"Booby" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was closed, so I did not fear the inmates would observe me entering the cabin. The break of the poop seemed clear of life. I scuttled on my hands and knees until I was past the booby-hatch; then I arose to my feet and flitted noiselessly to the cabin door. I opened it just wide enough to admit my body, and stepped ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... and gave many a man a lift on the road to happiness, may he help him, if the revengeful painters whom he hastened to get to his Pyramid break his neck! But who'll sing the bass of my canzonas now? And this booby, Pitichinaccio, is squeezing my throat so, that, adding in the fright caused by Splendiano's abduction, I fear I shall not be able to produce a pure note for perhaps six weeks to come. Don't be alarmed, my Marianna, my darling! It's all ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the angling clubs which encourage prize-taking offer booby consolations for the smallest fish, but I have known exceptions, especially at the holiday competitions by the seaside. The biggest fish are another matter altogether. Sooner or later the world is bound to hear of them. And who dare say us nay? That man was not a fool who ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... return to Paris to avoid being present at the great fete in honour of the peace. I know no sensation more painful than these public rejoicings in which the heart refuses to participate. We feel a sort of contempt for this booby people which comes to celebrate the yoke preparing for it: these dull victims dancing before the palace of their sacrificer: this first consul designated the father of the nation which he was about to devour: this mixture of stupidity ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... besides, instead of a help. I need not say much to you; you, at least, understand me. It was a mistake to go away as I did, and I bring back all I carried away, with the result of some reflection. I can do as much here as anywhere. I hoped I could do something for you, and I, poor unweaned baby and booby, can do better for myself ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... he cried excitedly, slapping the paper with one, hand, while he crumpled it up with the other. "They've made him lieutinant-gineral! The demndest booby in the regiment, sir! A fellow who's seen no service and never heard a shot fired in anger. They promoted him on the stringth of a sham fight, bedad! He commanded a definding force operating along the Thames and opposing an ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... granted, your will, of course, directed everything. At a time when I should have been in London taking wise counsel and calmly considering the hideous trap in which I had allowed myself to be caught—the booby trap, as your father calls it to the present day—you insisted on my taking you to Monte Carlo, of all revolting places on God's earth, that all day and all night as well, you might gamble as long ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... is taken by one of the most feeble noblemen in Great Britain, between persecution and the deprivation of political power; whereas there is no more distinction between these two things than there is between him who makes the distinction and a booby. If I strip off the relic-covered jacket of a Catholic and give him twenty stripes, I persecute. If I say, 'Everybody in the town where you live shall be a candidate for lucrative and honourable offices but you, who are a Catholic,' I do not persecute! ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... you booby. Cornichon! Where did you find it? Let me see it—at once." All fire and imperiousness, she held out grasping fingers. He shook. And then carefully he drew from the inside pocket of his coat, the purse. She snatched it. Yes—it was her purse. And yet there was something strange about ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... and Mowbray, and Tourville, likewise prepare themselves. I have a great mind to contrive a method to send James Harlowe to travel for improvement. Never was there a booby 'squire that more wanted it. Contrive it, did I say? I have already contrived it; could I but put it in execution without being suspected to have a hand in it. This I am resolved upon; if I have not his sister, I will ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... been here, sir," he said. "Something to tell you. Wouldn't tell me. But Bruno got it out of him at last. Must be something serious, for the big booby has been drinking ever since. Hear him in the cafe, sir. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... but we refused to stir till we were ready, and some of our company called him a damned lobster backed ——, for wishing to drive us away before every one had his drink. The man was perplexed, and knew not what to do. At last the booby did what he ought to have done at first—forced the beer-seller to drive off his cart. But it is the fate of British officers of higher rank than this one, to think and act at last of that which they ought to have thought, and acted upon at first. They are no match for the yankees, in contrivance, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... me." The words came with a gasp. I was never so hard put to it—not when I first realised that I had been seen with my fingers on Adelaide's throat. Arthur! A booby and a boor, but certainly not the slayer of his sister, unless I had been woefully mistaken in all that had taken place in that club-house previous to my entrance into it on that fatal night. As I caught Clifton's eye fixed upon me, I repeated—though ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... The poor Booby frightned out of his Wits, jumped out of Bed, and, in his Shirt, sat down by my Bed-Side, pale and trembling, for the Moon shone, and I kept my Eyes wide open, and pretended to fix them in my Head. Mrs. Jervis apply'd Lavender Water, and Hartshorn, and this, ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... done without the knowledge of Mrs Bargrove. Agnes and Lucy then change situations; and I with that cub, Peter Bargrove. Very pleasant indeed! the former is not of much consequence but to be jostled out of my supposed birthright by a booby! ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... She was much moved, and began to cry at the thought that his first visit was not to her. A moment later, while she was still agitated, she saw the Emperor burst into her room, holding the young Prince by the hand, and pushing him forward as he exclaimed: "Here, Madame, is your great booby of a son whom I'm bringing to you." Josephine burst into tears, and pressed her ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... granted to have excelled his master; for once both heroes are described lamenting their lost loves: Briseis was taken away by force from the Grecians, Creusa was lost for ever to her husband. But Achilles went roaring along the salt sea-shore, and, like a booby, was complaining to his mother when he should have revenged his injury by arms: AEneas took a nobler course; for, having secured his father and his son, he repeated all his former dangers to have found his wife, if she had been above ground. And here your lordship may observe ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... release the muslin prisoner. "Rusticity becomes you so that if I were a king, you should dance with me the livelong day. But I'll not grumble if only you'll dance with me as soon as the candles are lit! Last night you were all for that booby, Ned Hunter!" ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... the pest and terror of the yard, His full-fledg'd progeny's imperious guard; The GANDER;... spiteful, insolent, and bold, At the colt's footlock takes his daring hold: There, serpent-like, escapes a dreadful blow; And straight attacks a poor defenceless cow: Each booby goose th' unworthy strife enjoys, And hails his prowess with redoubled noise. Then back he stalks, of self-importance full, Seizes the shaggy foretop of the bull, Till whirl'd aloft he falls; a timely check, Enough to dislocate his worthless neck: For lo! of old, he boasts ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... the four judges of the Audience in a manner more concise than complimentary, - a boy, a madman, a booby, and a dunce! "Decia muchas veces Blasco Nunez, que le havian dado el Emperador, i su Consejo de Indias vn Moco, un Loco, un Necio, vn Tonto por Oidores, que asi lo havian hecho como ellos eran. Moco era Cepeda, i llamaba Loco a Juan Alvarez, i Necio a Tejada, que no sabia Latin." Gomara, Hist. de ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... of those young scamps perhaps Who love to rig their bogus bogies, And set their artful booby-traps For over-unsuspicious fogies? Or haply, only commonplace— A plodding sort of good apprentice, Who does his master's will with grace, And hurries meekly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... N. fool, idiot, tomfool, wiseacre, simpleton, witling[obs3], dizzard[obs3], donkey, ass; ninny, ninnyhammer[obs3]; chowderhead[obs3], chucklehead[obs3]; dolt, booby, Tom Noddy, looby[obs3], hoddy-doddy[obs3], noddy, nonny, noodle, nizy[obs3], owl; goose, goosecap[obs3]; imbecile; gaby[obs3]; radoteur[obs3], nincompoop, badaud[obs3], zany; trifler, babbler; pretty fellow; natural, niais[obs3]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... "That booby!" the oldest brother would say whenever he saw Janko. And the second would snicker and repeat the ugly ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... No, personally he could not plead guilty of acquaintance with any of the above disqualifications. Among the archives of his past Ashcroft history he found some tell-tale manuscripts, the contents of which had never appealed to him until after the booby prize episode. In plain English, he found written facts which were as bold as the violation of Belgian neutrality. Incidents which had seemed very commonplace and unworthy of notice before, now loomed up on those pages and presented ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... the conceited, booby lord, and rejected lover of Imogen, though not very agreeable in itself, and at present obsolete, is drawn with much humour and quaint extravagance. The description which Imogen gives of his unwelcome addresses to her—"Whose love-suit ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... of running on a reef near Booby Island, from which they were only saved by letting go the anchors with all sails set, they left the difficulties of the New Holland coast behind and sighted New Guinea ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... head out of the companion-way, looks at the cloud, comes up, and begins to walk the deck. The cloud spreads and comes on; the tub of yarns, the sail, and other matters, are thrown below, and the sky-light and booby-hatch put on, and the slide drawn over the forecastle. "Stand by the royal halyards''; and the man at the wheel keeps a good weather helm, so as not to be taken aback. The squall strikes her. If it is light, the royal yards are clewed down, and the ship keeps on her way; but if the squall takes ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... ability, he could not make me love him. I'm not a child. I saw through him in the first hour. There's not enough in him to win my love. I'll show him I think no more of him than of the caterpillars on the old tree there. I'm not a booby that will fall in love with every gussie I see. Bah, there's no fear of that! I hate and ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Sophora podded Acacia or Booby-aloe. This species forms a large shrub on the sand-hills of ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... disorderly parade of stars went by above him. He pantingly waited fresh attack. He felt something—and it was the object Taine had meant to offer as a return present to the Plumies. It was unquestionably explosive, either booby-trapped or timed to explode inside the Plumie ship. Now it rocked gently, gripped by the magnetism ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... bore up the way a man of his blood ought, but when he went out to the kennel to see Nita, his collie, he went to pieces somehow, and rolled on the grass with her in his arms and wept like a booby. But the remarkable part of it was that Nita wept too, big, hot dog tears which her master wiped away. When he went off she howled like a hungry baby, and had to be switched before she would give ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... muttered he. "Not so bad. Here's a little girl from a convent. She has a clever brain and a glib tongue, and under my tuition would be a perfect wonder. If this country booby does not make an open declaration at once, I wonder what her ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... do. You've almost hammered the doors off their hinges, you ... stupid. Didn't suppose we were supplied with doors at public expense, did you? What are you staring at me for, you ... booby? What are you after ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... to you and Ju—Mrs. Goring," replied Gordon, in a voice that rang with the pressure of clean, healthy lungs. "I want to do something. I'm infernally weary of this booby trap, playing hospital, and climbing trees to go to bed, and laying around like a pampered Sybarite. I'm coming out with you ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... never was caught out this way before in all your born days,' I says. She was fit to be tied. 'Laugh!' she says. 'You great booby!' 'Hat,' I says, 'I shall give up, I know I shall.' 'It's jest your ignorance,' she says. 'I know it,' I says, 'but I couldn't help it no more than if you had slid a knife into me.' And I out with another. 'Come down into ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... not deny that he has a handsome head; a sculptor might use it as a model. I will add that his eyes are very interesting, by turns grave, gentle, gay, or melancholy. I have nothing to say against his manners or his language; his address is excellent, and he is no booby—far from it. With all this there is something about him that shocks me—I scarcely know what—a mingling of two natures that I cannot explain. He might be said to resemble, according to circumstances, a lion or a fox; I believe that the fox-nature predominates, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... observation is that Grandison duplicates some of the principal characters in Clarissa: Charlotte Grandison is Anna Howe; her much-enduring husband Lord G— is Mr. Hickman (the writer expands G— to "Goosecap" on the model of Fielding's Mr. Booby); Pollexfen is Lovelace. This is self-evident, but may have been suggested by the conversation in which Harriet Byron calls Charlotte "a very Miss Howe," while Charlotte refers to Lord G— as "a very Mr. Hickman" (Grandison, 1754, II, 7-8). The Candid Examination, ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... still! now, well-a-day! A few cant phrases learned by rote, Each beardless booby spouts away, A Solon, in ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... up against the trees because they had no joints in their legs. The inhabitants, cunning fellows, sought out the favoured trees and sawed them nearly through; so that when the unfortunate elks settled themselves to sleep, the booby-traps came into operation. Having no joints in their legs, the poor beasts were unable to rise, and so became an easy prey to the savage Teuton. Herodotus, too, was somewhat credulous in the matter of animals; Sir John Mandeville was not always to be trusted; and even Bernard von Breydenbach, ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... "Thou booby says't thou nothing but Cuckoo? The robin and the wren can that outdo. They to us play thorough their little throats Not one, but sundry pretty tuneful notes. But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do Little but suck our eggs, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... red, "If the booby thinks my money grows on every bush!... On top of the fact that my Indians are beginning to haggle over payments!" Fuming, and disregarding the excuses of Padre Irene, who tried to explain while he rubbed the tip ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... afternoon. A friend in Boston had written her about it, and, proud to be the first to introduce it in Shannondale, she stood, flushed and triumphant, with the restored diamonds in her ears and at her throat, laughing merrily with the others at Judge St. Claire, who had won the booby prize—a little drum, as something he could beat—and who, with a perplexed look in his face, was staring at the thing as if he did ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... Liverpool, and that they did not appear inclined to be at all intimate with the rest of the crew. This roused my suspicions, although I said nothing; but I watched them very closely. One forenoon, as I was standing at the foot of the companion-ladder, concealed by the booby-hatch from the sight of those on deck, I heard our men talking over the side, and at last, as I remained concealed, that I might overhear the conversation, one of the slaver's men from the boat said, "To-night, at eight ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... Cunningham visits Mount Cook. Leave Endeavour River, and visit Lizard Island. Cape Flinders and Pelican Island. Entangled in the reefs. Haggerston's Island, Sunday Island, and Cairncross Island. Cutter springs a leak. Pass round Cape York. Endeavour Strait. Anchor under Booby Island. Remarks upon the Inner and Outer routes through ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... in Highbury or Cranford there might be scandal about a young bachelor's very late visits to a pretty widow. But the adult portion of the population, at any rate, would hardly lay booby-traps to trip him in a river ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Horn, his white mate, and his fifteen black boat's crew as much as they could handle. She was sixty feet over all, and the cross beams of her crown deck had not been weakened by deck-houses. The only breaks—and no beams had been cut for them—were the main cabin skylight and companionway, the booby hatch for'ard over the tiny forecastle, and the small hatch aft that let down ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... contemplation of those orgies of priestly brutality which have made the very name of this place redolent with a fragrance of scorched Christians, that we naturally assign it an immemorial antiquity. But a glance at the booby face of Philip III. on his round-bellied charger in the centre of the square will remind us that this place was built at the same time the Mayflower's passengers were laying the massive foundations of the great Republic. The Autos-da-Fe, the plays of Lope de Vega, and ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... shorter the service, the higher the distinction. If you and the Prince live long enough, I shall see you carry a musketoon yet, and not one of the latest pattern, either. You will be promoted down, like a booby who has been raised by chance to the top of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... have been in waiting) half a dozen of the mutineers dashed through the doorway, and, before any of us could finger a weapon, we were in their grip. It was the simplest booby-trap that ever was laid, and yet it was prepared with consummate skill. He had come alone and unarmed; he had held us in converse; and when we had lost our sense of suspicion and precaution he had brought ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... the morning, and thereafter had a letter from that sage Privy Councillor and booby of a Baronet,——. This unutterable idiot proposes to me that I shall propose to the Dowager Duchess of ——, and offers his own right honourable intervention to bring so beautiful a business to bear. I am struck dumb with the assurance of his folly—absolutely mute ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... August the 23d, after leaving Booby Island, we steered W.N.W. with light airs from the S.S.W. till five o'clock, when it fell calm, and the tide of ebb soon after setting to the N.E., we came to an anchor in eight fathom water, with a soft sandy bottom. Booby Island bore ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... mystery play, with scenery consisting of the mouth of hell, painted red and surmounted by a blue paradise starred with gold. An angel came down to play at dice with the devil for souls. In his excess of zeal, the angel cheated and the devil grew angry and called him a "big booby, a celestial fowl," and threatened to pull his feathers out ("Le ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... pencils, and slates largely missing. Nevertheless, he struggled hopefully on, and seemed to see at last some glimmering of dawn. The attendance was larger and the children were a shade cleaner this week. Even the booby class in reading showed a little comforting progress. So John settled himself ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Philip while he spoke, "a gentleman were to disgrace his ancestry by introducing into his family one whom his own sister could not receive at her house, why, he ought to sink to her level, and wealth would but make his disgrace the more notorious. If I had an only son, and that son were booby enough to do anything so discreditable as to marry beneath him, I would rather have my footman for my successor. You ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of them swore there could be no other way. "We will try," said the navigator; and giving an egg, which he held in his hand, a smart stroke upon the table, it remained upright. The emotions which this excited in the company are expressed in their countenances. In the be-ruffed booby at his left hand it raises astonishment; he is a DEAR ME! man, of the same family with Sterne's Simple Traveller, and came from Amiens only yesterday. The fellow behind him, beating his head, curses his own stupidity; and the whiskered ruffian, with ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... this, and to an uneasy conscience, menaced danger. At length it occurred to him that the applicant might be Louis, whom he had sent with the message to the Porte Neuve: and he took the lamp and went to admit him, albeit reluctantly, for what did the booby mean by returning? It was late, and only to open at this hour might, in the light cast by after ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... his bare hands right off, or try to (he's a skinny little runt), if that's what he had to do to join. We argued it over, I pointed out that we let ex-soldiers count the killings they'd done in service, and that we counted poisonings and booby traps and such too—which are remote-control killings in a way—so eventually we let him in. He's doing good work. We're ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... are fleeing partly in steamers, partly along the coast, leaving a large booby." "Planters ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... amidships, just abaft the engine-room hatch, as he passed along the gangway towards the bridge which he was about to mount to have a look at the standard compass and see what course the helmsman was steering, on his way from the poop, where I had noticed him talking with the skipper as I came up the booby-hatch from below. "Hullo, Haldane!" he cried, shouting almost in my ear, and giving me a playful dig in the ribs at the same time; this nearly knocked all the breath out of my body. "Is that ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... there is a leak in the gunner's room; go and see what is the matter, but don't alarm any body, and come and make your report privately to me." In a short time he returned: "Sir, there 's nothing there, 'tis only the water washing up between the timbers that this booby has taken for a leak." "O, very well; go upon deck and see if you can keep any of the water from washing down below." "Sir, I have had four people constantly keeping the hatchways secure, but there is such a weight of water upon the deck ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... protesting against the profane interruption to Mr. Crewe's speech, bent her head to enter Mr. Crewe's booby sleigh, which had his crest on the panel. Alice was hustled in next, but Victoria avoided his ready assistance and got in herself, Mr. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... before the door.) Dolt, booby! I leave you to your folly! But I would have you know, there are none in this house, none but the marchioness Alberti, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... good-natured booby, fool, idiot, I am!" he cried, with a scornful laugh. "No, it is she who has been false and untruthful, she who must acknowledge it, she who is bound to give me, once for all, full explanation. ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... that, at all events, he would pass down first; and, the space being very narrow, the two dignitaries came into collision, and found themselves in utter darkness. The words "blockhead" and "booby" were the mildest which they now ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... His son, who had already held several minor offices in the City Government, had been one of the quaestors the year before, and so was now a senator. But he was, as he always had been, as he remained, a booby. I do not believe that there was any man in ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... a chance to booby trap the control cabin at least. And that is where they would poke and pry. Working in this suit will be tough. How about my trying to smash up ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... most dreadfully," the young lady rejoined, taking the proffered chair. "I want something for a booby prize for a backgammon tournament. I don't suppose anybody ever heard of a backgammon tournament before, but it's going to be great fun. We are doing it to take the conceit out of a young man we know, who declares that there's nothing in backgammon that he didn't learn the first ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... destroyed, were found to contain quantities of stores and rations, and shewed evident signs of having been evacuated very hurriedly. A neat souvenir in the shape of a Boche bugle was got from one of these dug-outs, and is now treasured with the Battalion plate at Newark. One was rather nervous of "booby traps" in some of them, but so far as our experience went at this time there were none. "Pigeon Wood" was captured during the afternoon, after some fighting and an unpleasant sort of game of hide and seek, and we also occupied Rettemoy Farm, and ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... portraits, etc., in the vicinity)—and there are no more to pin on, the person who has succeeded in fastening the appendage the nearest to its natural dwelling place, receives a prize, and the player who has given the most eccentric position to the tail entrusted to his care, receives the "booby" prize, generally some gift of a nature to ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... the society of the geniuses. I was thirsty for music ... one of those moody whims of the olden days. Perhaps the presentiment that you were coming: the thought of those afternoons when you were upstairs, sitting like a booby in the corner, listening to me.... But don't jump to the conclusion, my dear deputy, that everything here is mere play—just chickens and the simple life. No, sir! I have turned my leisure to serious account. I have done big things to the house. ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... such ambition," replied Pigoult. "But we must first of all consult the Comte de Gondreville. Look, look!" he added; "see the attentions with which Simon is taking him that gilded booby, Beauvisage." ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life, indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted—crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... eyes are ferretting from one side of the road to the other, as if he saw Chouans? The fellow seems to have no legs; the moment his horse is hidden by the carriage, he looks like a duck with its head sticking out of a pate. If that booby can hinder me from kissing the ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... the way home. But in the next cafe they stopped in she picked a fight and left him in a huff. Would you believe it, that guy had the nerve to come around the next day and declare that she had pinched the bauble and threaten to land her in the booby hatch if she ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... he never sends To tell when he invites his friends: I wish ye may but have enough!" And while with all this paltry stuff She sits tormenting every guest, Nor gives her tongue one moment's rest, In phrases batter'd, stale, and trite, Which modern ladies call polite; You see the booby husband sit In admiration at her wit! But let me now a while survey Our madam o'er her evening tea; Surrounded with her noisy clans Of prudes, coquettes, and harridans, When, frighted at the clamorous ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... Con. The booby! He must fall in love, indeed! And now he's naught but sentimental looks And sentences, pronounced 'twixt breath and voice! And attitudes of tender languishment! Nor can I get from him the name of her Hath turned him from a stock into a fool. He hems and haws, now titters, now looks ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... unease you too. The idiot! the patch! the slave! the booby! The property fit only to be beaten For your morning exercise? your football, or Th'unprofitable lump of flesh, your drudge, Can now anatomize you, and lay open All your black plots; level with the earth Your hill of pride, and shake, Nay ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... the third volume of the Miscellanies "by Henry Fielding, Esq." which came out in the spring of 1743. From the reference to Lady Booby's steward, Peter Pounce, in Book II., it seems to have been, as Mr. Austin Dobson has observed, and as the date of publication would imply, composed in part at least subsequently to Joseph Andrews, which appeared early in 1742. But the same critic goes on to say that whenever completed, Jonathan ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... James, who had been in the family for the last five or six years, came staggering into the room. He had been caught by a booby-trap which Irene had placed just over his pantry door, and a shower of spiders and caterpillars and other offensive insects had fallen all over him. His face was deadly pale, and he declared that he ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... your art To improve a cub without a head or heart; Rustics, though coarse, and savages, though wild, Our cares may render liberal and mild: But what, my friend, can flow from all these pains? There is no dealing with a lack of brains." "True I am hopeless to behold him man, But let me make the booby what I can: Though the rude stone no polish will display, Yet you may strip the rugged coat away." Stephen beheld his books—"I love to know How money goes—now here is that to show: And now" he cried, "I shall be pleased to get Beyond the Bible—there I puzzle ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... as a rule," said the horse—"very patient with people—don't make much fuss. But it was bad enough to have that vet giving me the wrong medicine. And when that red-faced booby started to monkey with me, I just ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... booby Grafton I'll e'en let you keep, Awake he can't hurt, and is still half asleep; Nor ever was dangerous, but to womankind, And his body's as impotent now as ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... you shall believe him in this, O youth, by Bacchus, you will be like the sons of Hippocrates, and they will call you a booby. ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... as you enter, resembling hay-cocks in shape and size: we saw them three miles off, and they were the only objects visible above water, on the portion of the Barrier within our view. From our entrance, we had a fine run, and found nothing to stop us for a minute (during daylight), till clear of Booby Island at the western end of the Straits, which we passed at 10 A. M. on the seventeenth day ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... understanding could only be seized at close quarters, "I make that observation, because poor Dick Boulby, your lamented husband—eh! poor Dick! You see, Missis, it ain't the tough ones last longest: he'd sing, 'I'm a Sea Booby,' to the song, 'I'm a green Mermaid:' poor Dick! 'a-shinin' upon the sea-deeps.' He kept the liquor from his head, but didn't mean it to stop down in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a snuffbox of tortoise shell and gold. He opened it deliberately. "If he does, you'll admit that he will hang on the gallows that he has built himself—although intended for another. I'faith! He's not the first booby to be caught in his own springe. There is in this a measure of poetic justice. Poetry and justice! Do you know, Ruth, they are two things I have ever loved?" And he took a ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... of Queer Fellows Poor Devil Author Buckthorne; or, the Young Man of Great Expectations Grave Reflections of a Disappointed Man Booby Squire ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... corn; Some stupid, plodding, monkey-loving wight, Who wins their hearts by knowing black from white, Who with much pains, exerting all his sense, Can range aright his shillings, pounds, and pence. The booby father craves a booby son; And by heaven's blessing thinks himself undone. Wants of all kinds are made to fame a plea; One learns to lisp; another not to see: Miss D——, tottering, catches at your hand: Was ever thing so pretty born to stand? Whilst these, what nature gave, disown, through pride, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... with our hands, they would, when released, return to us again and again, as if seeking to solve the mystery of what strange beings were these that had invaded their retreat. In one rookery there were many varieties of these oceanic birds, and a species of booby that seems to be peculiar to Christmas Island. In size and colour they much resemble the ordinary gannet of our cold northern seas. Their plumage is of a wondrously bright snow white, with the exception of the primary and secondary ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... shinney, so he always stayed with the girls at recess, which was often very inconvenient when Elizabeth and Rosie wanted to teeter by themselves or stay indoors and tell secrets. Then, too, John and the Pretender teased her unmercifully. They called her beau "Booby" Oliver and said he should have been a girl. She took his part valiantly, but she did wish he wouldn't say "papa" and "mamma," it made ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... have liked him of all things to have been in the Eton expedition, tell him, and to have heard a song (by-the-bye, I have forgotten that) sung in the thunderstorm, solos by Charley, chorus by the friends, describing the career of a booby who was plucked at college, every ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Among the names which have quite vanished were those pertaining to household matters, such as Hash, Butter, Waffle, Booze, Frill, Shirt, Lace; or describing human characteristics, as Booby, Dunce, Sallow, Daft, Lazy, Measley, Rude; or parts of the body and its ailments, as Hips, Bones, Chin, Glands, Gout, Corns, Physic; or representing property, as Shingle, Gutters, Pump, Milkhouse, Desk, Mug, Auction, Hose, Tallow. Nature also was drawn upon for a large number of ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... turned to look again, and one or two to retrace their steps and follow her at a decorous distance. This caused him to quicken his own pace, with a new anxiety and a remorseful sense of wasted opportunity. What a booby he had been, not to have made more of his contiguity to this charming girl—to have been frightened at the naive decorum of her maidenly instincts! He reached her side, and raised his hat with a trepidation at her new-found graces—with a boldness that ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... and as the flag fluttered down the captain received an account of the crew's misdoing from the mate. He stepped into his cabin, and returning with a double-barreled shot-gun, leaned it against the booby-hatch, and said quietly: "Call all hands ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... fact. I was a fool about Madame Lange, I own; but what is a man not when he is in love? But I did love her truly, and even now I feel that she is not indifferent to me; it is perhaps, therefore, fortunate that her husband is a jealous booby and never leaves her, so that I seldom have an opportunity of seeing her. Believe me when I say that old Madame Weber is a very obliging person, and I cannot serve her in proportion to her kindness to me, for indeed I have ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... not forget that our habits contain a good moiety of articles which are of prejudice alone. Upheld by the menace of chastisement, human laws may be eluded by cunning and dissimulation. Every man capable of reflection stands above them. Really they are nothing but booby traps. ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... poor mother grew as yellow as a quince, and her appearance did not contradict the tongues of those who declared that Doctor Rouget was killing her by inches. The behavior of her booby of a son must have added to the misery of the poor woman so unjustly accused. Not restrained, possibly encouraged by his father, the young fellow, who was in every way stupid, paid her neither the attentions ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... your uncle; he is more fool than knave, and won't do you any harm.' The boy who had become a girl, obeyed. Master Nicholas entered the room and found in it a young maid whom he did not know, and his wife in bed. 'Big booby,' said the latter to him, 'don't stand gaping at what you see, just as I had come to bed because had a stomach ache, I received a visit from Catherine, the daughter of my sister Jeanne de Palaiseau, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... in this. The daughter is said to be well-bred and beautiful; the son an awkward booby, reared up and spoiled ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... O yes! By command of her Highness! Lost, stolen, or strayed, Gone to the dogs or mislaid, Her Highness' splendid ruby. Whoso finds it—wit or booby, Tinker, tailor, soldier, lord— Let him ask what he will, he shall have ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an immense bulldog, cruel, bloodthirsty, his massive jaws working convulsively, his ugly fangs gleaming, as he set his great body against the leash, and gave evidence of a sincere desire to make free lunch of the Bannister youths. As Buster Brown afterward stated, "Neither one would take the booby prize at a beauty show, but at that, the bulldog had a better chance than Bildad!" T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., let it be recorded, could not have qualified as a judge, since his undivided attention was ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... or three thousand years of this sport, I suppose Blackstick grew tired of it. Or perhaps she thought, 'What good am I doing by sending this Princess to sleep for a hundred years? by fixing a black pudding on to that booby's nose? by causing diamonds and pearls to drop from one little girl's mouth, and vipers and toads from another's? I begin to think I do as much harm as good by my performances. I might as well shut my incantations up, and allow things ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beat up that girl over there just last week and put her in the 'booby' house on bread and water for ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... lady, 'as nobody but yourself can want to look at a steam package, without wanting to go a-boarding of it, can they! Booby!' ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... rise for the purpose"—— On hearing the sound of his voice, the lady president rushed to the edge of the platform, and glaring on the upright figure, which shook like an aspen beneath her fiery eyes, exclaimed, in thundering accents, "What are you standing there for, you booby-faced, blubber-chopped ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... said Elbridge, opening the door of the booby, and gently bundling Northwick into it. "I could come just's easy as not. I thought you'd ride better in the booby; it's a little mite chilly for the cutter." The stars seemed points of ice in the freezing sky; the broken snow clinked like charcoal around Elbridge's feet. He shut the booby door ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... yer great cowardly booby, will yer? So you thought you was coming hout to frighten a little lad, did ye? And you met with one of your hown size, did ye? Now will ye get hup and take it like a man, or shall I give it ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... roads leading up to the old enemy line were execrable. After getting about four miles behind the old line the villages were not so shattered and at Henin Lietard some houses were almost intact; the coal mines, however, had been ruined, and into some canals had been turned. Booby traps were numerous, and special companies were hunting for them. Their presence gave us confidence in living in the houses chosen for billets; but a few days later, we afterwards heard, a number of these were blown up by mines with delayed action. We continued our ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... keenly at him; then, recognizing by his mien and voice that this at least was no booby, he smiled; the truculence of his manner vanished, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... which inclines us to esteem persons and things not by their real value, or even by our own judgment, so much as by the opinion of others, who are often very incompetent judges. Dick Middlemas had been urged forward, in his suit to Menie Gray, by his observing how much her partner, a booby laird, had been captivated by her; and she was now lowered in his esteem, because an impudent low-lived coxcomb had presumed to talk of her with disparagement. Either of these worthy gentlemen would have been as capable of enjoying the beauties of Homer, as judging of the merits ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... wealth; they might have been unknown else—you would die, madam, to see her and her equipage: I thought her horses were ashamed of their finery; they dragged on, as if they were all at plough, and a great bashful-look'd booby behind grasp'd the coach, as if he ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... meaning may lurk beneath them. Why did Porphyrius, in speaking of the old woman, simply say 'At her place?' Why did Zametoff observe that I had spoken very sensibly? Why their peculiar manner?—yes, it is this manner of theirs. How is it possible that all this cannot have struck Razoumikhin? The booby never notices anything! But I seem to be feverish again! Did Porphyrius give me a kind of wink just now, or was I deceived in some way? The idea is absurd! Why should he wink at me? Perhaps they intend to upset my nervous ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... vent to a sigh of exasperation. "When you come to talk about women's feelings, Blake, you make me tired. You will never be anything but a great big booby in that respect as long as ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell |
