"Joker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her of his departure, and started on his two- hundred-and-fifty mile trip over the mountains to the south. As his car sped through sleeping Sequoia and gained the open country, the Colonel's heart thrilled pleasurably. He held cards and spades, big and little casino, four aces and the joker; therefore he knew he could sweep the board at his pleasure. And during his absence Shirley would have opportunity to cool off, while he would find time to formulate an argument to lull ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... steward in the Navy. In the course of this deversified career his natural wit and waggery had been highly spiced, and every way improved; and he had acquired the last and most difficult art of the joker, the art of lengthening his own face while widening those of his hearers, preserving the utmost solemnity while setting them all in a roar. He was quite a favourite with the sailors, which, in a good ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... water to quench all the domestic furnaces that required lighting or quenching; and never since at Azay has been such vicar seen! A handsome vicar was he, square-shouldered, fresh coloured, always blessing and chuckling, preferred weddings and christenings to funerals, a good joker, pious in Church, and a man in everything. There have been many vicars who have drunk well and eaten well; others who have blessed abundantly and chuckled consumedly; but all of them together would hardly make up the sterling worth of this aforesaid vicar; and he alone has worthily filled his ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... said Camille, "this joker has been employed at the Orleans-Railway-Station for eighteen months, and it was only to-night that we met and recognised one another—the administration is ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... bores you. 'Oh, go away—can't you see I'm busy? I've got a malignant growth here, potted in a glass bottle with a diet of sterilised fat and an occasional whisky and soda, and we're sitting around until the joker develops D.T. He's an empyema, ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "This joker did the same job we just finished," he continued. "He put the new gauge in place while his partner fished the old one out. Then he forgot that he had put the new gauge in place, uncapped mind you, and when they took off he skied ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... Juan, being a joker, once thought to have a little fun at others' expense, so he robed himself in a shroud, placed a bier by the roadside, set candles around it, and lay down so that all who went by should see him and be frightened. A band of robbers went by ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... to Orme was that this could be no hoax. A joker would have made the curious cryptogram more conspicuous. But what did it mean? Was it a secret formula? Did it give the location of a buried treasure? And why in the name of common sense had it been written on a ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... the reading of which will give to the child that familiarity which will breed contempt for the work itself; the atrocious picture book modeled after the comic supplement and telling in hideous daubs of color and caricature of line the tale of the practical joker who torments animals, mocks at physical deformities, plays tricks on parents, teases the newlywed, ridicules good manners, whose whole aim, in short, is to provoke guffaws of laughter at the expense of someone's hurt body or spirit. There will be collections of folk and fairy tales, raked together ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... of his death, this simple Western attorney, who, according to one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the doctrinaires among his own supporters accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had laid on the hearts and understandings of his countrymen. Nor was this all, for it appeared ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... Ibsen, Valdes, Howells, give evidence that they not only keep abreast but ahead of the current thought of the day. Spencer is their philosopher, and Howells is their novelist, but Dickens and Scott have large space on their shelves. All this does not prevent Mr. Herne from being an incorrigible joker, and a wonderfully funny story-teller. All dialects come instantly and surely to his tongue. The sources of his power as a dramatist are evident in his keen observation and retentive memory. Mrs. Herne's poet is Sidney Lanier, and ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... his appearance, shaking his fat sides and roaring out: 'What a capital joke!' It was an eel-skin filled with water, that had caused the panic. The enraged gentleman would have broken the head of the joker, but Ganguernet throwing a pitcher of water over the sans-culotte sufferer, made his escape, yelling out at the top of his voice: 'A capital joke!—a capital joke!' The master of the house and his guests came running in at the outcry, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... wasn't accustomed to taking orders from some joker that barged in and shot an unauthorized landing. He was the one who should be giving the orders. He started to raise the ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... figures can't lie; but look out for the exceptions when you run across the subject of Protection. The very same figures have an ugly way of proving both sides of a question. You run down a fact, and think you've got it, but, before you know it, it has slipped, like the "little joker," over to the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... berth, as first-mate, you are mistaken, my joker," said Jackson to Newton, as he steered the vessel; "you've skulked long enough, and shall now work double tides, or take the consequence. If you don't, I'll ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... much of you, Sir Charles Grandison: but I am quite mistaken in you: I expected to see a grave formal young man, his prim mouth set in plaits: But you are a joker; and a free man; a very free ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... says th' diff'rence between an American joke an' an English joke is th' place to laugh. In an American joke ye laugh just afther th' point if at all, but in an English joke ye laugh ayether befure th' point or afther th' decease iv th' joker. Th' ambassadure hopes to inthrajooce a cross iv th' two that ye don't laugh at at all that will be suited to th' English market. His expeeriments ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... of the rude chairs had soft layers of old blanket tacked on them. Whatever were Frank's internal emotions, he presented a remarkably placid and commonplace exterior; but when Jim began to search for the missing pan of dough, the joker slowly sagged ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... Against The World Put A Penny In The Slot Good Little Girls Life Limited Liability Anglicised Utopia An English Girl A Manager's Perplexities Out Of Sorts How It's Done A Classical Revival The Practical Joker The National Anthem Her Terms The Independent Bee The Disconcerted Tenor The ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... said that, he didn't really mean good use at all. That is, he didn't mean what you or I or any of his neighbors would have called good use. What he did mean was the use that would bring to himself the greatest gain in pleasure, and being a great joker, he began by having a lot of fun with his neighbors. When he saw Mr. Rabbit, your grandfather a thousand times removed, coming along, he would hide, and just as Mr. Rabbit was passing, he would snarl like Mr. Lynx. Of course Mr. Rabbit would be scared almost to death, and away ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... 