"Poking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poking the young man in the ribs with his stick, an implement which he had grasped a moment before as though he meditated putting it to a less pacific use, "you young divils of business-men are too much for poor old Tobias. Ged, sir, to think of being stuck in the mud for the want of a paltry tenner! Tommy ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... walked slowly round the tank instead of standing on one leg when he found it a failure. Perhaps he was thinking the thing over. He did not think to much purpose, for day after day for more than a week back came the adjutant to walk like a soldier on duty up and down, up and down, poking his head through the bars each time. Sometimes he did it a score of times, sometimes only two or three. After ten days he disappeared. Where is he? Has he gone to find a blacksmith among the adjutants? or ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... arm of the two. The real advantage lies in the point and polish of the swordsman's weapon; in the trained eye quick to spy out the weakness of the adversary; in the ready hand prompt to follow it on the instant. But, after all, the sword exercise is only the hewing and poking of ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... Old Brownsmith, poking at a bit of brown crust in his basin of milk. "Ike brought him to me grinning, and he said, 'Here's another ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... right," went on Andy, playfully poking his brother in the ribs, "and it stove in my boat. If I could catch the beggar I'd sell his hide or oil or whatever is valuable about him, ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... been many detectives of late poking their noses about here. What can they want here? It's almost certain they will make a search of Svetilovitch's house to-night—I have ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... gaze had broken. She had laid her head upon the table to weep, and had not raised it all these hours. The night wind soughed into the room through the open window, drifting a piece of paper about the floor, poking into the gloom of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... companion from the ground; and then with much difficulty—their hands, despite all the clothes, being half-frozen—they again put the nartas in condition to proceed. Sakalar had not stopped, but was seen in the distance unharnessing his sledge, and then poking about in a huge heap of snow. He was searching for the hut, which had been completely buried in the drift. In a few minutes the whole six were at work, despite the blast, while the dogs were scratching holes for themselves in the soft snow, within ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... without poking our noses outside the gates!" mourned Bess. "How are we ever going ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... him to mention this at the time. He told it, however, afterwards to his master, a hunting man; and, on a subsequent occasion, when the same incident occurred again, one of the whips dismounted and went into the water, and, poking about the roots of the willows, dislodged Reynard, concealed under the hollow bank, and immersed under water, except his nose and mouth, by which he was hanging suspended from a fang of the tree roots. Surely Reynard’s clever ruse deserved ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... a Frog to jog On with a kind King Log. But in the fulness of the time, there came A would-be monarch—Legion his fit name; A Plebs-appointed Autocrat, Stork-throated, Goggle-eyed, Paul-Pry-coated; A poking, peering, pompous, petty creature, A Bumble-King, with beak for its chief feature. This new King Stork, With a fierce, fussy appetite for work; Not satisfied with fixing like a vice Authority on Town and Country Mice, Tried to extend his sway to pools and bogs, And rule the Frogs! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... finally it was stuck up against the gallery wall, in a very disorderly manner, just before the opening of the other chapel, and the commencement of a new chaunt, announced the approach of his Holiness. At this crisis, the soldiers of the guard, who had been poking the crowd into all sorts of shapes, formed down the gallery: and the procession came up, between the two lines ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... much," he answers, with self-conscious stiffness, looking down and poking about the little dark pebbles with his cane; "nothing that you ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... can't expect a leaf to stay turned over, unless you want to stand and hold it in place. And that would be a great waste of time—especially for one as hungry as I am." And poking his drill-like snout into the earth, he drew forth a huge angleworm, which quickly disappeared down ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... I believe you all saw something all right. But what I think you saw was some kind of gas. All this region is volcanic and islands and things are constantly poking up from the sea. It's probably gas; a volcanic emanation; something new to us and that drives you crazy—lots of kinds of gas do that. It hit the Throckmartin party on that island and they probably were all more or less delirious all ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... not rather risky going down there?" asked Alfred as he noticed the swift current and the numerous boulders poking treacherous heads ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... and distressed, but presently drew nearer, and, with unobtrusive sympathy, licked away the salt tears that rolled down her chubby cheeks. Then he roused himself, as if he comprehended that something must be done, and ran to and fro, barking with all his might, and poking about with his nose to the earth. At length he came upon a nook under a projecting rock, which seemed to promise a slight shelter from the cold night air. Perhaps it was the instinct of self-preservation which led him to attract the attention of his helpless companion ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... his large hunting-whip under his arm, stood poking his great round face over the shoulder of the homme d'affaires, it is unnecessary to say anything. That thin-looking oldish person, in a most correct and gentleman-like suit of mourning, is Mac-Casquil, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... shall we learn that? I don't see what we girls can do, more than we do now. We have n't much money for such things, should n't know how to use it if we had; and it is n't proper for us to go poking into dirty places, to hunt up the needy. 'Going about doing good, in pony phaetons,' as somebody says, may succeed in England, but it won't work here," said Fanny, who had begun, lately, to think a good deal of some one beside herself, and so ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... ear and came out the other," declared the little old gentleman, poking Jane with the ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... was, therefore, not a little curious that, in poking about among the garden plots on the west bank of the stream, fronting (as nearly as I could judge) Anne Tyson's cottage, to seek for remains of the ash tree, in which so often the poet—as he lay awake on summer nights—had watched 'the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... of this time the charcoal and much of the ore are burned away, and there is not much left but glowing embers in the bottom of the furnace. The smelter breaks a hole through the furnace, and, poking with his tongs into the ashes, draws out a little red-hot ball of iron, scarcely as large as a cricket ball, which has been formed from the ore, partly by the heat of the fire, and partly by the help of the red-hot charcoal which has acted chemically ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... hours aint such a bad lot of sleep for a woman of my years. Let's see, I'm sixty-eight. In one sense sixty-eight is old, in another sense it's young. You slack down at sixty-eight; you don't have such a draw on your system, the fire inside you don't seem to require such poking up and feeding. When you get real old, seventy-eight or eighty, then you want a deal of cosseting; but sixty-eight is young in one sense of the word. This is the slack time—this is the time when you live real cheap. What a deal ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... the responsibility of this matter on myself; you must not waken her, absolutely. It would not do at all," said the captain, poking the fire very energetically; "it would not do at all,—I ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... about so, it's perfectly disgusting," thought the girl resentfully. "Now, I wonder what she wants in my room. I don't thank either of them for going poking about my things when I'm not there, so now! Well, I'm glad she's coming ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... will remember that an industry has a vitality the same as a man, that its life can be destroyed by an ignorant investigator with a probe poking into every nerve and muscle, we will make Vermont a more natural place for ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness
... still," warned Mary, "be sure that your lights are out within twenty minutes after retiring bell sounds. Otherwise you will have that cat, Picolet, poking into your room to learn what is ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... I am a poor fisher; but I could guide you to the place where old Gillot is always poking about. He listened to their preachings, and knows more than ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... delicate part of the body. If a man, therefore, pokes his two forefingers into the eyes of another man without hurting them, then human nature will make you scream with mirth; not at the sight of the poking of the fingers into the other man's eyes (as you who have seen us do this trick night in and night out have imagined), but because you get all the sensations of such a dangerous act without there ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... found under a broom-bush. Miss Betty was poking her nose near the bank that bordered the wood, in her hunt for the diamond, when she caught sight of a mass of yellow of a deeper tint than the mass of broom-blossom above it, and this ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... do have all the looks of a serving wench, mistress. She be tramping over the yard with naught but a white handkerchief over the head of she and a poking into most of the styes and a-calling of the ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... how to tell how far it is from his head to his heels, without having to make the trip when he's tired," said Bob Sharp, who was always poking fun at Sid's ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... so now, of course," he answered, with a laugh; "but we shall see, we shall see. Meanwhile, there is my steward poking his ugly visage up through the companion to tell us that breakfast is ready, so come below, my friend, and take the keen edge off ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... service-training had a rooted objection to anything approaching to familiarity from servants and other subordinates, besides which he particularly disliked the waiter's "vulgar curiosity" as he styled it, saying he was always prying and poking his nose into other people's affairs; although, I honestly believe my worthy old cock-eyed friend only took a laudable interest in my welfare, as indeed he did in the business of everybody who patronised the hotel. "You can leave the letter, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Shoji is the name given to those light white-paper screens which in a Japanese house serve both as windows and doors, admitting plenty of light, but concealing, like frosted glass, the interior from outer observation, and excluding the wind. Infants delight to break these by poking their fingers through the soft paper: then the wind blows through the holes. In this case the wind blows very cold indeed,—into the mother's very heart;—for it comes through the little holes that were made by the fingers of her ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... established her weeding apparatus at a bed near the yew-hedge. She heard the voices raised in discussion, and, catching words here and there, felt that if these were the topics that occupied her charges, Isabel need not have inflicted upon her the abominable nuisance of poking in her nose where it was not wanted. Thus did Miss Coppinger summarise the duties of a chaperon; but it must be remembered that she had never been broken to the work, and in any case she had been out ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... long, bare, rather pinkish bone standing erect on the ground. Just because it was strange and queer she ran forward to it. As she came nearer, she perceived that it was a streak of barked trunk; a branch had been torn off a pine tree and the bark stripped down to the root. And then came another, poking its pinkish wounds above the snow. And there were chips! This filled her with wonder. Some one had been cutting wood! There must be Indians or trappers near, she thought, and of a sudden realized that the wood-cutter could be none other ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... now spoke somewhat above a whisper. "I don't want some police launch poking her nose up here. It's light enough for us to see to get out of the way if anything comes along. I'm not going to ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... and distinguished, Mr. O'Riley, still bearing the legislative "Hon." attached to his name (for titles never die in America, although we do take a republican pride in poking fun at such trifles), sailed for Europe with his family. They traveled all about, turning their noses up at every thing, and not finding it a difficult thing to do, either, because nature had originally given those features a ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... mile across the park to the lake in the hollow, and the boy and girl tramped it steadily with scarcely a word. Chops walked sedately by Toby's side, occasionally poking his nose under her hand. Bunny's face was stern. He had the look of a man who moved with a definite goal ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... he had invented a system of leaving his cigar-case and cigarette-box in an unused drawer at the bottom of the correspondence-file, in the outer office. "I'll just naturally be ashamed to go poking in there all day long, making a fool of myself before my own employees!" he reasoned. By the end of three days he was trained to leave his desk, walk to the file, take out and light a cigar, without knowing that ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... poking along in," Sandy commented. "I believe I'll go out in the thicket after I get warm and see if he isn't somewhere in this vicinity. I thought I heard a call over ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... since, and she has in every case stopped to say to me—'Oh, I hear you're a woman-hater!' They all seemed to be mightily pleased. It put me in a stupid position. I managed to say something civil to each; but I have a bone to pick with Mrs Carter! She is always poking her fun at every one, and wants to know if I don't make an exception in favour ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... hear one fellow bawling out, so that he might be sure to be heard, a promise to Saint Christopher of Paris—the monstrous statue in the great church there—that he would give him a wax taper as big as himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, you donkey!' said the fellow,—but softly, so that Saint Christopher should not hear him,—'do you think I'm in earnest? If I once get my foot on dry ground, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... on earth are you poking up here for at this time of day?" was the matter-of-fact greeting. "You are to hurry up and come into our house and stay to dinner. Mother said you are allowed, so you needn't stop to ask permission; and, just ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... what my job is, so don't you come poking your nose in where it isn't wanted. I'm for England, I am. And I'm doing my bit. The Evening Wiper said only the other day that a Britisher's duty was to keep cheerful, and that the man who did ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... serving out beer and cider; while mother helped plum-pudding largely on pewter-plates with the mutton. And all the time, Betty Muxworthy was grunting in and out everywhere, not having space to scold even, but changing the dishes, serving the meat, poking the fire, and cooking more. But John Fry would not stir a peg, except with his knife and fork, having all the airs of a visitor, and his wife to keep him eating, till I thought there would be ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... not take Molly to the opening of the new hotel at Garden City, "the place for woman is in the sacred precincts of home, 'far from the madding crowd's ignoble throng.' The madame and I," with a flourish of his cane, "came to that agreement early, eh, my dear, eh?" he asked, poking her masterfully with his cane. And Molly Brownwell, wistful-eyed and fading, smiled and assented, and the incident passed as dozens of other incidents passed in the Ridge, which made the women wish they had ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... was nicer four years ago. Men get terribly down at heel, mentally, morally, and mannerly, poking off by themselves in these out-of-the-way places. But she has been seeing people and steadily making growth since she gave him her promise at eighteen. The promise itself has helped to develop her. It must have been a knot of perpetual doubt and self-questioning. No one ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... grew quite warm, for as I have said the thorn trunks were not very broad, and three or four of the natives, who had probably been hunters, were by no means bad shots, though the rest of them fired wildly. Anscombe, in poking his head round the tree to shoot, had his hat knocked off by a bullet, while a slug went through the lappet of my coat. Then a worse thing happened. Either by chance or design Anscombe's horse was struck in the neck and fell struggling, whereon my beast, growing frightened, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... makes me ill to sit on this log without taking a stick and poking all around it first. Every minute I think something is going to strike me in the back ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... just poking his rim above the western horizon and the chilly damp of early dawn lay over the island. The sea, as calm almost as a lake, lay sullen and gray, scarcely heaving. Behind the sleeping camp a few shreds of mist—the ghosts ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... the nurse poking about to find her thermometer. Titherington saw her too and knew ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... top-notch reporter out of you.' 'Thanks Boss,' said I, 'you couldn't graft that job on to me, with asphaltum and a buzz saw. I'm going to be on your front page 'fore you know it, but it's going to be a poetry piece that will raise your hair; I ain't going to frost my cake, poking into folks' private business, telling shameful things on them that half kills them. Lots of times I see them getting their dose on the cars, and they just shiver, and go white, and shake. Nix on the printing about shame, and sin, and trouble in the ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... bed-clothes except the clouds, revolution is the normal condition not much civilization there. When in the winter I go by a house where the curtain is a little bit drawn, and I look in there and see children poking the fire and wishing they had as many dollars or knives or something else as there are sparks; when I see the old man smoking and the smoke curling above his head like incense from the altar of domestic ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... careful; but I thought Warren looked at my hands poking too far through the sleeves of that old one, and Warren is a nice fellow; I should not like to hurt his feelings,' ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... inning. He had so much confidence that he put the ball over for Gregg, who hit out of the reach of the infield. Again Vane sent up his straight ball, no doubt expecting Cairns to hit into a double play. But Cairns surprised Vane and everybody else by poking a safety past first base. The fans began to howl and pound ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... Helen in Paradise Park, gave rise to a strange and inexplicable restraint. She had little to say. Bo was in the highest spirits, teasing the pets, joking with her uncle and Roy, and even poking fun at Dale. The hunter seemed somewhat somber. Roy was his usual dry, genial self. And Auchincloss, who sat near by, was an interested spectator. When Tom put in an appearance, lounging with his feline grace into the camp, as if he knew he was a privileged pet, the rancher ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... was an animal of much independence of mind. He utterly refused to company with the sheep of his kind and degree, and would only occasionally condescend to accompany the cows to their hill pasture. Often he could not be induced to quit poking his head into every pot and dish about the farm-yard. On these occasions he would wander uninvited with a little pleading, broken-backed bleat through every room in the house, looking for his mistress to let him suck her thumb or to feed him ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... and paid whatever extravagant price was demanded. The scales were never touched, and any insistence upon the new legal plan and price was laughed at. With these delicacies beyond their means, the natives stormed the two pork butchers, the Tinitos. They grabbed the chops and lumps of pig, poking and kneading them, shouting for their weight, and in some instances making off without paying. There was such a howdy-do that extra policemen were summoned ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... to be done than to sleep in wet clothes; and Charley, on his grass mat, was just beginning to be drowsy and fairly comfortable, and barely heard his father say to Mr. Grigsby: "We ought to pull out at daybreak, but that depends on what we can do for the captain," when the captain himself came poking up through ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... and after a few more paces looked at his watch. 'You've interested me so much,' he said, 'that I had quite forgotten my main business. I mustn't waste my morning. I am going down the road to White Gables at once, and I dare say I shall be poking about there until midday. If you can meet me then, Cupples, I should like to talk over anything I find out with you, ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... the prostrate man, and his boot heel sank into the stomach of the offending Mr. Stevenson with sickening force and laudable precision. He drew it back slowly, as if debating shoving it farther. "Call me a thief, hey! Come poking 'round kicking honest punchers an' calling 'em names! Anybody want the other boot?" he inquired ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... said Cephalus. "But he is splendid for fetes. Shows off beautifully in the dark. I'll prod him again and just you note the prismatic coloring of his flames. Get up there, Fido," he added, poking the dragon with his stick a second time. "Wake up, and give the ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... something at the pub, or maybe in prison, or in the army,—as I did. But a woman? Let alone about God, she doesn't even know rightly what Friday it is! Friday! Friday! But ask her what's Friday? She don't know! They're like blind puppies, creeping about and poking their noses into the dung-heap.... All they know are their silly songs. Ho, ho, ho, ho! But what they mean by ho-ho, they don't ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... Tailor was sitting on his bench by the window in very high spirits, sewing away most diligently, and presently up the street came a country woman, crying, "Good jams for sale! Good jams for sale!" This cry sounded nice in the Tailor's ears, and, poking his diminutive head out of the window, he called, "Here, my good woman, just bring your jams in here!" The woman mounted the three steps up to the Tailor's house with her large basket, and began to open all the pots together before ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... lines that I have written about her myself. However slight their literary merit may be, they express what I feel better than any casual words can. [He produces a packet of hotel bills scrawled with manuscript, and kneels at the fire to decipher them, poking it with a stick ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... our quiet country up here lately? There was the affair over in a neighboring town, when yeggmen broke into the bank, and robbed it; and now here you tell me we've had a little smash-up on our own account, with the burglars leaving cards behind them. But what d'ye think now anybody would want to go poking around ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... three who know who he is—Jenny and me and you; and I'd propose that my niece goes down the coast in the motor boat with Giuseppe. They can cruise away to the west, where there's an easy landing here and there at little coves, and they may sight my brother poking about, or hid in some hole down that way. There are caves with tunnels aft that give on the rough lands and coombs behind. It's a pretty lone region and he couldn't hang on long there or find food for ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... fellow of Corpus College, Oxford, many years ago, on arriving at his rooms late one night, found that a rat was running about among the books and geological specimens, behind the sofa, under the fender, and poking his nose into every hiding-place he could find. Being studiously inclined, and wishing to set to work at his books, he pursued him, armed with the poker in one hand, and a large dictionary, big enough to crush any rat, in the other; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... shall ne'er have by rote, I can scarce tell the difference, at least as to phrase, Between beef a la Psyche and curls a la braise.— But in short, dear, I'm trickt out quite a la Francaise, With my bonnet—so beautiful!—high up and poking, Like things that are put to keep ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Hardy, even the envious Lightfoot regarded Rufus with a new respect, for there is no higher honor in Arizona than to be the son of an Indian fighter. And when the last man had crawled wearily into his blankets the old hermit still sat by the dying fire poking the charred ends into the flames and holding forth to the young superintendent upon ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... which we stood, contained of living creatures only one man, somewhat passed the middle of life, who seemed to be in the act of making his toilette; an old woman busily engaged with her needle, three wenches, who moved hither and thither, now poking about the stove, now arranging dirty linen, apparently for the wash-tub, and one or two children. Tables and benches there were, as usual; also water-buckets, a few chairs, and a tub or two, while a line drawn the whole length of the apartment, about a foot and a half from the roof, ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... another sense, "I think you look a little pulled down," and that made her and her father laugh again. She got to playing with him, and poking him, and kissing him, in the way she had with him when she was a girl; it was not so very ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... Frog, who had slept the long winter away in his own special bed way down in the mud, had waked up with an appetite so great that for a while it seemed as if he could think of nothing but his stomach. Jerry Muskrat had felt the spring fever in his bones and had gone up and down the Laughing Brook, poking into all kinds of places just for the fun of seeing new things. Little Joe Otter had been more full of fun than ever, if that were possible. Mr. and Mrs. Redwing had come back to the bulrushes from their winter ...
— The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat • Thornton W. Burgess
... fire—from Friday evening to Saturday night, the Fire-woman could poke and poke at the logs to her heart's content. She poked her way up from the ground-floor through all the seven stories, and went on higher, a sort of fire-spirit poking her way skywards. She had other strange privileges, this little old woman with the shawl over her head, as the child discovered gradually. For she could eat pig-flesh or shell-fish or fowls or cattle killed anyhow; she ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... which, the baby wailed unceasingly up in the distant nursery, and Harold and Daisy, having nearly finished Charlotte's sweeties, and made themselves very uncomfortable by repeated attacks on the rich plum-cake, were now, with very flushed cheeks, alternately playing with their toys and poking their small fingers into the still unopened brown-paper parcels. They had positively refused to go up to the nursery, and, though the gas was lit and the blinds were pulled down, the spirit of disorder had most manifestly got into the ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... an impatient jerk. They were poking him up on all sides, wanting him to come to a decision, and he could not see his way to it. Of course he was half asleep; he knew it himself. He felt that he wanted rest; his entity was working for him ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... is riddled with Germans. They have been robbing our trade right and left, and even here in Brunford Germans are poking their noses. I am about sick of them. Thirty years ago we hardly ever saw a German, and now they have nobbled our best-paying lines. If I had my way, all Germans should be driven out of the country; they ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... seeing her, instead of as before getting excitedly into a room, where she was likely to be alone for a minute. I did that for three days, then fear of disease vanished, and my hopes of feeling her cunt again, or of poking—I don't ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... to the seraphs, Or chum with the cherubim, But if ever them seraph johnnies Get a-poking ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... here," said Ermengarde, speaking with passion, "don't you interfere! You are always poking your finger into everyone's pie. Leave mine alone. I don't want you to meddle, nor to help me. I understand my own affairs. What is the matter? Are you ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... After poking around in the family cupboard under the window seat, I routed out a bag of popcorn. I lighted the gas stove and popped about three quarts, and then boiled some sugar and water to crystallize it. When you are starving, have you ever eaten popcorn buttered for a first course and crystallized ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... I don't want any doctor. I had as lief die as not, I'm so miserable; beside, if I hadn't, Dr. Coachey would kill me, poking and preaching over me. Oh, if ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... religiously for three days. Then I contracted a slight attack of influenza, and in poking around the kitchen, doing one of the things I oughtn't at the time I shouldn't, a servant-girl tipped a pot of boiling pot-liquor over my right foot, scalding it rather severely. Aunt Helen and grannie put me to bed, where I yelled with pain for hours like a mad Red Indian, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... shoulders. Thus clad, she peered out into the tent, went to the ha-ha, and satisfied herself that at any rate the youngsters were amusing themselves, spoke a word to Mrs. Greenacre over the ditch, and took one look at the quintain. Three or four young farmers were turning the machine round and round and poking at the bag of flour in a manner not at all intended by the inventor of the game; but no mounted sportsmen were there. Miss Thorne looked at her watch. It was only fifteen minutes past twelve, and it ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... gratify you by the adoption of a tone of easy familiarity. Surely, I thought to myself, I cannot be wrong if I address my friend POMPOSITY by his name, and speak to him in a chatty rather than in an inflated style. If I chose the latter, might he not think that I was poking fun at him by cheap parody, and manifest his displeasure by bringing a host of BULMERS about my ears? These considerations prevailed with me, and the result was the letter you received. But, O pectora caeca! I have learnt from an authoritative source that you are displeased. You resent, it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... "Little beasts!" said Eileen, poking viciously at the Poms with her umbrella. "I don't know how you endure them, Cousin Mary; I can hardly tell which is the ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... dancing about Frank, as spry as a schoolboy and poking him playfully in the ribs. Frank had ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... all say," answered Sandford Berry. "But there is a difference. You'll find that those tenants are glad of a chance to tell their troubles to some one. Oh, of course, they'd spot you if you went poking in for no reason but curiosity, but anybody with tact and a desire to get at the real inwardness of things for the purpose of bettering them would find a welcome. Those people know ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... counsellor was in the act of choosing a soft chop from the dish—an act accompanied by a great deal of prying and poking with that gentleman's own fork. My disillusioned compatriot had pushed away his plate; he sat with his elbows on the table, gloomily nursing his head with his hands. His companion watched him and then seemed to wonder—to do Mr. ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... black, and with extreme simplicity; but their easy grace and composure, and the refined sentiment of their gentle faces, told at a glance they belonged to the high nobility. Publicola divined them at once, and involuntarily raised his hat to so much beauty and dignity, instead of poking it with a finger as usual. On this the ladies instantly courtesied to him after the manner of their party, with a sweep and a majesty, and a precision of politeness, that the pup would have laughed at if he ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... a group round the fire when she reached it. An old gypsy woman was seated on the ground nursing her knees, and occasionally poking a skewer into the round kettle that sent forth an odorous steam; two small shock-headed children were lying prone and resting on their elbows something like small sphinxes; and a placid donkey was bending ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... to poking the green contents of the gutter with a stick, and seemed to find the present more fascinating to contemplate than ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... Board and one only failed to enter with his associates—a veteran captain who read much war literature and abhorred Canker. To the surprise of the sentry he walked deliberately over to the fence, climbed it and presently began poking about the wooden curb that ran along the road, making a low revetment or retaining wall for the earth, cinders and gravel that, distributed over the sand, had been hopefully designated a sidewalk by the owners of the tract. Presently he came sauntering back, ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... an interest," she said, in a dissatisfied voice, poking at the snow crystals on the road before her with the thorn-stick she carried, "but one can do so little. And I don't know anything; not even what ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... nice of him," answered the small boy, readily. "But then you see, Frank knows I just can't keep awake to save me. And what good is a sleepy guard, I'd like to know. Hope I've got it fixed now so I won't feel the ribs of this blessed Oldtown canoe poking me in my slats tonight. They kept me uneasy last night to beat the band. Aw! I'm awful sleepy, Larry; and I guess ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... rainy day, it was my fortune to make a discovery of some little interest. Poking and burrowing into the heaped-up rubbish in the corner; unfolding one and another document, and reading the names of vessels that had long ago foundered at sea or rotted at the wharves, and those of merchants, never heard of now on 'Change, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... savings. His elder brothers, to whom he had exhibited with great pride these purchases, expressed none of the admiration which he had expected, but began to tease him by calling the things "trash," as indeed they were, and poking fun at the "wonderful presents" of their small brother; they would have been less cruel, perhaps, had he been one of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... at his ease in a deck-chair on the broad Atlantic, was smoking a most excellent cigar. Mr. Mangles was a tall, thin man, who carried his head in the manner curtly known at a girls' school as "poking." He was a clean-shaven man, with bony forehead, sunken cheeks, and an underhung mouth. His attitude towards the world was one of patient disgust. He had the air of pushing his way, chin first, doggedly through life. The ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... Carse, laughing. "Come, let us go and call to him, and tell him he may leave off poking among the weeds. Come; I will show you ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... Telfer's, that had years before come into his mind. It concerned a picture he and Telfer had made of the ideal scholar. The picture had, as its central figure, a stoop-shouldered, feeble old man stumbling along the street, muttering to himself and poking in a gutter with a stick. The picture was a caricature of puttering old Frank Huntley, superintendent of the ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... medals and crosses, however, appeared to have a greater interest and importance in the Maharajah's eyes than their intrinsic value could have commanded for them, and, during the marching past of "The Army," he kept continually poking his finger at them, and pointing them out to the courtiers who were gathered about his chair. The general, at the same time, was employed in explaining how many thousands the British Army consisted of, and how vastly superior ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... of a groan and moved away. He did not know whether Tom was poking fun at him or not. Yet he did search for a preserver—and in doing that he was wiser than the ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... Affectionately he stooped and kissed her, and she held his hand and stroked it lovingly. The sisters gathered about with teasing affection, Dora poking in his coat-pocket for the stick candy her father always used to bring her, and her brother ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... won't tell you anything. The idea! After she has refused you half a dozen times, I may, out of pity, intercede a little. Go get your horse, smooth your brow, and be sensible, or you'll have Webb and Leonard poking fun at you. Suppose they have seen you galloping over fences and ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... forward and poking the fire in her embarrassment. This was entirely gratuitous frankness on Sylvia's part. "Well, I can assure you he was made for better things," she went on, bridling. "When you visit me I will show you a landscape in my parlor worth a thousand ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham |
