"Duffer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... considered an interminable bore, the game of 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 you call that a grand game, running about ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... 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 ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... got to our hiding-place when one of my comrades was shot dead; shortly after, my other comrade 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 ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... I’m glad to get here. I‘ve been dining with a stupid old 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 “Renan!” ’ ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... had grown worthy of you, I might come to you and say—two and two are four—let us go into partnership. But then, you see," he went on briskly, "the odds are I may never even have two thousand. Perhaps I'm as much a duffer in music as in other things. Perhaps you'll be the only person in the world who has ever heard my music, for no one will print it, Mary Ann. Perhaps I shall be that very common thing—a complete failure—and be worse off than even you ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... 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
... him. The dozen yards which separated us was one solid tangle of scrub-bushes interwoven with brambles. It would have taken at least forty seconds to tear through them, and in that time he could most assuredly snap off all six chambers, however big a duffer he might be. This would bring up some of the country people without fail; and besides, out of the six, he might fluke one shot into me. About that last possibility I didn't trouble my head much, as it was remote; but the ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... of one, a little duffer with a white goatee and thick lensed spectacles, wearing boots, chaps and ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... will 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 of ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... 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 was ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... black going over it but not too 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
... Grigsby severely, "you are a duffer. I see the solution at a glance. Here you are! These two jump on their ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... fine woman," continued Brady, "and a fine-looking one too, as Dr. Cricket will testify, for on my soul I think the old duffer wants to ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... a half of their first week on the field Burton and Done cleared close upon seven hundred pounds. By the end of the second week they had worked out their first mine, and Jim possessed eight hundred pounds. They tried another claim, and bottomed on the pipeclay. The hole was a duffer. They tried a third, and cut the wash once more. This claim was not nearly so rich as their first, but rich enough to pay handsomely, and Mike, young as he was, was too old a miner to abandon a good claim on the chance of finding a better. By this time Jim was feeling himself quite ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... and took out his cigarettes. "What do you take me for, you old duffer? Think I should commit myself at this stage? An old hand ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... oh good! 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
... said I was a scoffer, and would go to Gehenna. Now I don't want to go to Gehenna just for wanting to get posted in the show business of old times, do you? When Pa said Dan was saved from the jaws of the lions because he prayed three times every day, and had faith, I told him that was just what the duffer that goes into the lions den in Coup's circus did because I saw him in the dressing room, when me and my chum got in for carrying water for the elephant, and he was exhorting with a girl in tights who was going to ride two horses. Pa said I was mistaken, cause they ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... answered that she had probably gone back to England. Philip was relieved. He was profoundly bored by her ill-temper. Moreover she insisted on advising him about his work, looked upon it as a slight when he did not follow her precepts, and would not understand that he felt himself no longer the duffer he had been at first. Soon he forgot all about her. He was working in oils now and he was full of enthusiasm. He hoped to have something done of sufficient importance to send to the following year's Salon. Lawson was painting ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... he, "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 be delighted to try ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Horn. Madge has told us all about you. Excuse my rig—we 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 down ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... court-house paced he, followed stealthily By Bengal Mike, who jeered him every step: "Come, elephant, and fight! Come, hog-eyed coward! Come, face about and fight me, lumbering sneak! Come, beefy bully, hit me, if you can! Take out your gun, you duffer, give me reason To draw and kill you. Take your billy out. I'll crack your boar's head with a piece of brick!" But never a word the hog-eyed one returned But trod about the court-house, followed both ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... 'Poor old duffer,' said his lordship. 'If he's doing so well, I think Miles ought to be made to pay up something of what he owes. I think we ought to tell him that we shall expect him to have the money ready when that bill of ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... 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
... hamstrung than stoop to the tricks in vogue with regard to the weighing of gold-dust: the greased scales, the wet sponge, false beams, and so on. Accordingly, he had a clearer conscience than the majority and a lighter till. But even at the legitimate ABC of business he had proved a duffer. He had never, for instance, learned to be a really skilled hand at stocking a shop. Was an out-of-the-way article called for, ten to one he had run short of it; and the born shopman's knack of palming off or persuading ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... big, black one! You simply ignored me for half an hour, while you jabbered to that duffer on the other ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... 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 whom the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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 it's the dawn ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... 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 a warnin' from my young man that was the kind of goin's on they 'ad here. But ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "Old duffer! you are one thing to-day, and another thing to-morrow: there's no knowing how to tyke you. You're such a sinful old 'ypocrite, that you play-act before yourself, I do believe. What is it you do mean? You myke anyone sick of you; your incense and your burnt sacrifices ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... consult his own honor. As a 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 ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... awed. He had a great respect for Fallacy Street. "Oh, they won't have any room for me," said Harry, laughing. "I'm an awfully stupid old duffer. I haven't read anything at all, except a bit of Kipling—'Barrack-room Ballads'—seems a waste of ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... idea who the poor old duffer is myself. They've put me in as caretaker—an excellent arrangement: ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... 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
... part," 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 ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... meant you to do, Buzz, you duffer. I said good-bye to twenty-two of my friends this way the day I set sail from old Heidelberg," and as he spoke, that great and beautiful and exalted Gouverneur Faulkner did bend his head to mine and give to me the correct comrade salute ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... 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 ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... who 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 on ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... 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
... party at Scares Creek), I suggested that we should go there and spell for a few days. So there we went and C——— made us heartily welcome; and he also told us that the new rush on the Don River had turned out a "rank duffer," and that we would only be wearing ourselves and our horse-flesh out by going there. He pressed us to stay for a week at least, and as we now had no fixed plans for the future we were glad to do so. He was expecting a party of visitors from Charters ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... course 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
... night only 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, ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... 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 ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... Vane with a joyous thump on the shoulder-blade. "I say, old man, Miss Harding has turned out to be the most fearful doubting Thomas—thinks the whole scheme quite mad and all that sort of thing. I'm far too great a duffer to convert her, but perhaps you might, don't ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... 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 that he came in ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... 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 parting ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... Hampstead had come down in 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 ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... from the megaphone asked for me, and when I requested the name of 'the party speaking,' as Clarke says, it replied with an oily chuckle, exactly like the old duffer, 'It's ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... a few days after we left New York, and wrote to his friends to get his discharge," said "Bill." "Got it and quit two weeks after we left New York, the duffer," added "Hay." ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... man and the jockey had made a sneak from the grounds when Ted was having his fun with the big fellow, and I got my bronc and followed them. I came up with them a ways back, and made the old duffer halt, but the jock potted me and got away. ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... endless appeared the tail, On the brown hill-side, where we cross'd the road, And headed towards the vale. The dark-brown steed on the left was there, On the right was a dappled grey, And between the pair, on a chestnut mare, The duffer who writes this lay. What business had "this child" there to ride? But little or none at all; Yet I held my own for a while in "the pride That goeth before a fall." Though rashness can hope for but one result, We are heedless when fate draws nigh us, And the ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... the question," protests J. Meredith, blushin' deep. "Really I—I've never thought of marrying anyone. Why, how could I? And besides I shouldn't know how to go about it,—proposing, and all that. Oh, I couldn't! You—you can't understand. I'm such a duffer at most things." ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... 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 ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Phil said regretfully. He had been "a regular duffer" at climbing at school, and the bigger boys had often dragged him up a fairly tall tree and left him there, clinging helplessly to the boughs, until they were tired of jeering at him. He shivered now as he thought of it; then squared his shoulders. His ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... here bloomin' 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' high-lows. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... ear-drums. "If she sold in a year all the pretty little pictures she paints it would barely pay for her gowns. No, that won't do. But," and a new note crept into Penfield's voice, "did you see that old duffer who was with her? That's where she shows her discretion. He is kept very much in the background. It is only occasionally that ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... "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 ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... prayer is that I may be able to stand it all, and not get soured in temper and feeling against the Mongols. I must have patience. Some knowledge of camel's flesh also would help me not a little. As it stands, I feel an incompetent "duffer."' ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... justification. My mediumship, I can assure you, 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 the world." ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... me. It was not the letter of a duffer or a swindler—the sort of thing you can tell by its ornate pompousness; and it just caught me when I was somewhat bored by things, so that I rather welcomed it as an excitement. I expected to find you lodging in some miserable cottage—a Chatterton ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... 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 a certainty." ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... 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 be stroke ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Is bending and testing The wood for the wheel-rims. One piece does not please him; He takes up another And bends it with effort; 240 It suddenly straightens, And whack!—strikes his forehead. The man begins roaring, Abusing the bully, The duffer, the block-head. Another comes driving A cart full of wood-ware, As tipsy as can be; He turns it all over! The axle is broken, 250 And, trying to mend it, He smashes ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... earth has become of that duffer?" said Tom Holtum, when the Laulie arrived at the geo and no Yaspard appeared either ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... 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
... seen us once before. It was you she wanted, not me. Why didn't you go, you duffer? I only came in a ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... 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 wasn't rather wise! ...
— Options • O. Henry
... are called. Now and then the cry comes in a way that makes him feel he is acquitting himself well. But sometimes it sends a cold shiver down his back; the speaker might just as well have added the word "Duffer!" — there is no mistaking his tone. It is no easy matter to go straight on a surface without landmarks. Imagine an immense plain that you have to cross in thick fog; it is dead calm, and the snow lies evenly, without ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... instance, we may go on for days without having to touch a sail. Well, we will begin at once. We won't go aloft till you have got your togs; a fellow going aloft in landsmen's clothes always looks rather a duffer. Now, let us see what you ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... 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
... brought stillness, chagrin. "What a bothering old duffer he is, that dean!" uttered Bywater. "He is always turning ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... always manage to find out such things?" remarked the other, reflectively. "By Jove!" he added, "Hester is the name of that major duffer whose message to Sir Jeffry caused my delay; I wonder ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... golf himself, but he consented to walk over the course and watch the representative's strokes. The representative was rather a duffer. Teeing off, he sent clouds of earth flying in all directions. Then, to hide his confusion he said to his guest: "What do you think of our links here, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... to 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. ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... 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 at the business. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... time the chairman said to I, "So you be here again, Oby; we hear a good deal about you." I says, "Yes, my lard, I be here agen, but people never don't hear nothing about you." That shut the old duffer up. Nobody never heard nothing of ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... in words meant for his fellows, but in tones that went farther. "There'll be conflict of authority now or I'm a duffer!" ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... Moxon has coached him well: I sent him to poor Moxon. He wanted to read with me, but—you understand—I could not exactly receive him while Lord Rafferty and Mr. Duffer are in my house. So I sent him to poor Moxon, who is glad of a pupil when ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... it impressed upon me that I am such a duffer," Captain Jones began, a little haughtily, "I naturally hesitate to make many inquiries, but I cannot quite get it through my stupid and impossible head just why 'Ann' is hidden away in this ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... and what the officer didn't say to Hambone for trotting, which was a violation of orders, would not be worth repeating. He bellowed at him to go and search for it, and with wicked delight we watched the duffer going back over the route, peering from side to side of the ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... you old conservative slow-poking duffer!" cried Dick. "This is the land to wake you ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... 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
... 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
... 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. A grass-fed ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... "Oh, I had forgotten that! Ridiculous, wasn't it? No, I mean your kindness in giving so many hours to teaching a perfect duffer. Well, now I've seen you and said what I had to say, I ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... the first time, I got an inkling of who and what he is. I saw him performing an operation upon a horse, in the yard of a livery stable. He is a VETERINARY SURGEON! He consorts with BUTCHERS! Put that and that together, Mr. PUNCHINELLO, and see what you can make of it. And the duffer always eats mutton, too, or fish. I never yet heard him call for beef. He knows all about nag, and likes it alive, but he is not to be nagged into eating it. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... round 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 the old gentleman's pen went scribbling on ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... there, you old duffer," said he, looking at me in a stupid, expressionless sort of a way, "you are not hurt yet. I'll give you something to cry about if you don't quit making such a fuss over nothing. You're the biggest baby I ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... Bring your dunnage into the first mate's room and take his place. Put his dunnage into the second mate's room, and make that duffer in the scuppers bundle his traps into the forecastle. I want no weaklings aft ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... as the Tenor had accomplished his mandate, his good humour returned, and he began to beam again. "What a duffer you are!" he said, taking the lid off the dish he held in his hand. "You have no imagination. You never lifted a dish cover. Why, I've found a dozen eggs—fresh, for I broke one into a cup to see; and here are a whole lot of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Had it 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 ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... I say No matter where you stray, You will never be impounded any more; For you’re running, running, running on the duffer’s piece of land, Free selected on ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... 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
... Pole, with nothing in the world but a carpet bag, a few bundles, and a small showing of money. Ambition is written all over his face and he is admitted. 'Now,' says the recorder, pausing for a moment, 'see the difference between these two gents. The first duffer will look around for a job, spend time and money to get something to suit him, and keep his job for a short time; then he will give it up, run through his money, borrow from his friends, and then give them all the cold hand. He won't wear well, and his dad knew it when he sent him over, ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... 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
... man 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
... in their courses, The rattle of rain on the roofs Recalled the fierce rush of the horses, The thunder of galloping hoofs. And soon one broke out: 'I can suffer No longer the life of a slug, The man that don't race is a duffer, Let's have one more run ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... pretences. He had no business to look so sound. I thought to myself—well, if this sort can go wrong like that . . . and I felt as though I could fling down my hat and dance on it from sheer mortification, as I once saw the skipper of an Italian barque do because his duffer of a mate got into a mess with his anchors when making a flying moor in a roadstead full of ships. I asked myself, seeing him there apparently so much at ease—is he silly? is he callous? He seemed ready to start whistling ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... 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 quite ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... beginning, Mary," said the man. "Of course I don't pretend to have cared much at first, but now!—why he's so handsome, and quick, and such a good little duffer; and so affectionate! When he gives a jump and gets his arms around my neck and his legs around my waist and 'hugs me all over' as he calls it, I almost feel as if I was a mother! I can't say more than that, ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... 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
... us 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 ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... and handed the mate the telegram, "what in the world do you suppose the old duffer ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... the least; take your time. Let me see what the tickets look like. That 's all right—say, Masters, before you go, do you know that big duffer with a black beard in ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... "and if you notice the old duffer you can see that he's showing more animation than he's exhibited this hour back. It ain't that Curley's been using the whip either, for that don't hurt Dobbin any, his hide is so thick. He smells water in the air, ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... 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
... were tars; Told them to "Coil that rope and clean the scuppers, And then go down below and get your suppers." This must be changed, or my good name will suffer, And folks will say, JIM FISK is but a duffer. To feel myself a fool and lose my head, Too, takes the gilding off the gingerbread; And makes me ask myself the reason why On earth I have so many fish to fry? The fact is, what I touch must have a risk Of failure, or it wouldn't ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • 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 of queer. It struck me then it was sort of mysterious. Just ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... easy to show the possibility that many a duffer was led toward the production of the homunculus by erroneous interpretation of the procreation symbolism occurring in the alchemistic writings. It was merely necessary, in their limitations, to take literally one or another of the methods. In this way there actually ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... 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 ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... 'ere Kaiser's a slob, And 'is word isn't worth 'arf a bob, (If I lets Belgium suffer, I'm a blank bloomin' duffer) So 'ere goes for a ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... — 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 weather sailor; horse marine; fish ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... piece of plum-cake. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall not detain you with a speech (loud cheers from all, and 'Jolly good job!' from Bramble). I shall go on speaking just as long as I choose, Bramble, so now! (Cheers.) I've as much right to speak as you have. (Applause.) You're only a stuck-up duffer. (Terrific cheers, and a fight down at the end of the table.) I beg to drink the health of the Guinea-pigs. (Loud Guinea-pig cheers.) We licked the old Tadpoles in the match. ('No you didn't!' 'That's ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... again. "I'll go t'ump hell outa deh mug what did her deh harm. I'll kill 'im! He t'inks he kin scrap, but when he gits me a-chasin' 'im he'll fin' out where he's wrong, deh damned duffer. I'll wipe up deh street ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... generally 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 contradictions or not? If I ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... in his brother's eyes. He smiled weakly, the anger gone. "Same old blind duffer you always were. I wrote an answer to her letter. In that letter I told her . . . ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... ashamed of himself. To be "sech a duffer" as to return that money, when by means of a little strategy he might have kept it, made him feel both humiliated and indignant. A hundred and forty dollars; When would he have a chance to get such a windfall again? Pah! he was a fool—to copy his identical thoughts: ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... At least you can help me to get well. To the devil with the doctors! I'm tired, too, of all the sycophants, liars and fools who hang around. I didn't mind 'em when I was well. But they get on my nerves now. The doctors kept dinning into my ears that I've got to rest and play and finally one old duffer over in France put an idea into my head that brought me back home to see you. He told me to get on a small boat with a single nurse and a congenial friend, get away from land, cut every telephone and telegraph line, get no mail, and shoot ducks all winter and he'd guarantee ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... 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 gentlemen, but I should imagine that where men hold honour to be more precious than ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... 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 ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... 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 ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... 