'im up tight by jest gettin' a nigger nurse-gal to tote a lusty one back to his desk while he was at work. Once one of the gang sent 'im a tin rattler by mail, an' they was all thar to see 'im open it. He took it all in good fun, too; he's one joker that kin stand one on hisself. You may 'a' noticed that Hettie is a sorter odd woman in some ways. Well, she's more peculiar on the husband line than any other. Alf's been off now goin' on ten months, an' she hain't once put pen to paper for him. So ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... is a good, devoted fellow, but naturally an incorrigible joker. It may not hurt him much, because it is his nature; but it will hurt you if you give way to it. It ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... back in his chair. His eyes blinked wearily. He'd spent hours going over the facsimile-transmitted contract with Joint Networks, and had weeded out a total of six joker-stipulations. He was very tired. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... his ears. He told his wife that a practical joker must be larking with him. He declared that he would take no notice of the message, that he was not such an ass to be duped by it. Finally, he proposed to telegraph to Little-Flower-of-the-Wood, ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... corners sharp thou lov'st to dart, (Thou skating imp! Thou rolling joker!) And hit in some projecting part The lawyer staid, or solemn broker. Does pity never mar thy glee, When upright men with torture double? Oh, let our one petition be That thou may'st come ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... I was making one joker very sick of his contract. When we took our arms down at last, they were aching with cold and fatigue, and when we went sneaking off, the dread I was in that the time might not yet be up and that we would feel bullets in a moment, was not sufficient to draw all my attention ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... for the crustacean caught him by the left ankle in a firm grip, and held on, while the would-be joker danced about on one leg, holding the other up in the air with the lobster dangling from, it. The tables were ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... the racer with the trotter for a moment. The racer is incidentally useful, but essentially something to bet upon, as much as the thimble-rigger's "little joker." The trotter is essentially and daily useful, and only incidentally ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... "Don't be naive, Lieutenant. Whoever does it, is going to need little integrity. You don't win in a sharper's card game by playing your cards honestly. The biggest sharper wins. We've just found a joker somebody dropped on the floor; if we don't use it, ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... often. It was a great jest of his, I recollect, to pretend that he couldn't keep his teeth from chattering, whenever mention was made of an Alguazill in connexion with the adventures of Gil Blas; and I remember that when Gil Blas met the captain of the robbers in Madrid, this unlucky joker counterfeited such an ague of terror, that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who was prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly conduct in the bedroom. Whatever I had within me that was romantic and dreamy, was encouraged ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... joke at the expense of the person who discovered it. What was to be the nature of the joke is more than I can say at present, but I should like to have a bet with you that the man who compounded that puzzle was an ingenious practical joker. I may be wrong, Pugh; we shall see. But, until I have proved the contrary, I don't believe that the maddest man that ever lived would throw away a diamond worth, apparently, shall we say ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... takes none of the risk, I should be well enough—as well as I want to be. Here is no lack of my best friend,'—touching his case-bottle;—'but, to tell you a secret, he and I have got so used to each other, I begin to think he is like a professed joker, that makes your sides sore with laughing if you see him but now and then; but if you take up house with him, he can only make your head stupid. But I warrant the old fellow is doing the best he ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... pallidly, "the little joker that James inserted in the contract, about your getting fifty thousand in the event of a favorable report. I told him it didn't look well—but he said it would test you. He would be funny, though, no matter how serious the business. But you ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... day of his death, this simple Western attorney, who according to one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the doctrinaires among his own supporters accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had laid on the hearts and understandings of his countrymen. Nor was this all, ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... reg'lar cyclone up thar by to-morrow!" called a joker after him; "look out fer us! There'll be an unholy mob on hand, and they'll try to ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... were eager to try their arts on big game, and that was what the Governor was. But they were not able to score. They made several efforts, but the Governor defeated these efforts without any trouble and went on smiling his pleasant smile as if nothing had happened. Finally the joker chiefs of Carson City and Virginia City conspired together to see if their combined talent couldn't win a victory, for the jokers were getting into a very uncomfortable place: the people were laughing at them, instead of at their proposed victim. They banded themselves together to the number ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... cow-counties. A worthy matron, who had been absent looking after a vagrom cow, returned home, and pushing against the door found it obstructed by some heavy substance, which, upon examination, proved to be her husband. He had been slaughtered by some roving joker, who had wrought upon him with a pick-handle. To one of his ears was pinned a scrap of greasy paper, upon which were scrambled the following sentiments in ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... to the other end of the corridor, where Fred Farnsworth, Eben Sampson, and Albion Small were standing together. In contrast with the others, these men were laughing. Albion was "consid'able of a joker," ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... Cairo continued offering him the posy, saying, "Thy favour!" and the other continned shouting his loudest, "Am I at skite or at a feast?" Thereupon the Lack-tact of Damascus turned to his rival and cried, "The Fatihah[FN603] is in thy books, O Chief Joker of Cairo. By Allah (and the Almighty grant thee length of life!) thou hast excelled me in everything, and they truly say that none can surpass or overcome the Cairene and men have agreed to declare that the Syrian winneth his wish and gaineth ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... left out. You can remember him by the wart on his left knuckle. Next is Dick Garrett; he's assistant Patrol Leader. This thin, long-drawn-out morsel of sweet temper is Fred Nelson. We tried to nickname him "Angel" but he licked everyone that tried it on him. Now comes our joker, we'd call him Trixie if we dared. His ma calls him Algy Brown. Frank Willis stands first in the behind row. He goes by the name of "Budge," chiefly because he won't unless he wants to. Barney Knowles, the littlest giant in the world—the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... the whole, I am sorry that their first delusion—if, indeed, it was a delusion, of which I am genuinely doubtful—was not maintained. However, the discovery opened the way to fresh developments. They ceased to address me as "Johnny," "Old Joker," or something worse; ceased swearing, for which, lover of originality as I am, I was thankful; and began generally to pay me the respect due to the fact that the soles of my boots were intact. Theirs were in a very ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... round the tables. An audacious challenge which embraced them one and all, without regard to size or age, could hardly be regarded otherwise than as a joke—but it was a joke which might be a dear one for the joker. ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... after day, year after year, Mr. Cuyler stood behind his long map counter, his genial but penetrating eye instantly assessing each man that approached, sifting with quick glance the business offered, and detecting almost automatically any trick or "joker" in that which his visitors presented. Most of the men across the counter naturally were brokers or their placing clerks, armed with binders on risks of all kinds, some good and many more bad, for the good risks are usually snapped up in large amounts ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... the village joker assured him. "But 'twas too much of a chance ter get a rise out er Sophy for me to lose it. Ain't she the hot-tempered thing? Just the same she wuz dead sot on gettin' him, we all know that, an' ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... joker too, it seems," roared the other, but he laughed nevertheless, and the volume of it shook the windows. "There's no offence in me. I ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... enlivened the hours for a time; but the fiddler was soon voted a bore, and silenced by some one pouring a pint of molasses into the f-holes of his instrument. The enraged musician completed the job by breaking it over the head of the joker. After several weeks, they put into Cape Town. Here the practical joker of the crew made himself famous by utterly routing an inquisitive old lady, who asked, "What do you do with your prisoners?" The grizzled old tar dropped his voice to a confidential whisper, and, with a look of the utmost frankness, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... little joker," said Burkett. "About two points deviation by local attraction will ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... go by," said the Major, shaking a discouraging head. "Another joker with another name, who turned up a hundred miles off! Harrisson, I fancy—yes, Harrisson. It was only my idea they were the same. I came away, and don't know how they ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... cried the Chourineur, addressing those prisoners who ranged themselves on his side; "you have hearts; you will not see a man murdered who is half dead; only cowards are capable of such conduct. Skeleton is no bad joker; he is condemned in advance; that is the reason why he urges you on. But if you aid him to kill Germain, you will be roughly treated. Besides, I have a proposition to make. Skeleton wants to finish this young man. Well! let him come and take ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, it is not even a step from the absurd to the ludicrous and amusing. The professional wit or joker is never so richly amusing as the man who is utterly unconscious that he is in the least funny, while heroically in earnest. The professed comedian never furnishes so much amusement as the would-be heroic tragedian, who, like the Count Joannes, furnishes uproarious ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, according to an old legend, in rondeau form"), op. 28.[173] Here his disdain is as yet only expressed by witty bantering, which scoffs at the world's conventions. This figure of Till, this devil of a joker, the legendary hero of Germany and Flanders, is little known with us in France. And so Strauss's music loses much of its point, for it claims to recall a series of adventures which we know nothing about—Till crossing the market place and smacking his ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... nearly to the edge of the plateau. When the path branched off, I called a halt for lunch, as we were not likely to find any water later on. We were now quite near the craters, and while we ate our rice, we heard the roaring, so that the boys grew nervous, till the joker of the company made them laugh, and then the meal absorbed their attention. Still, they occasionally sent furtive glances skyward, to see if any lava was coming down ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... types—the choleric, the sanguine, the phlegmatic, and the hybrid. There are also the types of real life with which we are most familiar—the masterful, the weak, the mischievous, the backward, the shy, the bully, the joker, the "smartie," the echo or shadow, the quiet or reticent, the girl-struck, the self-conscious, the unconscious, and the forgetful. Lastly, we should also consider the different types of the unfortunate boys, including the deficient, the delinquent, the ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... uniforms are dear, aren't they?" "I don't know. I heard my brother Ned say they were quite cheap," went on Jane, who was something of a joker. ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... joker would hardly care to go to the length of cutting open government mail-pouches; for Uncle Sam ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... A joker is near akin to a buffoon Ablest man will sometimes do weak things Above trifles, he is never vehement and eager about them Advise those who do not speak elegantly, not to speak Always does more than he says Always ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... bucket of water," remarked Max; "and I'd advise our practical joker here to jump out of those wet duds and get into some dry ones ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... of an unseen joker announced that he could find his way through the fog all right, but was afraid he had not strength enough to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... "Some joker has been at that game before me," he announced. "A chunk of wire has been forced in there ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... very rich, nominated himself for the peerage, and assumed the title of "Lord." He was considered a half-witted sort of fellow, who inherited a little money and didn't know what business to engage in. "Charter a ship," said a practical joker whom he consulted. "Buy a cargo of warming-pans and send them to Cuba." Timothy Dexter did as he was told; but fortune is always supposed to favour simpletons, you know! It happened in Cuba that there were not nearly enough buckets ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... watched the miserable crowds afoot and reflected upon them, was neither remorseful nor triumphant. He simply noted an interesting fact—a commonplace fact—of the methods of that sardonic practical joker, Life. Because the scheme of things was unjust and stupid, because others, most others, were uncomfortable or worse—why should he make himself uncomfortable? It would be an absurdity to get out of his limousine and trudge along in the wet and the wind. It would ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... thinking over 'The Seven Hunters.' It might be, probably was, a blind, or the kidnappers, having touched there, might have departed in any direction—to Iceland, for what he knew. But the name, 'the Seven Hunters,' was not likely to have been invented by a practical joker in London. If not, the conspirators had really captured and kept to themselves Mr. Macrae's line of wireless communications. How could that have been done? Merton bitterly regretted that his general information ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... reserve party was about to carry off their baggage. They ran to secure it. The reserve party, however, galloped by, whooping and yelling in triumph and derision. The last of them proved to be their commander, the identical giant joker already mentioned. He was not cast in the stern poetical mold of fashionable Indian heroism, but on the contrary, was grievously given to vulgar jocularity. As he passed Mr. Stuart and his companions, he checked his horse, raised himself in his saddle, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... deeply ingrained in the mind of the average person. There does not seem to be any logic or sense in it; but somebody with a huge sense of humour must have once started the craze—much in the way that a practical joker will stare intently at nothing in a London street until he has collected a large and inquisitive crowd, and will then steal quietly away, leaving everybody looking vacuously at the ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... they got to one of these, as the resulting card had too little structural strength to avoid buckling inside the mechanism. Card punches could also jam trying to produce these things owing to power-supply problems. When some practical joker fed a lace card through the reader, you needed to clear the jam with a 'card knife' — which you used on the ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... at the office. Far be it from me to say a word against Sylvester, as a lawyer, but he is subject to impressions. I imagine this Cape Codder made him laugh, and, therefore, in his opinion, is all right. I'm glad I'm not a joker." ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... snakes in the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and a Yankee skipper who lived a year among the natives informs us that he "once saw some arter a boa in Sumatra." The skipper, however, is a small joker, and always ready to Sacrifice Truth on the Alter Ego of a miserable pun. A vile habit this, but one that it is to be feared will never ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... exclaimed Sawbridge, "damme, what next?—well, my joker, all the better for you; I shall put your ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was as good as dead. Finding a good chance for revenge, he pretended to be ill, not seeing that he would gain nothing by it. They sent for the doctor. Unluckily for the mother, the doctor was a practical joker, and to amuse himself with her terrors he did his best to increase them. However, he whispered to me, "Leave it to me, I promise to cure the child of wanting to be ill for some time to come." As a matter of fact he prescribed bed and dieting, and the child was handed ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... you think I will ever stand for it? Why, I should be the laughing stock of the army, a butt for every brainless joker in the camp. I am not such a fool, my girl." He stepped forward, grasping her hands, and holding them in spite of her slight effort to break away. "I am a frank-spoken man, yes, but I have never failed ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... gambling simile, his conclusion was that Luck had dealt him the most remarkable card in the deck, and that for years he had overlooked it. Love was the card, and it beat them all. Love was the king card of trumps, the fifth ace, the joker in a game of tenderfoot poker. It was the card of cards, and play it he would, to the limit, when the opening came. He could not see that opening yet. The present game would have to play to some sort ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... great palace of the Archbishop, and it was guarded by English soldiery; but no matter, there was never a dark night but the walls showed next morning that the rude joker had been there with his paint and brush. Yes, he had been there, and had smeared the sacred walls with pictures of hogs in all attitudes except flattering ones; hogs clothed in a Bishop's vestments and wearing a Bishop's miter irreverently cocked on ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... Why, Morrison, of course! Of course, I know! How are you, Morrison? And, by the way, Where are you? What! You never mean to say You are down there yet? Well, by the Holy Poker! What are you doing there, you ancient joker? ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... not of a character to allow a man to escape him thus who had the insolence to ridicule him. He drew his sword entirely from the scabbard, and followed him, crying, "Turn, turn, Master Joker, lest I strike ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... joker. Wedged in between Mark Twain and Dreiser were eight strange and inappropriate volumes, the works of Richard Caramel—"The Demon Lover," true enough ... but also seven others that were execrably awful, without ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the young practical joker, "I have great objections to having that box opened. Yet it contains, I assure you, nothing contraband, nothing dangerous to the peace of the Grindwell government or people. It is simply a toy I am taking to a friend's house as a Christmas present to his little boy. If ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... joker and saw a tall, well-set-up young fellow with extraordinarily broad shoulders, long brown face, stubby blond mustache, who looked down on him ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... Bellefont, farther down the valley, has cut us out. Then we had the cinnabar mines—you may see them along the slope to northward, right over the west end of the town. They went well for about sixteen months; and then came the stampede. A joker in the Bellefont Sentinel wrote that the miners up in Eucalyptus were complaining of the 'insufficiency of exits'; and he wasn't far out. Last there were the 'Temperate Airs and Reinvigorating Pine-odours of America's Peerless Sanatorium. Come and behold: Come and be healed!' The ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of as dandy an auto as rolls in France. I would have, too, but he simply wouldn't listen to me; told me he'd send it back freight if I did; and I had to believe him, though, it seemed unnatural. But they wouldn't let me go look at their blame trenches. I tried to get this General joker to pass me in, but he wouldn't fall for it. 'No, no,' he gurgles and splutters. 'A Benevolent Neutral in the trenches! Never do, never do. We'll have to put some new initials on the Mechanical Transport,' he says, 'B.N.M.T. Benevolent ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... your eyes every day. But for the Exposition it's just right. And how fitting it is that the splendid dome should be the chief feature of a building that is really an indoor garden and that the most prominent note of the coloring should be green, nature's favorite and most joyous color. Some joker," he went on, "says that this Exposition is domicidal. He expresses a feeling a good many people have here, that there are too many domes. But I don't agree. The domes make a charming pictorial effect, and they harmonize with the general spirit of the architecture. And as for this dome, it is one ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... Angelique, giving him a friendly box on the ear, "you old joker! Off with you, vieux bavasseur—put the cradle ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... at one another in dismay, for it seemed as though some would-be joker had tossed a bucket of ice-cold water over them; this vague threat of Andy Lasher's was not to be lightly dismissed as mere bluff, for whatever his reputation might be, the fellow had a way of keeping his word, especially when it concerned ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... has been augmented on the West India station. The brig 'Firefly,' corvettes 'Croaker' and 'Joker,' touched at Nassau, New Providence, on the 2d instant, bound to leeward. We also learn that the United States have fitted out a squadron of small vessels, called the Musquito Fleet, to search for the noted pirate Brand, who has so long committed ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... for Congress by but seventeen votes. P. S. Nov. 5, great grandmother a Fairfax of which very proud. P. S. Dec. 7, great great grandmother a Lee. P. S. Jan. 15, great aunt a Washington. P. S. Feb. 4, great grandmother danced with Lafayette. Mar. 15, brought ugly old painting of joker in wig and stock at second-hand shop Bowery and expressed to H. J. C., with note that was assured this was portrait of ancestor. Total cost $1.15, charged exs. Mar. 23—Enthusiastic letter thanks from J. H. C. in which says exactly like miniature ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... playing euchre, he popped the "joker" (himself) on the 'Crats' left bower, and voted the Commission had no right to do anything of the sort. In the next game ...
— The Honest American Voter's Little Catechism for 1880 • Blythe Harding
... are not thieves. If a lover, a thief, or you—I make no comparisons—could get the better of this first wicket, well, in the first hall, which is shut by a glazed door, you would run across a butler surrounded by lackeys, an old joker more savage and surly even than the porter. If any one gets past the porter's lodge, my butler comes out, waits for you at the entrance, and puts you through a cross-examination like a criminal. That has happened to me, a mere postman. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... greatest good will in life toward each other, nevertheless we are implacable opponents. Mr. Parker has graciously spread, face up on the table for my inspection, an extremely hard hand to beat; so now it's quite in order for me to spring my little joker and try to take the odd trick. Mr. Conway, I want you to do something for me. Not for my sake or the sake of my dead father, who was a good friend of yours, but for the sake of this state where we were both born and which we love ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... a joke," said Pencroft; "it is a trick some one has played us. Well, I don't like such jokes, and the joker had better look out for himself, if he falls into my hands, I ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... on. "He came from over by Murray's;" and he pointed away in the direction whence Slaughter had come, and which was also the direction of the Murray selection. "Old Cold-blood's a man of eddication, and eddication, you take my tip, is the joker in a hand like this. The old man's right. This ain't our game. We've got our hands full watching how things go. There's a breeze coming up from somewhere, and we're best under shelter. Leave them as wants it to take up the running. Old Cold-blood ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... called a "stickler" for the dignity of a serious demeanor. He liked to laugh at the theatre, but mistrusted a daily point of view which savored of buffoonery. He was fond of saying that more than one public man in the United States had come to grief politically from being a joker, and that the American people could not endure flippancy in their representatives. He liked to tell and listen to humorous stories in the security of a smoking-room, but in his opinion it behooved a citizen to maintain a dignified bearing before the ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... the reins and started off, only to be hustled and ordered back into the line by the nearest marshal. This manoeuvre never failed to produce its effect of hilarity upon those near at hand. Everybody laughed at the blunderer, the joker jeering audibly. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... the hurrying workmen, with a chorus of 'Serve ye right,' and the fallen joker found himself awkwardly confronted by the shop bruiser. But Bob had turned to a corner, and buried his eyes in the bend of his arm, while ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... Undoubtedly a mistake for the Julius Paulinus subsequently mentioned.] was a man of consular rank, who was a great chatterer and joker and would not refrain from aiming his shafts of wit at the very emperors: therefore Severus had him taken into custody, though without constraints. When he still continued, even under guard, to make the sovereigns the objects of his jests, Severus sent for him and swore that he would cut off his ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... air even then of genial humor, but with long hours of silence and repose,—geraniums and the click of knitting-needles in the sitting-room; faint odors of a fragrant pipe from the shed kitchen; no stir of boisterous fun, except when some bronzed, solemn joker, with his wife, came in for a formal call, and solemnity gave way, by a gradual descent, to merriment. Joe had given no new departure, only an impulse. "James used to behave himself quite well," Mrs. Parsons would say, archly raising her eyebrows, "before ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... treatment of the insane had received a full trial, he was finally sent off to the territorial capital. It was merely that all the relations of life in that place and day were so managed as to give ample opportunity for the expression of individuality, whether in sheriff or ranchman. The local practical joker once attempted to have some fun at the expense of the lunatic, and Bill Jones described the result. "You know Bixby, don't you? Well," with deep disapproval, "Bixby thinks he is funny, he does. He'd ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... was a hope that he wasn't dead. And now coming at us with the airy persiflage, the first regular breath he's drawed. Fat! It was me he meant to indicate, wasn't it? He was joshin' me! Say, Steve, ain't he the merry little joker? Me—fat! Now that's real funny—I'll leave it to you ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... time the Joker was old enough to leave Home, he traveled out through the Country selling Bulgarian Oats to the Farmers. When the Contract for the Seed Oats got around to the Bank, it proved to be an iron-clad and double-riveted Promissory Note. The Farmer always tried to get ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... joker on the peculiarities of Oldys, was far from insensible to the extraordinary acquisitions of the man. "His knowledge of English books has hardly been exceeded." Grose, too, was struck by the delicacy of honour, and the unswerving veracity ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... "What a joker you be for a man that's had so much responsibility!" smiled Mrs. Tobin, after they had done laughing. "Ain't you never 'fraid, carryin' mail matter and such valuable stuff, that you'll be set on an' ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... fee in it for him," was the answer. And then the joker had to dodge an olive and a pickle that Dave and Phil hurled at him, ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... talk, but rather the reserve and icy resolve of the far North. Harry at first felt a slight chill, but it soon passed. It was better at such a time to have a leader of restraint and dignity than the homely joker, Lincoln, of whom such strange ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... But, Timothy, hearken to me," said the Grandfer earnestly. "Though known as such a joker, I be an understanding man if you catch me serious, and I am serious now. I can tell 'ee lots about the married couple. Yes, this morning at six o'clock they went up the country to do the job, and neither vell nor mark ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... moderate reflection upon the laws of speech and the method of Genesis would have restrained Huxley from sneering at the 'marvelous flexibility' of the Hebrew tongue in the word 'day,' and a New York audience from laughing at the joke rather than the joker. Some tinge of ethical knowledge should have withheld Max Muller from finding the grand distinctive mark of humanity in the power of speech. The merest theorist needs some range of reality for ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... nations disarm, some statesman will slip in a joker permitting the building of battleships ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... What sort of a joker are you? Are you trying to put me in the wrong, when you have to answer to me for a crime that would make every honest man spit at you as you passed in the street if I were to ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... nothing more or less. The gin and the guns are left clean out of the tale; and will Boston please send out some more subscriptions, one-time? You'll see they'll stick up a stained-glass window to that joker in Boston, and he'll stand up there with a halo round his head as big as a frying-pan. And, oh! won't his friends out here be resigned to his loss when the subscriptions begin to hop in from over ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... rum old joker," observed Duff. "Hillo, here comes old Monsieur Collet with his cargo of ginger-beer. Let's go and get ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... and see how much chance you'll have if I fire at you." The pop of the revolver sounded, and then Hindhaugh went forward, pulling the Scorpion with him. "Do you see that hole, you image? How would you like if that was your gizzard? Now, no games, my joker." ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... course," Julietta answered, and the burst of laughter that followed would have been enough to silence the most ambitious joker, but this girl fun-maker was not in the least ambitious, so she ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... droll, is the dress that they wear, For the Gentlemen's waists are atop of their backs, And their large cassock trowsers they tit just like sacks. Then the Ladies—their dresses are equally queer, They wear such large bonnets, no face can appear: It puts me in mind, now don't think I'm a joker, Of a coal-scuttle stuck on the head of a poker. In their bonnets they wear of green leaves such a power, It puts me in mind of a great cauliflower; And their legs, 1 am sure, must be ready to freeze, For they wear all their petticoats up to their knees. They carry large bags full of trinkets ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... nothing more. I had been aware of the simplicity of the old usher, his innocence and his weakness. I amused myself without asking myself how it would turn out. I was eighteen, and I had been for a long time looked upon at the lycee as a sly practical joker. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... speak to you afore, but I haven't had the chance. You mustn't b'lieve too much of what Mr. Catesby-Stuart says, nor you mustn't always do just what he suggests. You see," he says, "he's a dreadful practical joker." ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... now and began to protest. They said that this farce was the work of some abandoned joker, and was an insult to the whole community. Without a doubt these signatures ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... was Kuranchov. My father Americanized it when he was married." He added, "About once every six months some Department of Justice or C.I.A. joker runs into the fact that my name was originally Russian and I'm investigated all ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... herself. Gradually she was learning that the way to rob Dolly's jokes and teasing tricks of their sting, and the best way, at the same time, to cure Dolly herself of her fondness for them, was never to let the joker know that they had had the effect ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... on his shoulders, and wearing a mixed suit of plain clothes, took the floor. I noticed that pens, newspapers, and all else were laid down, and every eye fixed on the speaker. I supposed he was some quaint old joker from the backwoods, who was going to afford the House a little fun. The first sentences arrested my attention. A beam of light shot through the darkness, and I began to get glimpses of the question at issue. Soon a broad ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... thought you wanted me to be flattered. You're clever, too, so of course you know what I mean as well as I know myself. Perhaps you thought I was being clever on the sly. But I'm above that. Haven't I always showed you my cards, trumps and joker and all?" ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... string, until with pure apprehension of what Fontenette might presently do or say, my blood ran hot and cold. But Monsieur showed neither amusement nor annoyance, only a perfectly gracious endurance. Yet how could I know what instant his forbearance might give way, or what serpent's eggs the joker's inanities might in the next day or hour turn out to be, laid in the hot heart of the Creole gentleman? Then it was that this slender little German seamstress-wife shone forth like the first star of the ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... buffoonery of the reverend joker of the Edinburgh Review; not the convulsed grin of mortification which, sprawling prostrate in the dirt from "the whiff and wind" of the masterly disquisition in the Quarterly Review, the itinerant preacher would pass oft' for the broad grin ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... these I shall be able To show you one preserved in fable. A joker at a banker's table, Most amply spread to satisfy The height of epicurean wishes, Had nothing near but little fishes. So, taking several of the fry, He whisper'd to them very nigh, And seem'd to listen for reply. The guests much wonder'd what it meant, And stared upon him ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... got enny pistols. He's got one, an' shows 'em how straight he shoots, jest in case there should be enny trubble between 'em. Plays both ends to the middle, does Carlsen. Slick! But he ain't won the pot. They's a joker in this game. Mebbe he ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... of Mordecai Lincoln, and there would be less interest in poor Thomas if he had not become the father of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. Mordecai Lincoln was a joker and humorist. One who knew ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well as inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine; but certain it is that a lean joker is ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to distrust most of Burke's statements on sport, for the doctor was an inveterate joker. So he looked to ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... known as the "Greyhound;" while Captain Roby's favourite corporal, an unpleasant-looking fellow, much disliked by Lennox and Dickenson for his smooth, servile ways, had grown so hollow-cheeked that he was always spoken of as the "Lantern," after being so dubbed by the joker of ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... is a slug and a sulker too, Your way with the horse I leave to you; But, sir, you watch for these joker's tricks And watch that devil on number six; There's nothing he likes like playing it low, What a horse mayn't like or a man mayn't know, And what they love when they race a toff Is to flurry his horse at taking off. The ways of the crook are hard ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... omahdawn! Sure, an' it isn't springin'—joompin' I mane," he thundered in a voice that made me spring and jump both. "Where d'ye hail from, me joker? That's what I want to know. An' ye'd betther look sharp an' ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... water. "The sooner, the better," said Pellew, coming behind him and tipping him overboard. No sooner had the lad risen to the surface from his plunge than it was plain that he could not swim; so in after him went the practical joker, with all his toggery. "If ever the captain was frightened," writes the officer just quoted, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... changeable and capricious, not that he was given to a facetious turn of thought or to a "sportive" exercise of the imagination. When he talks in "The Taming of the Shrew" of "her mad and head-strong humor" he doesn't mean to imply that Kate is a practical joker. It is interesting to note in passing that the old meaning of the word still lingers in the verb "to humor." A woman still humors her spoiled child and her cantankerous husband when she yields to their capriciousness. By going hack a step further in history, to the late fourteenth century, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... verse on that extremely stylish person Who insists upon the hat of emerald hue; I have made a lot of fun of things that honestly were none of My blanked business—and I knew that it was true. At the shameless subway smoker I have been a ceaseless joker—— For that nuisance daily gets me in a huff— But the one that makes me maddest is that pestilential faddist Who is carrying his kerchief in ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... whom we shall hear more hereafter, was a prominent figure in the Florentine society of artists, and a celebrated practical joker. Vasari says that a young man of whom he had spoken ill murdered him. Lasca's Novelle, 'Le Cene,' should be studied by those who seek an insight into this curious Bohemia of the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... It was to suppress the inventor and his labor. They bought the sole rights from the inventor, promising him glittering royalties. The joker was that the invention was suppressed. None were ever manufactured. Hence there were no royalties and the corporations went on undisturbed while Brent and Balcom collected huge retainers for the protection they ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... Yan whittled with the knife was called the "Whittler," and sometimes the "Joker." It was a perpetual mystery, they never knew just what it would do next. His particular pet was one with a hollow around the point, which made a whistling sound when it flew, and was sometimes called the "Whistler" and sometimes the "Jabberwock," "which whiffled through the tulgy wood ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... bit like a lady, and nobody but a lunatic would take you for one. Hurry up and get some decent togs on, and come back for me at 7:30. Do you hear, you old joker, it's ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient
... said, in pretended severity. "Tom, you take my hand in the game, and don't let me hear you've been bidding ten on no suit without the joker." She led Mr. Wrenn to the settee hat-rack in the hall. "The third-floor-back will be vacant in two weeks, Mr. Wrenn. We can go up and look at it now if you'd like to. The man who has it now works nights—he's some kind of a head waiter at Rector's, or something ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... for me," said Markham, with the tolerant light of a much-joked joker in his eyes. With Pinney alone he ceased to talk the American which seemed to please his Canadian friend, and was willing soberly to tell all he knew about Oiseau's capitalist, whom he merely conjectured to be a defaulter. He said the man called ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... shibboleths from a theatre pit, guffawing at coarse jests, one of a music-hall crowd? In the community it is the lowest always leads. You spoke just now of all the world inviting Samuel Johnson to its dish of tea. How many read him as compared to the number of subscribers to the Ha'penny Joker? This 'thinking in communities,' as it is termed, to what does it lead? To mafficking and Dreyfus scandals. What crowd ever evolved a noble idea? If Socrates and Galileo, Confucius and Christ had 'thought in communities,' the world would indeed be the ant-hill you appear ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... patereroes continually loaded with shot, under the direction of one Mr. Hatchway, who had one of his legs shot away while he acted as lieutenant on board the commodore's ship; and now, being on half-pay, lives with him as his companion. The lieutenant is a very brave man, a great joker, and, as the saying is, hath got the length of his commander's foot—though he has another favourite in the house called Tom Pipes, that was his boatswain's mate, and now keeps the servants in order. Tom is a man of few words, but an excellent hand ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... now for some dry sort of joker, whose jokes, he being a customer, it might be as well to appreciate, "he, he! You understand well enough, sir. Take this seat, sir," laying his hand on a great stuffed chair, high-backed and high-armed, crimson-covered, and raised on a sort of dais, and which seemed but to lack ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... went,—a welcome hearty, A merry country party, A drive, and then croquet, A quiet, well-cooked dinner, Three times at billiards winner,— The evening sped away; When Brown, the dear old joker, Cried, "Come, my worthy broker, The hour is growing late; Your room is cool and quiet, As for the bed, just try ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... mountain of the same on the fore-lower-deck, and each little stop along the way added to it. I saw the box come aboard at Teelee Portage, and I knew it for what it was, though I little guessed the joker that was in it. And they piled it on top of everything else on the fore-lower-deck, and they didn't pile it any too securely either. The mate expected to come back to it again, and then forgot about it. I thought at the time that there was something familiar ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... the clerks' office and asking himself how he could best incite a clamor against his chief without compromising himself, Bixiou rushed to the Rabourdin office for a word of greeting. Believing that he had lost his bet the incorrigible joker thought it amusing to pretend that he ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... successful character, perhaps the most amusing of all Greene's clowns, is Adam, the blacksmith. His loyal defence of his trade against derogatory aspersions, his rare drunkenness, his detection and beating of the practical joker who comes disguised as a devil to carry him off like a Vice on his back, his tactful replenishings of his cup at the king's table, and his dissemblings to avoid being discovered in possession of food during the fast ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... was said to belong to the period of the Frankish incursions. Some one had once remarked that Count Simon himself was the most perfect relic of the barbaric period to be found in Europe, which, coming round in due time to Count Simon, the joker paid with his life for his poor ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... Ann's name had had. The General's expression from being interested and generous had grown suddenly obstinate and set. Tabs hurried on. "So I can understand Terry's preference. And yet, as you've owned, despite your advantages, I hold the winning card. I can joker all your aces by telling—well, the things to which you have referred." He leant forward across the table. "I don't want to have to tell. To do that I should have to make myself still more inferior to you than you have proved me to be in the hardest of ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... battles. His manners were quiet, and would not have been disagreeable, but for an air of uncomfortably stiff solemnity, which draped him from head to foot like a robe of moral oilcloth, and might almost be said to rustle audibly. Whether he was a practical joker, a swindler, a fanatic, or a madman, my spiritual vision was not keen enough to discover at first sight. Beside him and ourselves the party consisted of a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick-maker, all members of the Doctor's church and indefatigable workers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... this destruction of "thirsty tobacco" took place we are left in doubt. It is doubtless a "good joke" got up by some "ponderous joker" for the amusement ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings |
