"Duffer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... assumed that if a function is continuous it can always be differentiated. A comparatively unphilosophical mind may let such plausible assertions pass unexamined, but a more philosophical mind will say to itself, when it comes across them, 'You great duffer, aren't you going to ask Why?' Suppose that, by way of experiment, I assume that the fourth angle of my quadrilateral will be acute, or again obtuse, will the body of conclusions I can now deduce from my set of postulates be free from ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... duffer, you mean. Look at him. What with his gold spangles and his talking to Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys, he's as proud as ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... little feet and mincing gait! It was as though as much as possible of his body were seeking to escape that all-devouring tension in relapse. How familiar it all was! Even during those months at camp the picture would recur and Joe would laugh softly to himself. Poor old duffer! He was a product of the plant just as much as ploughs and tillage implements were. How soon would he begin ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Miss Florence, in a sharp, clipping voice; and the next minute Bessie heard her call one of her sisters a duffer ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... 'Don't be a bigger duffer than you are, Flo. You can't help being a girl, I know; but I'm willing to help you all I can out of a girl's foolishness. Only a girl would talk of ringing the bell, and making a row, because she can't have all her own way. Come now, I want ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... Council of the Brotherhood, District No. 6, F. I. M. X. T. S. Z., was about to hold a meeting. The Council was composed of seven eminent Freaks—Sim Boles, the Double-Jointed Wonder; Bony Perkins, the Ossified Man; Duffer Leech, the Man with the Phenomenal Skull; Miss Tilly Boles, the Beautiful Mermaid of the Southern Sea; Mrs. Smock, the Bearded Circassian Beauty; Mr. Billy O'Fake, the Wild Man from Borneo, and the President of the Brotherhood, Runty, the Dwarf. These ladies and gentlemen ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... practising at an empty brandy bottle outside Adams' bar, he took up a friend's pistol and hit it plumb in the centre at twenty-four paces. There were few things he took up that he could not make a show at apparently, except gold-digging, and at that he was the veriest duffer alive. It was pitiful to see the little canvas bag, with his name printed across it, lying placid and empty upon the shelf at Woburn's store, while all the other bags were increasing daily, and some had assumed ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... There's a duffer in your district Whose sheer cussedness is such He has neither pride nor manners— No, nor gumption, overmuch. 'Twould be great to up and tell him Where to go. But be resolved— He's no foeman to be fought with, Just ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... one single thing in the whole kit of it. And first and foremost, 'tain't a bit likely the old man 'ud ha' been sich a duffer." ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... was the only one as would come at the price. 'Tain't big wages; but I'm seein' loife. Lor', I come down here with Madame and Mounseer a fortnight ago, and Monte Carlo ain't got many secrets from me. I was a duffer, though, at first. When I 'eerd all them shots poppin' off every few minutes, up by the Casino, I used to think 'twas the suicides a shooting theirselves all over the place, for before I left 'ome, I 'ad ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... in their snug coupe and hearing this wheel off, Gerald returned to the great hall. He without question would remain until the big light was extinguished. Colors, forms, sparkle, golden haze—a painter must be dead or a duffer to leave before the gay glory of it faded and was dispersed in the ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... care about talking to them? I can see you are a duffer still"—and one needed to see and near him to appreciate the profound, immutable contempt which echoed in this remark. He had been grown-up now two years, and was in love with every good-looking woman that he met; yet, despite the fact ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... N. bungler; blunderer, blunderhead^; marplot, fumbler, lubber, duffer, dauber, stick; bad hand, poor hand, poor shot; butterfingers^. no conjurer, flat, muff, slow coach, looby^, lubber, swab; clod, yokel, awkward squad, blanc-bec; galoot^. land lubber; fresh water sailor, fair ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... kick him if he wasn't such a duffer," was Nick's reluctant thought, for he had wanted to be favourably impressed by the Dook. If this were really anything like an English duke, give him a crossing-sweeper! But he must not be too hasty in his generalization. He was unhappily ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... for his investments he wouldn't be able to go on with it. The business is done for; I knew that long ago. My father and I could never agree about how the accounts should be kept. That head clerk of his is an awful duffer." ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... of something worth saying, but the words wouldn't come, and I could only shake her hand. But, duffer as I was, the way she had said those words, and the double meaning she had given them, would have made me the happiest fellow alive if I could only have forgotten the existence of ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... say—earning every slab of damper and pannikin of tea I've swallerd, not to mention 'bacca and sometimes a bender on rum, by as tough a share of graft as a man wants whose muscles ain't flabby. Fifty times I've struck a duffer on one field or another; twenty times I've struck a good show that petered out in a week; three times I struck it rich—rich enough to set me up if I'd stuck to the find, but always I've been had—had by darned dirty I-talyans from the towns on the coast, who've come up with ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... New Edition The Confessions of a Duffer A Border Boyhood Loch Awe Loch-Fishing Loch Leven The Bloody Doctor The Lady or the Salmon? A Tweedside Sketch The Double Alibi ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... the officers come it over me; they're gentlemen, and it don't try a fellow," would Rake say in confidential moments over purl and a penn'orth of bird's-eye, his experience in the Argentine Republic having left him with strongly aristocratic prejudices; "but when it comes to a duffer like that, that knows no better than me, what ain't a bit better than me, and what is as clumsy a duffer about a horse's plates as ever I knew, and would almost let a young 'un buck him out of his saddle—why, then I do cut up rough, I ain't denying it; and I don't see what there is in his Stripes ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... sign," answered the boy, with a shake of his head. "Just clean cleared out, that's all. Pretty hard luck, I call it. Just at the end of things too—when he had a right to expect the fellows home. Pretty tough luck. I wish I could find the poor old duffer ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... he retorts, amiably rubbing his hands together. "Anyhow, I won't, which means about the same thing. Where's the little duffer?" ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... are short of men on the farm, and I took hold. I'm glad of the chance, for I get precious little exercise since I left college. You came from East Branch by morning stage, I suppose? Oh, is that your trunk dumped out in the road? What a duffer I was not to know. Wait a minute—I'll bring it in," and he sprang ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... sickly, he's weak of arm and knee; if trouble came he'd quickly shin up the nearest tree. No hale man ever loves him; he stirs the sportsman's wrath; the whole world kicks and shoves him and shoos him from the path. For who can love a duffer so pallid, weak and thin, who seems resigned to suffer and let folks rub it in? Yet though he's down to zero in fellow-men's esteem, this fellow is a hero and that's no winter dream. Year after year he's toiling, as toiled the slaves of Rome, to keep ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... sort of belief that, whichever you believe in first, you'll believe in the other automatically—I'm not a bit clever, Louis. I never was. Always I get puzzled, always I realize how utterly unlearned I am. Always father called me an idiot and threw things at me for it. But in spite of being a duffer I'm sure ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... that a crazy duffer had gone about over the desert for years digging wells, but at last he struck water. A few miles ahead was a well flowing like an artesian well. There would be plenty of water for every one, even the cattle. Next morning we could start ahead of the herds and so the roads ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... the artist, with a glance about the little room. He was thinking what a dear old duffer the man was—with his curious, impracticable philosophy of life and his big, kind ways. "You'll die poor if you don't ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... baleful eyes scouted the mule-skinner's person for evidence of hardware. Observing none, he said fiercely "You mutton- headed duffer!" and for the first time within the memory of the citizens of San Pasqual he had recourse to his hands. He clasped Mr. O'Rourke fondly around the neck and choked him until his eyes threatened to pop out, the while he shook O'Rourke as a terrier shakes a rat. Then, after two prodigious ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... "but I'm afraid I should show myself such a duffer. I used to be a pretty fair trout-fisher when I was a lad," he went on to say; and then it suddenly occurred to him that the offer of her companionship ought not to be received in this hesitating fashion. "But I shall ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... or better than the others can. I'm off now to Squaw Pond. I think I can follow the trail easily enough. Uncle Eb showed me yesterday where he had spotted some of the trees all the way along to the water. And if I don't shoot a couple of black ducks for dinner or supper, I'm a duffer, and not fit ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... shoot, but Ah was goin' t'. Some other duffer fired the shot that hit Lum. You-all kin look at mah gun." He held it out ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... gentleman had finished his story and leant back in his chair. Both the matter and the manner of his narration had, as time went on, impressed me favourably. He was an old duffer and pedant, but behind these things he was a country-bred man and gentleman, and had showed courage and a sporting instinct in the hour of desperation. He had told his story with many quaint formalities of diction, but also with ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... Senator. They told me he would be amusing, but I’ve been bored to death.’ Which reminded me of my one visit to England, when I heard a young nobleman declare that he had been to ‘such a dull dinner to meet a duffer called ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... a writing-man. It's finished. [Hanging his head.] I'm sorry to break faith with her people; but she may take me, if she will, on her own terms—a poor devil who has proved a duffer at his job, and who is content henceforth to be nothing but her ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... are three golden rules in the profession, of which the first has already been hinted at—namely, thoroughly terrify your client. Second, find out how much money he has and where it is. Third, get it. The merest duffer can usually succeed in following out the first two of these precepts, but to accomplish the third requires often a master's art. The ability actually to get one's hands on the coin is what differentiates the really great criminal lawyer ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... news I am in quest of; but in several instances, owing to his opposition, I have not only not got the news, but other papers have. Now, since the general raking we have had over this Austrian business, quite aside from the fact that we published the exact truth, this stupid old official duffer has taken it upon himself to be exceedingly sneering and obnoxious to me, and I confess I want to take him down a peg. He hasn't any idea that I know as much about this business as I do—in fact, he thinks it is an absolute secret; yet, if ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... a word of what they've told you, Mr. Snelling," laughed Robert Morton. "Our friends are always over-indulgent to our faults. When I begin work under you, a thing I am greatly anticipating, you will find out what a duffer I ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... themselves was of matters that most apprentices ignore. One night Jones heard them rotting about 'Great Circle sailing,' and 'ice to the south'ard of the Horn,' and subjects like that, when, properly, they ought to be criticising their Old Man, and saying what an utter duffer of a Second Mate they had. Jones was wonderfully indignant at such talk, and couldn't sleep at night for thinking of all the fine sarcastic remarks he might have made, if he had thought of them at ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... satisfactorily." This awful curse has hung heavy on my doom. With a restless desire to shine and excel, at Lord's, on the river, on the Moors, in the forests, in Society, on the Links, bitter personal experience and the remarks of candid friends, tell me that the doom has come upon me. I am "an all-round Duffer," as my youngest nephew, aetat. XI., freely informed me, when I served twice out of court (once into the conservatory, the other time through the study window). I was a Duffer at marbles, also at tops, and my personal efforts in these kinds were ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... cried. "Parliament?—after that? You boy! you sentimentalist! you—you duffer! Do you think I'd let you do it for your own sake even? Do you think I want you—spoilt? We should come back to mope outside of things, we should come back to fret our lives out. I won't do it, Stephen, I won't do it. End this if you like, break our hearts and throw ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... had withdrawn to report and to receive augmentation. No one felt alarm at their absence. The inhabitants of Foss River were a self-reliant people—accustomed to look to themselves for the remedy of a grievance. Besides, Horrocks, they said, had shown himself to be a duffer—merely a tracker, a prairie-man and not the man to bring Retief to justice. Already the younger members of the settlement and district were forming themselves into a vigilance committee. The elders—those to ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... from the editor of the 'Sunday Illustrated.' He's in a beastly bad temper, and says my last batch of illustrations isn't funny enough. The old duffer's bringing out a religious serial, and he must have humour to make it ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... and divide the proceeds. The first thing, then, is for each man to peg off his claim. That done, you can work the properties conjointly under the supervision of a committee, pay the gross takings into a common account, and divide the profits. In this way the owner of a duffer claim participates equally with the owner of a rich one. In other words, there is less risk of failure—I might say, no risk at all—but also much temptation. Such a scheme would be quite impossible except amongst ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... flag? This is awful! Couldn't you have let me know? What a duffer you are! I would have sacrificed my life to get that flag! I wouldn't have stood their nonsense like I did had I thought that was our flag. I would have fought them till my last breath. Why—why didn't ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... returned Malcolm loudly; his eyes were bright with excitement. "It was the loveliest thing you ever saw, Anna. The princess was a beauty, and no mistake; even Charles thought so, and he has seen princesses by the score. I am glad I went; the boys won't think me such a duffer when I tell them. Don't shake your head, Anna; you are a girl, and you don't understand how much one has to put up with from the fellows. They call me the Puritan, and ask if I wear pinafores at home. But I stopped that," ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... you duffer!" put in young Bawdrey, with a laugh. "You've got eight fingers—eight fingers and two thumbs. This bony Johnny has nine fingers and two thumbs. That's what makes him a freak. I say, dad, open the beggar's box, and let ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... much, awfully smart; and the other is a sort of buffy; one zephyr, the other cotton, and the skirt is a sort of mixey pepper and salt with lumps in the weaving—you know how I mean, something like our prawn dresses only lighter and much more refined. The duffer is going to join the tennis-club—he was at the Pooles' dance. I was simply flabbergasted. ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... friend that it won't bore you, Strachan, though it does not concern you personally. You both know all about the will and its mysterious disappearance, so I need not recapitulate that. Well, I have been to Ireland and seen the lawyers—Burrows and Fagan. I could not make much of Burrows, who is a duffer; but Fagan has his wits about. He had never had to do with that branch of the business, but now the credit of the firm was at stake he busied himself in making searching and pertinent inquiry. A sharpish boy-clerk was certain that the will was left at the office, and kept in the Burke deed box ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... blond chap behind the fourth torch. Yes, there. Sometime I'll tell you about him. Picturesque duffer." ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... pay t'ree hunderd dollars ter learn dis, an' sign a 'greement dat I wouldn't give it erway. Jem Mace tort me dis trick w'en I sparred wid him in Liverpool. He says ter me, says he: 'Buster, ye're a boid, dat's wot ye are. If you knowed der trick of breakin' a bloke's wrist dere ain't no duffer in der woild dat can do yer. I'll show yer der crack fer sixty pound.' He wouldn't come down a little bit, an' I paid him wot he asked. Since dat time I've knocked roun' all over der woild, an' it's saved me life fife times. Dat was a cheap trick wot I got from old Jem, dat ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... helmsman while alive, but now he was dead he might have become a first-class temptation, and possibly cause some startling trouble. Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... being weak. I dare say that nasty things might have happened—but I should have known more what the world was like, I should have depended more upon other people, I should have made friends. As it was, I left school entirely innocent, very solitary, very modest, thinking myself a complete duffer, and everyone else a beast. It got a little better at the end of my time, and I had a companion or two—but I never dreamed of telling anyone what I ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... duffer," he went on, as he pointed at the stern features of grandpa Smead. "Wouldn't ye think he'd smile now an' then. Maybe he'll cheer up after I've lived ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... an omnibus from Islington; on which occasion it was remarked that as he did not come on Saturday there must be something wrong. A clerk, with Saturday half-holidays, ought not to be away from his work on Mondays and Tuesdays. Mrs. Duffer, who was regarded in Paradise Row as being very inferior to Mrs. Demijohn, suggested that the young man might, perhaps, not be a Post Office clerk. This, however, was ridiculed. Where should a Post Office clerk find his friends except among Post Office clerks? "Perhaps he is ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... duffer,' said Allan, 'you don't need to fight about anything in particular. It's only for practice. Then we've got to make the yacht late, you know, and this is no end of a good opportunity, as we can't be ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... as I see fit?" He sat down, crossed his long legs, and jerked a speckled thumb toward the outer office. "I was sane when I came in here, but the eyes of the girl outside—oh, yow, them eyes! I must be introduced to her. And you're scolding me for coming around here in broad daylight. Why, you duffer, if I come at night, d'ye suppose I'd have met her? ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... now, holding him fast by either shoulder, at arm's length, and shaking a reproving head at his friend. "You big duffer!" he said. "Did you think for a minute I'd let you throw me down ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... "Cautious old duffer!" he said. "Well, tell me this! I've no right to ask it. Only somehow I've got to know. You care ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... feminine girl, as wholesome as a November pippin, and no more mysterious than a window-pane. She had whimsical little theories that she had deduced from life, and that fitted the maxims of Epictetus like princess gowns. I wonder, after all, if that old duffer ...
— Options • O. Henry
... Francisco, in the shape of an Australian professional who had just landed and was therefore not likely to be recognized. He had a record of numerous victories in his own country, and cheerfully undertook, for the sum of seventy-five dollars, "to knock the bloomin' head off any bloomin' duffer," anywhere near his own weight, that might ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... to look in at one of the doors of Liberal Arts hall. While he was standing there two dapper young men came walking hastily by. One caught sight of Uncle and quickly uttered a low whistle. His companion stopped short as the first one said: "Der's de old duffer; ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... "O ma! there was such a precious guy at the ball last night, and I had no end of a lark with him. Good gracious! here comes the duffer himself." ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... the huge plate, therefore, is an offence—its undertaking an unbecoming display of determination and ignorance—its accomplishment a triumph of unthinking earnestness and uncontrolled energy—endowments of the "duffer." ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... You see Ross will have to read the letters, and how can you say in every other line you love me, with that duffer ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... earth can he know about English? [Greek text] is a Cormorant: [Greek text] is a Skinflint; and your tutor is a Duffer. Hush! keep dark now! here he comes." And he went hastily to meet Edward Dodd: and by that means intercepted him on his way to the carriage. "Give me your hand, Dodd," he cried; "you have saved the university. You must ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... "Probably he's given it to the old duffer for a birthday present—hundredth anniversary!" he scoffed. "That would be taking his turn at doing knight-errands. Let's go right on and not disturb the poor ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... not been for Willy Horse I should not have got the property at all. That chief with the iron toes is a shrewd old duffer. He has owned the property for some years, and all that time the Hiram Dusenbery Company has been trying, by fair means or otherwise, to buy it of him, but Old Iron-Toe put the price so high that they preferred to wait, hoping that when ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... absence of the most natural instinct of self-protection. The pinnated grouse, sage grouse, Bob White quail and ptarmigan exercise but little keen reason in self-protection. They are easy marks,—the joy of the pot-hunter and the delight of the duffer "sportsman." ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... note of cheer written by a somewhat dolorous duffer who spent last night in pain, but this morning ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... eating him, the old duffer, I wonder?" growled Holmes. "Is he falling in love, ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... said briskly. "Keep your eyes sharp for footprints. Wynne must have struck off here into the Fens, it's the most direct course. He wouldn't have been such a duffer as to walk too far out of his way—if he was bent upon going there at all.... Hello! Here's the squelchy mark of a man's boot, and ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... of yours is a duffer," she said sharply, pointing a very earthy trowel at the unconscious figure of the gardener, who was busy in the middle distance digging potatoes. "A man," she continued, "who calls a plain, every-day squash a vegetable marrow isn't fit to run a well-ordered ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... can't all play for the Gentlemen," said Lord Amersteth slyly. "My son Crowley only just scraped into the eleven at Harrow, and HE'S going to play. I may even come in myself at a pinch; so you won't be the only duffer, if you are one, and I shall be very glad if you will come down and help us too. You shall flog a stream before breakfast and after dinner, if ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... a Duffer, but I hope I am neither an idiot nor a cad. I have never collected postage-stamps, nor outraged common humanity by asking people to send me their autographs. With these exceptions I have failed as a collector of almost everything. To succeed you need luck, and a dash of ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 13, 1892 • Various
... of my stock quite a while ago, an' counted on givin' Snip a chance to run in the park. The poor little duffer don't have much fun down at Mother Hyde's while ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... Mr. DUFF, M.P., to be Governor of New South Wales is a "positive" good, seeing that they might have appointed "a comparative Duffer." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various
... metaphysician. I haven't the remotest notion what his jargon means. From Aristotle to William James, I have dipped into quite a lot of them—Descartes, Berkeley, Kant, Schopenhauer (the thrice besotted Teutonic ass who said that women weren't beautiful), for I hate to be thought an ignorant duffer—and I have never come across in them anything worth knowing, thinking, or doing that I was not taught at my mother's knee. And as for her, dear, simple soul, if you had asked her what was the Categorical Imperative (having explained beforehand the meaning of the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... Republick is too rediklus for anythink. Look at the kiddish kick-up along o' the visit of the Hempress! Why, if we 'ad that duffer, DEROULEDE, on Newmarket 'Eath, we should just duck him in a 'orsepond, like a copped Welsher. Here they washup him, or else knuckle under to him, like a skeery Coster's missus when her old man's on the mawl, and feels round arter her ribs with his bloomin' ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... was badly wounded, and I lay down and hid the whole day till dark, when I got back to the laager." This would go to prove that, comparing him with the Boer, the British infantry soldier is not such a duffer with his weapon as some of those in authority were in the ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... to think Santa a pretty jolly old duffer, who made lots of sport for the infants, but I'm ready for ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... mimicked. "Oh, Tony, don't be such a duffer! Unless you want to lose me, you've got to tell Don Carlos de Ruiz—and tell him very, very plainly—that his attempts to make love to me and win me away from you have got to stop. You've got to ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... Dick had assumed the role of Moonlighter Ryan, a notorious Queensland cattle duffer, recently hanged for his part in a disputation with a member of the mounted police. The dispute ended with the death of the policeman, who succumbed to injuries received. As Moonlighter Dick was characteristically remorseless, his courage and cunning were understood to verge upon the inhuman, and ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... help it," Agnes grumbled. "You fascinate me. I should have thought you were clever if I had only heard you talk, and not known what a duffer you are ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... does, does he! Well, let me tell you that whatever Henry T. Thompson thinks—about morals, I mean, though course you can't beat the old duffer—" ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... himself, by a graceful fiction, as all unskilled in the art. An instance of similar modesty is found in Mr. Andrew Lang, who entitles the first chapter of his delightful ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no fisherman's library is complete), "Confessions of a Duffer." This an engaging liberty which no one else would dare ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... a Duffer. He was what might be called a sub-Duffer, or Varnish, which means that the Committee was ashamed to mark ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... nature, if we are Athenians who wish to have no qualms. If we have told our friends that we do eighteen holes of golf in 95, we tell them after doing the course in 110, that we are not ourselves to-day. That is to say, we are not acquainted with the duffer who ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... said, assuming an enthusiasm I did not feel. Put on the gloves with this strapping, skillful boxer? Not I! I was firmly resolved to stop while my record was good. In a scientific clash with the gloves he would soon find out what a miserable duffer I was. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... with which his proposal had been greeted. Yet there was no well-defined jealousy between them. Mr. Walking Delegate Dennis Quigg, confidential agent of Branch No. 3, Knights of Labor, had too good an opinion of himself ever to look upon that "tow-headed duffer of a stable-boy" in the light of a rival. Nor could Carl for a moment think of that narrow-chested, red-faced, flashily dressed Knight as being able to make the slightest ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Ireland, save here and there a stray apostle of English notions, talks of the moral lessons to be acquired by fielding out or by patient batting. Compulsory games at school are practically unknown; nobody plays unless he wants to; so that the duffer does not experience the questionable moral advantage of physical discomfort and frequent humiliation, and the naturally painstaking or excellent athlete gets no more than his fair chance of exercising his gifts. And these are less likely to have an undue importance in their possessor's ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... weak physically and highly nervous—owing, his people thought, to severe bullying at a previous school. He was an able boy, of literary and artistic tastes, and almost painfully conscientious. He was very shy; always thought that he was despised by other boys; and was a duffer at games, which he avoided to the utmost. With my present experience I should have known him to be a victim of self-abuse. Then, I did not suspect him; and it was not until he was leaving at eighteen for the University that we talked the matter over, on his initiative. ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... moment. Don't despise me. I have it. I'll, yes—I'll do it—I'll break into his desk. There's no help for it. I know the drawer where he keeps his plunder, and I can buy a chisel on my way home. He will be terribly upset, but, you know, the dear old duffer really loves me. He'll have to get over it—and I, too. Kirylo, my dear soul, if you can only wait for a few hours-till this evening—I shall steal all the blessed lot I can lay my hands on! You doubt me! Why? You've ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... "Poor old duffer! I'll bet he was disappointed," came sympathetically from Christopher. "Think of his having to stay at home and miss the fun of seeing how his invention ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... were such a duffer. You behaved as if you expected the poor child to propose to you herself. I've been trying to make you see it for the last three and a half years, and you wouldn't. There never was such a chap for not seeing what's ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... way you would make an additional twenty-five cents. Be logical! If that's not profit enough, why not sell a $15 or a $12 a dozen hat for $3? Be logical! If that's not enough, why not hire a big burly duffer to stand at your front door, knock down every man who comes in so that you can take all the money he has without giving him anything. You could bury him in the ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... novelty, especially if it's feminine. Well, I'm out for the sole purpose of saving a million or so for old Wharton, and to save as much of her reputation as I can besides. With the proof in hand the old duffer can scare her out of any claim against his bank account, and she shall have the absolute promise of 'no exposure' in return. Isn't it lovely? Well, here's Albany. Now for the dinky road up to Fossingford ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... wears the Panama? I wonder if anyone would think of haste in connection with that duffer. It took him just one hour to buy three soft crabs from some kids at the dock yesterday," said Walter. "I wouldn't like to be his messmate. But I don't like his eye; it's made ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... half-sister mixed up a bit, but just the same you were the one I really wanted. Hope's all right; she's a mighty fine girl, but you are the one for me, Christie. Could you—could you care for such a duffer ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... is a particular instance of the general assertion. Were I not of a profoundly indolent, restless, adventurous nature, and horribly averse to writing, I would make a great book of this and live honoured by every profound duffer in ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... that's little Duffer, I know! We've seen him before! Wouldn't mind giving him a chase to-day, just ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... a duffer. It was awful. With all the millions of interesting things that there are to say at other times, and I couldn't think of one. At last I ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... part of the whole business was that the little duffer in the bus, who was attached to that troop, thought that Tyson was the hero of the occasion. He was strong on troop loyalty if on nothing else. So far as he was concerned (and he was very much concerned) Tyson ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... halted in its tracks, wheeled toward Bradley and then back again toward Tippet. Again the former's rifle spit angrily, and the bear turned again in his direction. Bradley shouted loudly. "Come on, you behemoth of Holy Writ!" he cried. "Come on, you duffer! Can't waste ammunition." And as he saw the bear apparently upon the verge of deciding to charge him, he encouraged the idea by backing rapidly away, knowing that an angry beast will more often charge one who moves ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Sportsman (and war is fundamentally the sport of hunting and fighting the most dangerous of the beasts of prey) he feels free. He will tell you himself that the true sportsman is never a snob, a coward, a duffer, a cheat, a thief, or a liar. Curious, is it not, that he has not the same confidence in other sorts ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... his paces. Ask him what he knows. Process (I fear) incidentally reveals to him what I know. Hear him at lunch explaining to HERBIE (with whom he has made friends again) that I am "not bad at sums, but a shocking duffer at Latin." Pretend not to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... makes me feel sort of glad, Miss Helen. You see, I'm not such a duffer really. I think an awful lot, and it don't come hard either. But folks have always told me I'm such a fool, that I've kind of got into the way of believing it. Now, when I saw that pine and the valley I felt sort ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... rectified in London, you know. Some English spirit will perhaps be mixed. But I must not tell you the secrets of the trade till you join us. That Bios is distilled from the bark of the Duffer-tree is ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... right," he replied. Then soon after: "Everything's strange. That's the trouble," he confessed. "It's only in little things that don't matter, but a fellow feels such a duffer." ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Football has, of course, no charm. There is too much hard work for him, and the training required to put one in condition, fraught with all that is called self-denial, he could never endure. The musty old duffer, too, looks upon the game in the light of a deadly sin, which can never be associated in his mind with anything short of idiocy and the most virulent fanaticism. To some of his young men he remarks—"And ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... belongeth here, as I am informed,' said the man, who seemed to be the master of it, and was proud to be so. 'Young woman, don't you please to stand like that, or every duffer in the parish will be here, and the boys that come hankering after it. You be off!' he cried out to a boy who was calling some more round the corner. 'Now, young woman, we must come in if you please, and the least said ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... a duffer I am on a horse, Governor,' he says. 'Well, I want to try for the Melford Cup. I'd like to build a course on the place, and school myself under ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... ill with playing out of doors and having fun,' returned Tricksy scornfully; 'I'm not such a duffer, Marjorie.' ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... "You lazy duffer!" said Charley laughing; "you are incorrigible. But do come along with me, Tom. We haven't landed now for two days, and I can't stand ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... at Frank, whose head was nodding forward in an uncomfortable attitude, and whose deep breathing showed him to be asleep. "If only he warn't sich a duffer," said Barney to himself, "we might do it easy," then seeing that his partner was in danger of falling, he moved nearer to him, and placed the boy's head gently against his own shoulder so that he might rest easily. Meanwhile ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... our search in the Mount Margaret district, and we shared the opinion of everybody there that it was a "duffer," and after events had proved what that opinion was worth. Travelling and prospecting as we went, we at last succeeded in finding a reef which we ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... quite see Davy as strong," said Jim, "though he is paying his debts. But Dick certainly is getting to be a conceited duffer. The ayes," he sighed, "seem to have it. The next question is ways and means. Old Bixby's method in St. X looks good to me. A conditional ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... that to deny you must necessarily be accused and to be accused of stealing would of course cause me to bid Prex. good-by, so the only way was, taking these two considerations with each other, to deny nothing but let the good-natured old duffer see how silly it was by retaining a placid silence and so crushing his base but ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... put up with my poor game, I should enjoy playing immensely. But," she added smiling confidently and regarding him with her large, steady brown eyes, "I don't intend to remain a duffer at it long. I see," she continued after a moment, "from your expression, Mr. Randall, that you doubt this. I could tell from the corners ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... had not even wished to learn how the cabinet was to be constructed. "All those figures gave her a headache," she declared. For another, when early in the winter he had owned himself at a deadlock, she had sneered at him as a duffer who was unable to fulfil his boasts. Old Bourjac never forgot that—his reputation was very dear to him—he did not speak to her ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... Do as you're told. And don't look at me like that, you old duffer. It's a mean advantage to take of a sick man. Steady now, steady! Go slow! You mustn't slam a creaking gate. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... of asking me when you measured it yourself, you duffer? Didn't you tell me yourself it was seven feet two to ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... bore an uneasy resemblance to Colihan's own think-machine. Wilson, the oldest employee of General Products, had been the operator of the maintenance Brain. He had been a nice old duffer, Wilson, always ready to do Colihan a favor. Now that he had been swept out in Colihan's own purge, the Personnel Manager had to deal with a ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... thing; another reason was that it would not have paid me to have left my station for the sake of a few hundred pounds' worth of gold, and thirdly, although I know a little about alluvial mining, I don't know anything about reefing—wouldn't know a gold-bearing reef from a rank duffer, unless I saw the gold sticking up in it in lumps. And there are several parties of prospectors up in Cape York Peninsula now, and some of them are sure to make their way to the Batavia River country in the course of time. If any come to ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... been always on the watch to take him down a peg when he was pleased with himself—to hold him cheap and overpraise some duffer in his hearing—so that I might save my own self-esteem; to pay him bad little left-handed compliments, him and his, whenever I was out of humor; and I should have been always out of ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... "What a duffer I am to be sure!" I said to myself. "If I begin to get notions like this in my head there is no knowing where I may end. As if any girl would ever ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... us once before. It was you she wanted, not me. Why didn't you go, you duffer? I only ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... they are not all exactly like Levick," said Philip, who was a little ashamed of himself for having frightened his little brother; "but I was only joking when I said that about the policeman in Borsham, Dan. What a little duffer you are!" ...
— The Gap in the Fence • Frederica J. Turle
... hostile eye have been regarded as slightly double. For the rest I was strong and fairly well—not much inclined to exercise, to be sure, but able, if occasion offered, to wield a tennis racket or a driver with a vigor and accuracy that placed me well out of the duffer class. ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... he might have gone safely by the path, for one bullock was saying to another: "There's that little duffer going all that long way out of his course just for fear of us. What do you say to trotting down to the gate and giving him ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... telegram. "Bust my bob-stay!" he murmured. "The dirty old assassin! The slimy old pile-worm! The blessed old duffer! After treating us like dogs for a year and a half he gives me the ship, sets you down for a two year apprenticeship in steam and says he's going to build you a four-million-foot freighter! The scoundrelly old renegade! Why, say, Matt, Cappy's been spilling the acid all ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... I get into a chest, you may depend I shall know how to get out of it. That girl in the poem was a duffer for not having made more row; and her lover was a beastly sneak for not ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... young duffer!" he said. "What have you been doing with your pocket money, eh? Been buying ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... across the head of the herd, "yer could slap that old duffer across the face with your hat, and ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... "Only in a translation." Yet there was a certain falseness in his humility, for he was proud of having read the work. What sort of a duffer would he have appeared had he been ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... "Why, you duffer, of course he could get out any time he liked. It's only a latch on the door; any one can open it from inside. He could easily get down to the river in the night, and have a tub, and fetch ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... Offitt, consulting his memory. "Let me see. I took supper about seven at Duffer's; I went to Glauber's drug-store next and got a glass of soda water; if they don't know me, they'll remember my breaking a glass; then I made a visit at Mr. Matchin's on Dean Street; then I went to the Orleans theatre; I come out between the acts and got ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... what, though, you could not buy that for less than thirty pounds at any shop in London. Could she, my little duck? Never mind, it is no brighter than her eyes. Now do you know what she will do with that, Master Christie? She will give it to some duffer to put ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... to horses generally. The riding capacities of the Australians are well known. Nearly every one born in the colonies learns to ride as a boy, and not to be able to ride is to write yourself down a duffer. Horseflesh is so marvelously cheap, that it is not taken so much care of as at home. In outward appearance, the Australian horse has not so much to recommend him as a rule, but his powers of endurance rival those fabled of the Arabian. ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... "Well, you duffer, are you going to do your share? You're not O'Roon, but it seems to me if you'd lean to the right you could reach the reins of that foolish slow-running bay—ah! you're all right; O'Roon couldn't have done it ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... palpably eligible, I believe thoroughly that no sane woman has ever actually muffed a chance. Now and then, perhaps, a miraculously fortunate girl has two victims on the mat simultaneously, and has to lose one. But they are seldom, if ever, both good chances; one is nearly always a duffer, thrown in in the telling to ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... you to, you little duffer. But the kids used to call you 'colonel,' and now he keeps crying for you. Perhaps if you order him to take ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... stroke of a piston or the crunch of a paddle-wheel or a pound of steam. Nothing but grit and man-muscle to drag them a small matter of two or three thousand miles up the current of the most eccentric old duffer of a river in ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... anxious to have an all-day sailing party to-morrow. And I thought perhaps you and your friends and chaperon would go with us? There is an old fellow over here who takes people out sailing, and I am anxious to have a talk with him. Don't think I am such a duffer that I can't sail a boat myself, but my mother is so nervous about the water that I take a professional sailor along to keep her from worrying. She has had a great deal to make her nervous," Tom ended. "I wonder if you and your friends ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... I've nicknamed "Stewey") remembered that there was a ball going on, and that he was the host. So he and the other duffer pottered away, leaving the coast clear and the door wide open. It was just my luck (which is always bad and always has been) that a pair of flirting idiots, for whom the conservatory, or our "den," or the stairs, wasn't secluded enough, must needs be prying about and spy that open door ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... saw me too, and they got me; they peppered me till I fell; And there I scribbled my message with my life-blood ebbing away; "Now, Billy, you fat old duffer, you've got to get back like hell; And get them to cancel that order before ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... that they had pitched in as one of the foremen some fellow or other, a friend of the firm's, a rank duffer, who pestered me incessantly with his questions. I did half his work and all my own, and it hadn't improved my temper much. On this night that I'm telling about, he'd been playing the fool with his questions as if a time-contract ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions |