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 ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... on a pedestal. They think that they lose dignity if they are not able to answer every question that a child puts to them. One result is that the child develops a dangerous inferiority complex. I knew one boy who was a duffer at mathematics. His weakness was due to the inferiority he felt when he saw the learned mathematical master juggle with figures as easily as a conjurer juggles with billiard balls. The little chap lost ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... "Cautious old duffer!" he said. "Well, tell me this! I've no right to ask it. Only somehow I've got to know. You ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... before I'm a day older to have it out with her. I'll find out where the smoke came from and I'll know where that eye went to." He sighed without knowing it. "By Jove, I'd like to do something to show her I'm not the blooming duffer she thinks I am." ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... dog trying to be a Pomeranian—the dog Balthasar between whom and old Jolyon primal aversion had changed into attachment with the years. Close to his chair was a swing, and on the swing was seated one of Holly's dolls—called 'Duffer Alice'—with her body fallen over her legs and her doleful nose buried in a black petticoat. She was never out of disgrace, so it did not matter to her how she sat. Below the oak tree the lawn dipped down a bank, stretched to the fernery, and, beyond that refinement, became fields, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... felt such 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 said, 'Do ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... causes, and being detected, he put a bold face on it, stepped on the deck and slammed the door behind him. Lady Victoria was somewhat surprised to see him tread the slippery deck with perfect confidence and ease, for she thought he was something of a "duffer." But Barker knew how to do most things more or less, and he managed to bow and take off his sou'wester with considerable grace in spite of the rolling. Having obtained permission to smoke, he lighted a cigar, crooked one booted leg through ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... his wit perhaps?" cried Jock. "Oh, what things girls are! Laugh at what a duffer like that, an ass, a fellow that has not ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... "The Amateur Angler," and represents 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
... mother. If 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 ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... as 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 humble slave ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... 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
... 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
... that duffer, Dominie Graves, myself," answered Longman. The speaker turned a serious face to the third member of the party. "Ner ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... duffer! But suppose Hooker and Jo or some of that bunch should stumble onto him, Al! Was ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... 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
... interested no more but thet tha' ole Dopped ganger, the Wild Hunter, the spooky old critter, has been seen agin. i wuz on the top of the painted Butte yesterday squinten one i in the valley look'n for elk and look'n up with tother i for Big horn on the mountain, when i staged the old duffer snoop'en along in one of the parks an' he had the same long hair and long rifle he uster have. He sure is a ghost or else he's a nut or an old timer gone locoed. He sends the chills down my backbone every time i sots my ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... honestly. He's right here, or I would," answered Ned in a low voice, as he drew his friend's soft hat forward and turned down the brim. "You're all right; and, besides, he's such an old duffer that he won't notice anything. He won't stay here, any way; he comes to see cousin Euphemia, and help her out when she gets in a tight place with Wang Kum. Wang's been cutting church lately, and most likely the doctor's come to see ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... 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 ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... not afraid of anything, you little duffer. She can tell all about it to the whole house if she likes," he said, and turning on his ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... is rather too generous an allowance of bread and stuff per man, and there is a very fierce but not very efficient system of weighing and checking. A rather too generous allowance is, of course, a direct incentive to waste or stealing—as any one but our silly old duffer of a War Office would know. The checking is for quantity, which any fool can understand, rather than for quality. The test for the quality of army meat is the smell. If it doesn't smell bad, it ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... always treat a deficiency as if it were a gift. The G.E. was apparently a duffer at arithmetic, but she tells you so in a way that makes you admire her for it. All the same I wish I had been one of those factory-girls that she used to reclaim in their dinner-hour; I am fundamentally honest, but I never ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... that in my long term of service with the Honourable George, beginning almost from the time my mother nursed him, I have endeavoured to keep him up to his class, combating a certain laxness that has hampered him. And most stubborn he is, and wilful. At games he is almost quite a duffer. I once got him to play outside left on a hockey eleven and he excited much comment, some of which was of a favourable nature, but he cares little for hunting or shooting and, though it is scarce a matter to be gossiped of, he loathes cricket. Perhaps I have disclosed enough ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... "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 ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... all that the client has. Indeed, there 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 ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... "Thorough old duffer, you mean. Look at him. What with his gold spangles and his talking to Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys, he's as proud as a cock on ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
