfish deviltry under the veil ...
— The Conservation of Races • W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
... surmised rightly, it required no vivid imagination to picture what might happen to men crossing those wide prairies with a fortune in yellow dust. But my imagination was hardly equal to the task of reconciling the fact that the evil pair had been busy at other deviltry and yet knew I carried a large sum of money and where it was concealed about my person. That brought me back to something else Rutter had told us; something that I knew—or thought I knew—touched MacRae ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... himself into the lower branches of the tree. Little Gazan ceased to insult him; his expression of deviltry changed to one of apprehension, which was quickly followed by fear as Toog commenced to ascend toward him. Teeka screamed to Gazan to climb higher, and the little fellow scampered upward among the tiny branches which would not support the weight of the ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... said Sam mysteriously, "there allers is folks in every town that's jest like the Sadducees in old times: they won't believe in angel nor sperit, no way you can fix it; and ef things is seen and done in a house, why, they say, it's 'cause there's somebody there; there's some sort o' deviltry ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... that's it, is it? I guessed you was up to some deviltry!"—this to Johnnie. "And let me tell you somethin': none of them crazy idears 'round here! D' y' understand?" (This was how much ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... squad." Jack pledged himself that he would hand Dick over to the justice of the peace, to be detained at the house of refuge, if he didn't give up his evil designs. But, when that young aspirant appeared, so soon as his aunts had gone, and reminded Jack of years of intimate companionship in dare-deviltry, the elder saw that his own safety would be in flight, and that night, his company was removed to Warchester. There in the great camp, surrounded by sentinels, his Acredale cronies were shut out, and Jack began in earnest ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the Apaches, or some of them, anyway, have changed their base. I've heard something overhead that makes me sure they're up there, getting up some kind of deviltry." ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... have enlightened old Lizzie, for the girls' talk was mostly reminiscent of the camp experiences or of their recollections of Kent's little boyhood, of Charlie's prowess at school, or of Gustus' "sportiness" and his fascinating deviltry. Lydia was enjoying the inalienable right of every girl of fifteen to giggle, and talk about the boys, the two seemingly having no causative ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Vaughan, that you are on bad terms with Harry. What was the trouble?" She turned her head and smiled at him—but the smile did not bring his lips to answer; it was unpleasantly like the way Harry smiled when he had some deviltry in mind. ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... Calhoun, after whom were sent the daring words about the sessions and the assizes, was a year or two older than his friend, and, as Michael Clones, his servant and friend, said, "the worst and best scamp of them all"—just up to any harmless deviltry. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Mrs. Master's judgment; everything was painted in coal blacks or glittering whites. She saw no mediums in character; he who was not good in every particular was capable of most sorts of deviltry, in her opinion. ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Marvin. But he's so quiet, all day, in the next room, that I can't figure out what he's up to. No one goes near him, so I can't overhear any talk. One time, of course, Mr. Joselyn used to go there, and then they always whispered, as if they were up to some deviltry. But after the quarrel Joselyn ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... hole in the wall is thar, but ef they stay long they're boun' to run acrost it. That's why I've come out lookin' fur you, an' mighty glad I am that I've found you. I'd a notion you'd take this circuit, after doin' all the deviltry you've done." ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Indian hate an' deviltry he braved; 'N' scores an' scores of white men's lives he saved. Just for that, his name should be engraved. But it won't be! U. S. gov'ment dreads Men who're ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... inch of the horses from their hocks to their silk noses, and every stitch of our riding gear, to be sure that no deviltry had been done. But we found nothing. Evidently Marks was merely spying out the land. Then we led the horses out for the journey. El Mahdi had to duck his head to get under the low doorway. It was good to see him sniff the ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... through the shrubbery to the back of the house. That was while Stewart was ridin' out to the mesa. Then this lad seen your servants all runnin' down the hill toward the village. Now, heah's the way Gene figgers. There sure was some deviltry down along the railroad, an' Pat Hawe trailed bandits up to the ranch. He hunts hard an' then all to onct he quits. Stewart says Pat Hawe wasn't scared, but he discovered signs or somethin', or got wind in some strange way that there was in the ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... occasion some of the brightest and best from London. All the way down in the train Hawthorne was rejoicing that this was to be a dinner without speech-making; "for," said he, "nothing would tempt me to go if toasts and such confounded deviltry were to be the order of the day." So we rattled along, without a fear of any impending cloud of oratory. The entertainment was a most exquisite one, about twenty gentlemen sitting down at the beautifully ornamented table. Hawthorne ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... it, Chet would have come to the aid of beauty in distress as quickly as Don Quixote. Any man with a blue shirt as clean, and a shave as smooth, and a haircut as round as Chet Ball's has no meanness in him. A certain dare-deviltry went hand in hand with his work—a calling in which a careless load dispatcher, a cut wire, or a faulty strap may mean instant death. Usually the girls laughed and called back to them or went on more quickly, the colour in their ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... wonderful system and untiring energy with which the riders followed their course. Unfortunately, a majority of the red men were not always content to watch the Express in simple wonder. They were too frequently bent upon committing deviltry to refrain from doing harm whenever ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... the blushing youth. "Bless that floor-walker and all his deviltry! I shall let him off just a ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... goods—although, we invariably paid for all we had from the natives in good, sound dollars, the reverse of the practice of Messieurs Achille and Jules of the Chasseurs a Pied who generally reimbursed "ces pauvres betes des Chinois" for what they unceremoniously appropriated, with true Parisian deviltry, "in kind" of the most ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... as if a certain deviltry were at work against William II. His splendid statecraft now revolves about questions of rye bread, Russian geese, and American pork; he struggles amidst a mass of difficulties more comic than sublime. He has imposed a system of rigid protection in order to entangle his allies ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... praiser of Rabelais, scathingly abused it and the sender. In this episode, as in many others, Mark Twain, the "bad boy" of American literature, revealed his huge delight in blasting the shams of contemporary hypocrisy. Too, there was always the spirit of Tom Sawyer deviltry in Mark's make-up that prompted him, as he himself boasted, to see how much holy indignation he could ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... of accident and watched him handle the machine with the skill of a master. She could understand now the spirit of deviltry in a chauffeur who knows his business. It seemed a wicked, cruel thing from the ground—this swift plunge of a car as if bent on murder. But now that she felt the sure, velvet grip of the brake in a master's hand, she saw that the danger was largely ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... late and talked. She was only a dear little child, now, with a bit of the mother in her. She was really affectionate to me, more so than ever before, and sometimes I turned cold as I thought of how her affection might have been twisted into deviltry had it not been so strangely brought home to me that she was a child, with a good deal of the mother in her. I turned cold as I thought of her playing with her doll while I had been out on the prairie laying poison plots against her innocence, her ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... drinking. It fairly turned me sick. And my own daughter groveling on her knees with the worst! If I didn't know Dylks for the thing he is, without an idea beyond victuals and clothes, I might ha' thought he had thrown a spell on 'em, just for deviltry. But they done it all themselves; he just gave them the chance ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... lookout for pony tracks. The chances are that their crossing would not be discovered for twenty-four hours or so, and as to the news being wired to us here, those reds would never give us a chance. The first news we got of their deviltry would be that they had cut the line ten or twelve miles this side of Laramie as they ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... together his men for a conference. He suspected some cunning deviltry on part of ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... the other hand, was not so philosophical. As he strolled down the valley, his mind was deeply agitated. It seemed clear to him that a grave question had been propounded at the council, and it could only have originated through some deviltry on the part of the evil spirits of the Turquoise clan, Tyope and the old Naua. This made him very angry, and he vowed within himself that when the time came he would take a very active part ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... say, and that I do all the deviltry and Henri gets sent to depot for it." He had called for something to eat, and looked up from the distant ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... Ruskin, railways have appeared 'the loathesomest form of deviltry now extant, animated and deliberate earthquakes, destructive of all nice social habits or possible natural beauty.' Animated and deliberate earthquakes they were indeed to prove, transforming social ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... not a coward as men go; but he was feeling horribly afraid just then. The deviltry of the scene he had just witnessed had fairly unmanned him. The red and black setting of the room had a suggestion of Oriental cruelty in its very garishness. Desmond looked from Strangwise, cool and smiling, to Bellward, gross and beastly, and from the two men to Barbara, wan and ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... do you mean by that?" Arthur Cumberland was under his own roof and in presence of one who should have inspired his respect; but he made no effort to hide the fury which these words called up. "I should like to know what deviltry is in your minds now. Am I never to ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... hours enabled me to establish the proportion of fourteen saloons out of a total of twenty frame buildings. I descanted craftily on the character of the woodsman out of the woods and in the right frame of mind for deviltry. I related how Jack Boyd, irritated beyond endurance at the annoyances of a stranger, finally with the flat of his hand boxed the man's head so mightily that he whirled around twice ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... sex has involved. Most all the deviltry of history that was not done for money was done for sex. And even the deviltry that was done and is done for money had, and has sex back of it. Take sex out of man and you have something worth while. God must have been short of expedients ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... This blinding atom of white heat lit up a hand hardly moving, a pen continually poised, over a disc of snowy paper; and on the other side, something that lay handy on the table, reflecting the light in its plated parts. It was Raffles at his latest deviltry. He had not heard me, and he could not see; but for that matter he never looked up from his task. Sometimes his face bent over it, and I could watch its absolute concentration. The brow was furrowed, and the mouth pursed, yet there was a hint of the same quiet and wary smile with ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... long-sword. The girl stole a quick glance at his face. She saw the smile upon his lips, and it was as wine to sick nerves; for even upon warlike Barsoom where all men are brave, woman reacts quickly to quiet indifference to danger—to dare-deviltry that is ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "When it comes to deviltry, Don Felipe has yet to meet his match. But as I was about to say: Six months after the marriage, Don Felipe deserted Pepita, then the child was born, and knowing that he would unhesitatingly make way with ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... the vivid colouring of her rouged lips and cheeks. Her body was sleek and sinuous in its silken vesture; arms and shoulders were startlingly white; and when she turned, facing Aldous, her black eyes flashed fires of deviltry and allurement. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... to the next subject under the same heading, which is the night life of Paris, we find here so much night life, of such a delightfully transparent and counterfeit character; so much made-to-measure deviltry; so many members of the Madcaps' Union engaged on piece-work; so much delicious, hoydenish derring-do, all carefully stage-managed and expertly timed for the benefit of North and South American spenders, to the end that the deliriousness ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... joys on the boy's talent—he promised well with his roguery, and, thanks to his custom of playing tricks on every one and then hiding behind his companions, he had acquired a peculiar hump, which grew larger whenever he was laughing over his deviltry. ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... freedom an immoral and grotesque act is related in which the innocent husband is left out and takes no step to have just punishment meted, and the saint with his cloak commits a deviltry only fit for urchins ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... was indeed to have been born to social dignity, fortune, courage, and more than the usual allowance of good looks. And though the fortune was lavishly spent, the courage sometimes betrayed into a rather theatrical dare-deviltry, and the good looks prone to deteriorate in style, there was always the social position left, and this was a matter of the deepest importance in Delisleville. The sentiments of Delisleville were purely ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... jubilant at his own temerity. "What deviltry are you up to now, Peek? Back streets and a closed carriage! ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Window-Hopping for an hour. After making Mind Purchases of about $8000 worth of washable Finery edged with Lace, a spirit of Deviltry seized them. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... seen no other country. I don't know whether all places is like these hyar mountings er not, but I knows thet the Lord didn't 'low fer men ter live blind, not seein' no beauty in nothin'; ner not feelin' nothin' but hate an' meanness—ner studyin' 'bout nothin' but deviltry. There hain't no better folks nowhar then my folks, an' thar hain't no meaner folks nowhar then them damned Hollmans, but thar's times when hit 'pears ter me thet the Lord Almighty hain't plumb tickled ter death with ther way things goes hyar along ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... that those whose deviltry is exposed within its pages may see in a true light the wrongs they have ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... "Parents transmit deviltry to children and then punish them for it." Instance after instance of such cruelty could be cited. Why should parents expect their children ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... Stuart, Hampton, Ashby, Fitz Lee and others, were heroes and household names to the whole army. Their brilliant courage and dare-deviltry, their hairbreadth escapes, and thrilling adventures, their feats of skill, and grace were themes of pride and delight to us all. These cavaliers were the "darlings of the army." Still, the army would guy the cavalry ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame |
