"Trick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in height, very deep-chested, and with long powerful arms and hands. There was no denying, however, that at the first glance he was an ugly man; he was marked with small-pox, had large features, high cheekbones, deeply set eyes, and a very long chin; and had got the trick which many underhung men have of compressing his upper lip. Nevertheless, there was that in his face which hit Tom's fancy, and made him anxious to know his rescuer better. He had an instinct that good was to be gotten out of him. So he was very glad when ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... does not proceed a bit," said Florence; "I cannot master it. I am not a heroine, and how can I write about one? I think it was a very shabby trick on the part of Sir John Wallis to set us such ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... a trick, like riding a horse. And I think that I've learned the trick. I've caught it from you and ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... said the Lieutenant, "to introduce to Your Highness Natalie Ketschko, my affianced wife." Milan's face flushed with surprise and anger at the words. What was this trick that had been played on him? Had Konstantinovitch then brought him here only to humiliate him? But before he could recover from his indignation and astonishment, the Princess said chillingly, "Pardon me, Monsieur Konstantinovitch, you are ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... that hasn't. Myrtle knows. It's no trick to knock over a peaceful pedestrian or so, to say nothing of chickens, cats and dogs mangled by the roadside. I confidently expect he'll make a pancake of dear little Mumbles before he's five miles on ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... poor countryman going to the nest of his Goose found there a golden egg all yellow and glittering. When he took it up it felt as heavy as lead and he was minded to throw it away, because he thought a trick ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... influence he had exercised over her, but now his ideas meant as little as he did himself—it was all far away. Only a little trick of speech and a turn of phrase remained to recall his passage through her life. When they returned home she found a letter from him on the table, and her face clouded as she read his letter, for it announced an intention to call when he came to town, and to avoid his visit she ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... wrong until he finds that his friends are somehow beginning to fight shy of him. No one will tell him what ails him, and I may say that such a course would be quite useless, for the person warned would surely fly into a passion, declare himself insulted, and probably perform some mad trick while his nerves were on edge. Well, there comes a time when the doomed man is disinclined for exertion, and he knows that something is wrong. He has become sly almost without knowing it, and, although he is pining for some ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... better than my mother, for she encouraged me in all my tricks. My mother looked grave, and occasionally scolded me; my grandmother slapped me hard and rated me continually; but reproof or correction from the two latter were of no avail; and the former, when she wished to play any trick which she dared not do herself, employed me as her agent; so that I obtained the whole credit for what were her inventions, and I may safely add, underwent the whole blame and punishment; but that I cared nothing for; her caresses, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... bethought him of the expedient of booking places in the coach for himself and the bear, which bore the name of 'Miss Jenny'; trusting to her wraps and to the darkness to disguise the creature sufficiently. I will not repeat the language of the guard and coachman on discovering the trick played; but after direful threats as to what the showman might 'expect' as the result of his device, matters were amicably arranged. The owner of the bear made most abject apologies all round (I fancy giving more than civil words to the coach ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... discretion, a faint semblance of irony suggestive of craft and insolence. Yet it would have been difficult to refuse forgiveness to those two feminine failings in her; for the lines that came out in her forehead whenever her face was not in repose, like her upward glances (that pathetic trick of manner), told unmistakably of unhappiness, of a passion that had all but cost her her life. A woman, sitting in the great, silent salon, a woman cut off from the rest of the world in this remote little valley, alone, with the ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... wished To buy the fan, and sent a maid to ask Her parents for the gold. The merchant said, "Go see what thing it is, and weigh the gold For her." The mother feared a trap or trick. "Oh, do not buy the fan, my child," she said; "I'll buy a finer one for thee. Send this Away." But when her father saw her tears Of disappointment, "It is thine," he said. "What is the price? I'd buy it though it cost Thy weight in gold, my darling. Tell me now, Dyangs." Tjendra Melinee ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... to go in pursuit of the Indians. I told the General that the Indians were only some Pawnees, who had been out hunting and that they had merely played a joke upon us. I forgot to inform him that I had put up the trick, but as he was always fond of a good joke himself, he did not get very angry. I had picked up McCarthy's hat and gun which I returned to him, and it was some time afterwards before he discovered who was at the bottom ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... believed himself perfectly secure. Oh! His ruses were not of very great finesse and required very little talent; but by dint of considering and reconsidering the case, by dint of waiting patiently for the propitious opportunity to present itself, he finally would play some evil trick upon his comrades. So ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... question to question I got the whole story. I fancy it was the only way I could that night have stood by him. Outwardly at least he was himself again; the first sign of it was the return of that incongruous trick he had of drawing both his hands down his face—and it had its meaning now, with that slight shudder of the frame and the passionate anguish of these hands uncovering a hungry immovable face, the wide pupils of the ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... with all his might for the regents, had obtained from them permission to return. Although Pompeius in this matter only made an incidental concession to the oligarchy, and intended first of all to play a trick on Clodius, and secondly to acquire in the fluent consular a tool rendered pliant by sufficient blows, the opportunity afforded by the return of Cicero was embraced for republican demonstrations, just ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the whole thing on the La Follette group; they served to do the trick which the whole Republican machine wished done. For the Penrose, Lodge people would not let any bills through and were glad to get La Follette's help. The Democrats fought and died—because there was no "previous question" in the ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... feast. Thanks to dear Greenow,"—here the handkerchief was again used—"Thanks to dear Greenow, I shall never want. Of course I shan't let any of the money go into his hands,—the Captain's, I mean. I know a trick worth two of that, my dear. But, lord love you! I've enough for him and me. What's the good of a woman's wanting to ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... effect. How the lieutenant in charge accounted for all this happening without his interference, I do not know. Certainly there was noise enough, but then that half-hour always was noisy. The superintendent of that time had, when walking, a trick of grasping the lapel of his coat with his right hand, and twitching it when preoccupied. The following day, as he surveyed conditions, it seemed as if the lapel might come away; but he made us no speech, nor, as far as I know, was any notice taken of the affair. No real damage had ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... the hamari proceeded next to hurry the exhibition, passing from one trick to another almost without pause until the wrestling match was reached. This has been immemorially the reliable point in performances of the kind he was giving, but he introduced it in a ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... being very near to tears, the light was switched off. She seemed to be drowning in dark. That was a favourite trick of Lancelot's, who had no business, as a matter of fact, in his father's room. It gave her a moment of tender joy, and for another she played with the thought of him, tiptoeing towards her. Suddenly, all in the dark, she felt a man's arms about her, and a ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... there is not a greater mollifier of the temper and nature of man than a constant flowing in of success and prosperity. From the time that I had been dean of guild, I was sensible of a considerable increase of my worldly means and substance; and although Bailie M'Lucre played me a soople trick at the election, by the inordinate sale and roup of his potatoe-rig, the which tried me, as I do confess, and nettled me with disappointment; yet things, in other respects, went so well with me that, about the eighty-eight, I began to put forth my hand again into public affairs, endowed ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... surprise of his onslaught, Lanyard succeeded in disarming the spy, forcing him to drop the pistol at the outset, and through attacking from behind had him at a further disadvantage. For all that he found his hands full till, by a trick of jiu-jitsu, he wrenched one of the fellow's arms behind him so roughly as almost to dislocate it at the shoulder and, forcing the forearm up toward his shoulder blades, held ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... the Ethiopian. 'That's a trick worth learning. Take a lesson by it, Leopard. You show up in this dark place like a bar of ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... settled," said Benjamin. "Moslof can do the trick. It may take an hour or two to fix it, but we'll see that it's ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... up in the wind until the jib was shaking like thunder; then he held her off, and she went off as soon as the head-sails filled, and he couldn't get her back again without the spanker. Then the Helen B. did her favourite trick, and before we had time to say much we had a sea over the quarter and were up to our waists, with the parrels of the trysail only half becketed round the mast, and the deck so full of gear that you couldn't put your foot on a plank, and the spanker beginning to get adrift again, being badly stopped, ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... They had wagered that he could not put it through. How neatly he had turned the trick, filled his pockets, and transformed their doubts into wondering admiration! It had been rare pleasure! Oh, yes, there had been some suffering, he had been told. He had not given ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Many were the unsuccessful attempts; but, at length, one by one, they all succeeded in burning the downy balls from the ends of their wands. As each accomplished this feat it became his next duty to restore the ball of down. The mechanism of this trick has been described (paragraph 120), but the dancer feigned to produce the wonderful result by merely waving his wand up and down as he continued to run around the fire. When he succeeded he held his wand up in triumph, yelped, ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... the chief steward, "if you depend on your strength or dexterity you will never catch a monkey. The only way is to play a trick on one!" ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... thief have been the burglar who broke open the bureau to get at the keys. For long after both of them were out of the house I took a cigarette from the box which stood on the bureau beside the case which held the pendant. And it occurred to me that the young rascal might have played that very trick on me. I opened the case and the ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... ready to go "to hum" and get somethin' to eat. In sullen silence Bancroft remounted, and side by side they rode slowly towards the farm. The schoolmaster's feelings may easily be imagined. He had been disgusted by the cunning and hypocrisy of the trick, and the complacent expression of the Elder's countenance irritated him intensely. As he passed place after place where the cattle had given him most trouble in the morning, anger took possession of him, and at length forced ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... clever as it was infamous. To the world it would have seemed fair enough, and only those familiar with South African politics would have understood what a shameful trick it was. ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 22, 1897, Vol. 1, No. 24 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Edith said. She bent over the table, shaded her eyes with her white, beautifully-kept hands, and peered into the crystalline depths. "There's nothing here," she continued, somewhat fretfully, to Alden, "except you. By some trick of reflection, I could see you as plainly as though it were a ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... be made, the greater the expenditure in these respects. And as this is usually not given for the purpose, very few demonstrations, so-called, in Strategy, effect the object for which they are designed. In fact, it is dangerous to detach large forces for any length of time merely for a trick, because there is always the risk of its being done in vain, and then these forces are wanted ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... Paris in 1814, long before the Breslau text of The Nights was known to exist. It also forms part of one of the Persian Tales (Hazar u Yek Ruz, 1001 Days) translated by Petis de la Croix, where, however, the trick is played on the kazi, not on ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... plaguy mischiefs and mishaps Do dog him still with after-claps! For though dame Fortune seem to smile 5 And leer upon him for a while, She'll after shew him, in the nick Of all his glories, a dog-trick. This any man may sing or say, I' th' ditty call'd, What if a Day? 10 For HUDIBRAS, who thought h' had won The field, as certain as a gun; And having routed the whole troop, With victory was cock a-hoop; Thinking h' had done enough to purchase 15 Thanksgiving-day ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... ever learn that trick, Tony?" asked Phil, as they once more went aboard the motor boat, Larry to change his clothes before thinking of fishing, and Tony to continue the task at which he had been employed, just as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... persuade him that it was his duty, they might put just the right young loveliness in his way.... But meanwhile, now, at once, there were the married women. Ah, they wouldn't wait, they were doubtless laying their traps already! Susy shivered at the thought. She knew too much about the way the trick was done, had followed, too often, all the sinuosities of such approaches. Not that they were very sinuous nowadays: more often there was just a swoop and a pounce when the time came; but she knew all the arts ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... secret enquiries. He is in great pain. He may lose the leg. The doctor who has charge of the case is a Major Templeton, an irritable person and, like most of the English, too big a fool to deceive anybody. No, luckily for Mister Jimgrim it is not a trick. Otherwise he would have shared the fate today of Bedreddin Shah the constable. The trap was all ready for him. With the inquisitive and really clever out of the way there is nothing to be feared. Now—pardon me, Captain Ali Mirza, but that letter you received just now; would ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... Sensanqua. Van made application to the men in office at this place, with the best intention of serving us, but these gentry, either conceiving that their compliance might be treason to the state, or else, in the true spirit of the nation, determined to play a trick upon the strangers, certainly procured the plants and sent them on board in pots, just as we were departing the next morning. In a short time they all began to droop, the leaves withered and, on examination, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... to have acquired a trick recently of looking at all the difficulties of your position at once. Why don't you take them singly? You've just got rid of Mackenzie's opposition: that might have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... performer. So delighted and interested was the audience that they paid little heed to a mounted camel-man who trotted swiftly between the palm trunks. All might have been well had not Fardet, carried away by his own success, tried to repeat his trick once more, with the result that the date fell out of his palm and the deception stood revealed. In vain he tried to pass on at once to another of his little stock. The Moolah said something, and an Arab struck ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... exactly what Frank, in his prosperous days, would have labeled "Bounder." He had a number of meaningless little mannerisms—a way of passing his hand over his mustache, a trick of bringing a look of veiled insolence into his eyes; there were subjects he could not keep away from—among them Harrow School, the Universities (which he called 'Varsity), the regiment he had belonged to, and a certain type of adventure connected with women and champagne. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... the importance which animals of all kinds put on the motions of the upper limbs, and to put one's self quite in their position, one has only to recall to mind the well-known trick of the Australian bushrangers. "Bail up!" is their order when they suddenly produce their revolvers; "Bail up!" they shout to the clerks of the bank they are about to sack, to the inmates of a house, or to the travellers they meet on the road. ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... began to think, that he then step'd aside, only that by the assistance of the Black Man, he might put on his Invisibility, and in that Fascinating Mist, gratifie his own Jealous Humour, to hear what they said of him. Which trick of rendring themselves Invisible, our Witches do in their Confessions pretend, that they sometimes are Masters of; and it is the more credible, because there is Demonstration, that they often render ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... Mekhala, the queen's foster-sister, practises a frolic on Charayana. He is promised a new bride by the queen, and the ceremony is about to take place when the spouse proves to be a "lubberly boy"; he is highly indignant at the trick, and ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... a pleasant family party at the house of the newly married couple. The company play at that singular game of cards so popular on the stage, in which everybody plays out of turn, and nobody ever takes a trick. Finally they all go to bed except ANDRE, who goes to sleep in his chair, as is doubtless the custom with newly-married Frenchmen. Presently CLOTILDE enters through a secret door ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... pomp and grace of the procession, but leaves him bleeding on the altar. It substitutes cold and deliberate preparedness for courage and manly impulse, and arms the one to disarm the other. It makes the mere trick of the weapon superior to the noblest cause and the truest courage. Its pretence of equality is a lie; it is equal in all the form, it is unjust in all the substance. The habitude of arms, the early training, the frontier ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... seen any such place yet, so, if the Indian is trying any such trick, he can't do it here without my seeing him, and if I do—Heaven ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... anguish. "Impossible," said he in a fright, "it cannot be; yet the voice appears the same." Here his tongue faltering, he ceased to speak. When he had somewhat recovered his recollection, he ejaculated, "In the name of God, do tell me who you are? Is it a trick, or do I dream?" "Neither," replied the unknown; and continued, in the same tone of voice, to describe several particulars relative to his family, and in what manner many things were placed in the drawers belonging to his deceased wife, which none but himself ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... some day become a very serious matter, for in these crimes of impulse there is a certain proof of love; and then women who know better than any one else how to say true things laughingly at times suspect their husbands of this feminine trick. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Salem. The business of the office was not on a large scale, for it was carried on in Mr. Lincoln's hat—an integument of which it is recorded, that he refused to give it to a conjurer to play the egg trick in, "not from respect for his own hat, but for the conjurer's eggs." The future President did not fail to signalize his first appearance as an administrator by a sally of the jocularity which was always struggling with melancholy in his ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... Leander, one of whom is too old, the other too cowardly, to be of any service to us in case of need. And we don't want to have their fair charges terrified, and deafening us with their shrieks. Scapin shall accompany us, for he knows a clever trick or two for tripping a man up, that I have seen him perform admirably in several wrestling bouts. He will lay one or two of our assailants flat on their backs for us before they can turn round. In any event here is my good club, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... mean vile faces that leered at him while he thanked them for the occasion which he owed them of overlooking so much fine sport. But they were a scurvy lot, viler than he had supposed, though he had suspected from the first that they were nurturing some trick against him. And he searched himself, for he would willingly give them money to be rid of them. But how much will they accept? he asked himself, as he searched his pockets ... his money was gone! Stolen, no doubt, but by whom? By the cockers standing ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... putting-green. When he does address the ball he shuffles his feet for a moment or two, then pauses, and scans the horizon in a suspicious sort of way, as if he had been expecting it to play some sort of a trick on him when he was not looking. A careful inspection seems to convince him of the horizon's bona fides, and he turns his attention to the ball again. He shuffles his feet once more, then raises his club. He waggles the ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... the money if I took all instead of a quarter, and I won't take a penny more than that. It will only be a loan after all, which, if he were like anyone else, I could openly ask him for. Yes, I'll do it! If he sees through the trick, it will be easy to say it was only a jest done to try him. But I think I can manage it so quietly that he won't wake, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... make spiritual raps upon spiritual wood; and human beings, who are really spirits—and would to heaven they would remember that fact, and what it means—believe that anything has happened beyond a clumsy juggler's trick. ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... away from her, I went on to meet him with my club; and before his first onset was done, his sword flew over his head in two pieces. It was an old trick, and cost nothing to a 'prentice outside Temple Bar. And while he looked round, bewildered, after his weapon, I took him by the nape of his neck and the cloth of his breeches, and walked with him to the pond hard by, where I left him, and so was ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... declare I thought I had laid an egg. I suppose I must be mistaken;" and down she went to fulfil her duties again. Once more she rose to verify her success. No egg was there. "Well, I vow," quoth Mrs. Hen, "they must be playing me some trick: I'll have one more shot, and, if I don't succeed, I shall give it up." Again she returned to her labours, and the two eggs that had passed into the basin below supporting the base of her bed, success crowned her efforts, and she ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... wheat; or the worst of the wheat; making the shekel great, yet hoisting up the price (Amos 8). This was Mr. Badman's way. He would sell goods that cost him not the best price by far, for as much as he sold his best of all for. He had also a trick to mingle his commodity, that that which was bad might go off with the least mistrust. Besides, if his customers at any time paid him money, let them look to themselves, and to their acquaintances, for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the open window, through which I could see all that passed within the dining-room. Here I paced backwards and forwards, reflecting on the events of the past few hours. I could, of course, see that for some reason or other Diane had apparently broken with De Ganache. It was not a trick of heartless coquetry—for that I gave her credit. Yet the change had been so swift and sudden that it was difficult to assign any other reason for it. So far as I was concerned I was sure my affair ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... statements being repeated by persons of rank and station, a strong prejudice existed against the Brazilian diamond, although it is now well known to be equal in every respect to its Indian brother. The Dutch, who then farmed the Brazilian diamond-mines from the crown of Portugal, met this trick of trade by another. They dug their diamonds in Brazil, brought them to Holland, and cut them, then sent them to India, from whence they returned to Europe as true Oriental jewels. We may add, that the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... worshiped, and a virtue was supposed to exist in these, just as magicians imagine that a virtue exists in images of the heavenly bodies carved at a particular time. In a certain monastery we [some of us] have seen a statue of the blessed Virgin, which moved automatically by a trick [within by a string], so as to seem either to turn away from [those who did not make a large offering] or nod to ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... teach the skill that dyes The wool with color's as the shuttle flies: He called the magic of Love's charming queen To breathe around a witchery of mien; Then plant the rankling stings of keen desire And cares that trick the limbs with pranked attire: Bade Her'mes [Footnote: Mercury.] last impart the Craft refined Of thievish manners, and a ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... to listen to reason, or to reflect for one moment upon the irreproachable good name of the schoolmaster. He went away in inexorable wrath; threatening every practicable visitation of public and private justice upon the head of the offender, whom he accused of having attempted to trick his daughter into an entanglement which should ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... briefly as I may. In the audience now before me there are certain to be pure representatives of all our four nationalities; Celts and Saxons as pure as any in the country are sure to be present in any university audience. But except for a trick of speech or a local mannerism, the most expert anthropologist cannot tell Celt from Saxon or an Irishman from a Scotsman. There are, to be sure, certain physical types which prevail in one country more than in another, but I do not know of any feature ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... 'You gimme time. Wot's the first point? The first point is that we can't get ashore, and I'll make you a present of that for a 'ard one. But 'ow about a flag of truce? Would that do the trick, d'ye think? or would Attwater simply blyze aw'y at us in ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Slavic writers. Sir John Davies (1569-1626) wrote twenty-six elegant Hymns to Astraea, each an acrostic on "Elisabetha Regina''; and Mistress Mary Fage, in Fame's Roule, 1637, commemorated 420 celebrities of her time in acrostic verses. The same trick of composition is often to be met with in the writings of more recent versifiers. Sometimes the lines are so combined that the final letters as well as the initials are significant. Edgar Allan Poe worked two names—-one of them that of Frances Sargent Osgood—into verses ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Ciampolo, a peculator in the service of the good Thiebault, king of Navarre. One of his companions under the pitch was Friar Gomita, governor of Gallura; and another, Michael Zanche, also a Sardinian. Ciampolo ultimately escaped by a trick out of the hands of the devils, who were so enraged that they turned upon the two pilgrims; but Virgil, catching up Dante with supernatural force, as a mother does a child in a burning house, plunged with him out of their jurisdiction ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... make me touch money for it. George would never doubt we had concealed it in order to trick ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... the extreme, they put about, but not in time to escape detection. The enemy had found out the trick that had been played upon them; and the batteries from the island and harbour opened upon the schooner a volley of no very gentle reproaches. However, she luckily avoided the danger, and returned in safety to the Hercule, without receiving ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... the tutor thought, 'but she would have a spite against me for last night's work, and I doubt I could not do much. To be sure, I might put her on her guard against Dunborough, and trust to her gratitude; but it is ten to one she would not believe me. Or I could let him play his trick—if he is fool enough to put his neck in a noose—and step in and save her at the last moment. Ah!' Mr. Thomasson continued, looking up to the ceiling in a flabby ecstasy of appreciation, 'If I had the courage! That were a game to play ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... of a day spent in the strolling manner, which is usual with men of pleasure in this town, and with a head full of a million of impertinences, which had danced round it for ten hours together, I came to my lodging, and hastened to bed. My valet-de-chambre[147] knows my University trick of reading there; and he being: a good scholar for a gentleman, ran over the names of Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, and others, to know which I would have. "Bring Virgil," said I, "and if I fall asleep, take ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... house. She was a Clayton and the Claytons never could cook. Maria sorter looks as if she'd shrunk in the wash, now, don't she? And there's Douglas Nicholson. His brother put rat poison in the family pancakes. Nice little trick that, wasn't it? They say it was by mistake. I hope it WAS a mistake. His wife is all rigged out in silk. Yez wouldn't think to look at her she was married in cotton—and mighty thankful to get married in anything, ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Oriental in origin, it is familiar to all readers of the Thousand and One Nights, when Abou Hassan is drugged by Haroun al Raschid, and for one day allowed to play the caliph with power complete and unconfined. The same trick is said to have been tried upon a drunkard at Bruges by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, during his marriage festivities, 1440. Christopher Sly, well drubbed by Marian Hacket and bawling for a pot of small ale, will at once occur ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... First Prize of a hundred dollars for having the heaviest and finest pig exhibited that year. Another fifty dollars came for Antoinette's being the best amateur trick animal shown that year. ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... obtained in society, but because she really cared about religious matters, and had an uneasy sense that she was not altogether safe in that quarter. She had serious intentions of becoming quite pious—without any reserves—when she had once got her carriage and settlement. Let us do this one sly trick, says Ulysses to Neoptolemus, and we will be ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... over him, the din of the falling water up at the dam, diverted Belding's mind to the Chases. All at once he was in the harsh grip of a cold certainty. The blast had been set off intentionally to ruin his spring. What a hellish trick! No Westerner, no Indian or Mexican, no desert man could have been guilty of such a crime. To ruin a beautiful, clear, cool, never-failing stream of water in ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... of Zizimeh, had argued that whereas he was born in the purple—that is, born during the reign of Mahomet—Bajazet was born prior to his epoch, and was therefore the son of a private individual. This was rather a poor trick; but where force is all and right is naught, it was good enough to stir up a war. The two brothers, each at the head of an army, met accordingly in Asia in 1482. D'jem was defeated after a seven hours' fight, and pursued by his brother, who gave ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... great he must live. I have a plan. King Nimrod will not be satisfied unless a child is slain. Therefore, take thou the child of a slave to him and tell him it is Abraham. He will not know the difference. And so that the trick shall not be discovered, take our child away and hide ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... to hear presently the distant thunder of German guns, but reason told him it was only a trick of the imagination. Nerves keyed high often created the illusion ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... read, and regarded the circular as an order from their own Union, while others were enticed by the high wages offered by the new society. There was great confusion among the workers of these trades. As soon as the trick was exposed every respectable man drew back; but there was a great deal of disappointment, and they felt horribly ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... wagging his head. "You committing such a fault as you say you was accused of, and you coming down here as you did, through a trick—somehow those facts, if they be facts, don't seem to have much effect on our opinion. Me and the old woman feel that somehow—we don't know how—what you told us that night and what you done for us before that night don't fit ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... then shrugged his shoulders and began moving again. It must be nearly seven o'clock; although the allotment work had kept the clerks later than usual that day, everybody connected with the offices had certainly gone home. He realized that his nerves had played him a trick in giving that alarmed momentary start—and smiled almost tenderly as he remembered how notable and even glorious a warrant those nerves had for their unsettled state. They would be all right after a night's real rest. He would know how to ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... to him with sincere feeling, "Giglamps, old fellow! it would be a beastly shame, when there's such jolly ice, if you did not learn to skate; especially, as I can show you the trick." ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... goujats dans un cabaret.' Johnson, perhaps, had this attack in mind when, in his Life of Pope (Works, viii. 275), he thus wrote of Voltaire:—'He had been entertained by Pope at his table, when he talked with so much grossness, that Mrs. Pope was driven from the room. Pope discovered by a trick that he was a spy for the court, and never considered him as a man ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... have supped, there was discovered a young man bestowed there by Ercolano's wife: the lady thereupon censures Ercolano's wife: but unluckily an ass treads on the fingers of the boy that is hidden under the hen-coop, so that he cries for pain: Pietro runs to the place, sees him, and apprehends the trick played on him by his wife, which nevertheless he finally condones, for that he is not ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Tom! And there is where my Whizzer—Wakefield Damon's Whizzer—is going to revolutionize air travel!" cried the eccentric man. "The difference in density! If air were as dense as water the problem would be solved. And I have solved it! I'm going to turn the trick, Tom! One more question. How can air be made as dense as water, ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... Adrian. I've always had my suspicions. It's some devilish trick or he wouldn't sneak up that way. Soon as he saw us he scrambled to cover. Watch for him ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... Doll. "He's one of those funny, pop-up Jacks in a Box, and he's always trying to fool some one. I suppose, because you are the newest toy to come here, that he is playing a trick on you." ...
— The Story of a China Cat • Laura Lee Hope
... one is "nervous" and must be "understood," and nothing is talked of but children. My mother would never have a doctor in the house; "nervousness" was called bad temper, and was dosed, and stooping was called "a trick," and was smacked. The children I now see eat far too much, and when they finish off lunch with gravy drunk out of tumblers it makes me feel ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... says: "Some of de roots dat dey used to bring 'im luck an' to trick folks wid wuz Rattle-Snake Marster, and John de Conquerer. John de Conquerer is supposed to conquer any kind of trouble you gits intuh. Some folks says dat you can tote it in your pocket an' have ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... the deceptive power of the art is really felt to be a source of interest and amusement. This is the case with a large number of the collectors of Dutch pictures. They enjoy seeing what is flat made to look round, exactly as a child enjoys a trick of legerdemain: they rejoice in flies which the spectator vainly attempts to brush away,[46] and in dew which he endeavours to dry by putting the picture in the sun. They take it for the greatest compliment to their treasures that they should be mistaken ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... several times," he said. "I'll be frank with you. I got curious after the third evening, and called it myself. You know the trick. I found out it was the Ellingham, house, up ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... soap box holding two children on her lap, so they could see it all, Lin was calling on Alfred to come back into the ring and repeat a twisting about trick he had just performed. Lin said the children wanted to see him do ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... Gummy volubly. "Of course not. But mother just let Mr. Strout trick himself. When he saw what he had done he tried to hand the ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... mechanical difficulties under which journalistic enterprise laboured at that day made it impossible to expand into a modern "article," were quite sufficient to tell a whole story to Rome. Cornelia realized instantly that she had been made the victim of some vile trick, which she doubted not her would-be lover and her uncle had executed in collusion. She took the tablets from Herennia's hand, without a word, read the falsehoods once, twice, thrice. The meaning of the day attached to the terms used intimated the existence ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... frighten them. This was followed by anonymous letters from other parties, that reached the Mayor, insisting on it that danger was hanging over this house. He sent them to Hart & Co., but they, thinking it was only a trick to put down the price of flour, paid no attention to them. They locked their three massive iron doors at night as usual, and went to their homes without fear, and the underground swell kept on ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... about six points wanted in a man for such a journey. He has got to be as hard and tough as leather, to be able to go for days without food or drink, to know the country well, to sleep when he does sleep with his ears open, to be up to every red skin trick, to be able to shoot straight enough to hit a man plumb centre at three hundred yards at least, and to hit a dollar at twenty yards sartin with his six-shooter. If you feel as you have got all them qualifications you can start off as soon as you like, ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... right," says she. "Dr. Baker says the ice pack did the trick. And he'll take Billy home as soon as he's cleaned him up ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... The tithe-gatherers would be out to distrain in a particular parish, and find loads of the humble chattels, which they meant to seize, already carted over the boundary into the next parish. That, Sir George explained, was a familiar trick to play upon the tithe-gatherer, who could not budge beyond the phrasing of his warrant. It was a beating of the parish bounds, such as he could not always be prepared for. The peasants would stand in sanctuary, ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... her to be taken up and driven. She liked the rapid motion and the ways of the little brown horse. She even loved the noise he made with his clanking hoofs. Rowcliffe said it was a beastly trick. He made up his mind about once a week that he'd get rid of him. But somehow he couldn't. He was fond of the little brown horse. He'd had him ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... to release his pistol favored Keith, and, bringing his hands together, he lifted his antagonist from his feet, and by a dexterous twist whirled him over his shoulder and dashed him with all his might, full length flat on his back, upon the floor. It was an old trick learned in his boyish days and practised on the Dennisons, and Gordon had by it ended many a contest, but never one more completely than this. A buzz of applause came from the bystanders, and more than one, with sudden friendliness, called to him to get Bluffy's pistol, which ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... delicate filbert nails were trimmed with punctilious care, and shone with a pink lustre that was positively charming. He was evidently an amiable man, for he smiled to himself over his tea,—he had a trick of smiling,—ill-natured people said he did it on purpose, in order to widen his mouth and make it more in pro-portion to the size of his face. Such remarks, however, emanated only from the spiteful and envious who could not succeed in winning ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... behold the success of our plan, up jumped a line of men on the castle walls, and by shouting and swinging their arms scared the birds away. We guessed at once that the little birds which had escaped too soon with the strings tied to their legs had been noticed, and the trick suspected, for the men in the castle were well prepared. A few of the birds flew over their heads, and managed to reach the roofs, which caught fire at once; but wherever this happened, a dozen men ran at the place and beat the ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... noisily from his heap of stones. One day it occurred to him to throw a handful of pine-needles in his grandfather's face, and tell him that they had fallen from the tree. The old man believed him, and that made Jean-Christophe laugh. But, unfortunately, he tried the trick again, and just when he had raised his hand he saw his grandfather's eyes watching him. It was a terrible affair. The old man was solemn, and allowed no liberty to be taken with the respect due to himself. They were estranged for more ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... But the trick did not work. This Indian was wiser. He only grinned and notched his arrow, and took his time for a sure shot. Something had to be done to get rid of him. Angry clear through, the captain leaned as far as he dared and hurled the revolver. Good! The heavy barrel landed full upon the ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... the unkindest trick I ever heard of!" he cried, his brilliant eyes flashing from one to another. "I suppose that arch-traitor of a Fieldsy planned to have you all safely away before I came home. I'm thankful I got here two hours before she expected me. See ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... burnt at sea, No noise of late-spawned Tityries, No closet plot or open vent That frights men with a Parliament: No new device or late-found trick, To read by the stars the kingdom's sick; No gin to catch the State, or wring The free-born nostrils of the king, We send to you, but here a jolly Verse crowned with ivy and with holly; That tells of winter's tales and mirth That milkmaids make about the hearth, Of Christmas sports, the wassail-bowl, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... Firefly into a flat—we should only waste time in scouring the other bank. The swamp this side the next run has forced him into the road within five miles. The trick is transparent. He took me for a fool," replied the Colonel, ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... a bit o' bad workmanship—you never see th' end o' the mischief it'll do. And it's a poor look-out to come into the world to make your fellow-creatures worse off instead o' better. But there's a difference between the things folks call wrong. I'm not for making a sin of every little fool's trick, or bit o' nonsense anybody may be let into, like some o' them dissenters. And a man may have two minds whether it isn't worthwhile to get a bruise or two for the sake of a bit o' fun. But it isn't my way to be see-saw about anything: I think my fault lies th' other way. When I've said a thing, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... originally began. One or two newspapers with an ethical turn, which had borrowed from the pulpit a trick of improving the sensational events of the day for the edification of their readers, and which possessed a happy knack of writing about anything and anybody without perpetrating a libel or incurring a charge of contempt of court, had printed articles on "The Poet and ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... provided for you: good milk porridge, very often twice a day, which is good wholesome food and proper for students; a translator too is what I want at present, my last being in Newgate for shop-lifting. The rogue had a trick of translating out of the shops as ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Macumazana, may the teeth of the god meet in his brain for that trick; yes, may he die as I know how to make him die. That prophecy of which he told you is no prophecy from of old. It arose in the land within the last moon only, though whether it came from Komba or from the Motombo I know not. None save myself, ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... through.—And, Damaris, please don't be cross with me or I shall be quite miserable. Forgive my having asked you stupid questions. I was a blundering idiot. Of course, what I heard last night was just some echo, some trick of wind or of the river and tide. I was half asleep and imagined the whole thing most likely, magnified sounds as one does, don't you know, sometimes at night. Your father talked wonderfully, and I went to bed dazzled, such imagination as I ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... example of this principle, we may recall here the trick performed by certain jugglers, and that consists in making a coin roll over the top of a Japanese paper parasol. The parasol is revolved very rapidly, and, to the eyes of the spectator, the coin seems to remain immovable. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... away answerers, and make the poor advocates for religion believe, he still keepeth further vengeance in petto. It must be allowed, he hath not wholly lost time, while he was of the Romish communion. This very trick he learned from his old father, the Pope; whose custom it is to lift up his hand, and threaten to fulminate, when he never meant to shoot his bolts; because the princes of Christendom had learned the secret to avoid or despise them. Dr. Hickes knew this very well, and therefore, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... he still lay along the pinon limb, every sense on the alert. He was not sure that it was not a trick to draw him out. He already was too good a woodsman to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... put no faith on a wire with a kink in it. I nearly got my light put out, out in St. Joe, Missouri, by a trick like that. No more swinging wire for me. Guess the kid, if he pulls out of this, will want to hang on to a rope after this. He will if ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... of a Matron does not consist in fine Cloaths or other Deckings of the Body, as the Apostle Peter teaches, for I heard that lately in a Sermon; but in chaste and modest Behaviour, and the Ornaments of the Mind. Whores are trick'd up to take the Eyes of many but we are well enough drest, if we do but ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... not go near the gypsies. I stole your horse. Just for fun, you know. And wretched fun it was. I saw him standing there, and the temptation to play a trick upon you was too much for me. I meant to let him go and send him back when I got to our gate. I did it sooner than I expected, because I heard you coming and knew in a minute that you must ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... felt sure of herself and her nose. Then she spoke severely to herself, and asked what Uncle John would say to such behaviour. "Everybody isn't hateful!" she said. "And anyhow, there are some things there that I can do, if I haven't learned this trick. I won't give up till ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... which all praised as the supreme value; even if he had no earthly mistress, he adored the sublime sentiment. Not infrequently it happened that a troubadour who had been loud in praise of high love and denunciation of base desire—a trick of his trade—suddenly came to himself and changed his mind. Folquet of Marseilles, for instance, after more than ten years of vain sighing, came to the conclusion that he had been ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... twisting his cigar in his mouth and toying with the spokes of the wheel. "I'm Captain Brown. I command this ship. This is Mr. Hay, first officer. The other white man is cabin steward, but he'll stand watch and do his trick. My orders shall be obeyed smartly. You savvy, 'smartly'? There shall be no growling about the kaikai, which will be above allowance. You'll put a handle to the mate's name, and tack on 'sir' to every order I give you. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that Vauvenargues is almost entirely free from that favourite trick of the aphoristic person, which consists in forming a series of sentences, the predicates being various qualifications of extravagance, vanity, and folly, and the subject being Women. He resists this besetting ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... all talk! That story was invented by that sham doctor, and is nothing but a trick of his. He wants to masquerade as an Aesculapius, and so has started this consumption theory. Fortunately her husband isn't jealous. [IVANOFF makes an inpatient gesture] As for Sarah, I wouldn't trust a word or an action of hers. I have made a point all my life of mistrusting all doctors, ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... trick," declared Torrance, with conviction. "Sure you chaps haven't started a joke ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson |
