"Deuce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... got a great surprise. His brother-partner turned up with a draft of men and found himself posted to the battalion. The brothers met, as only brothers can, with the words, "What the deuce are you doing here?" Highly elated, Cook told him about the application for business leave and gloated over his chances of being home first, and on full pay too. His brother was intensely amused, and they both laughed heartily, when he told us ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... Lord, I've been working like the deuce all day till my room got so cold I thought I'd get pneumonia. Darn landlady economizing on coal came up when I yelled over the stairs for her for half an hour. Began explaining why and all. God! First she drove me crazy, then I began to think she was sort of a character, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Slosh diminished my lead by fifteen. The Renshaw Slam brought the score to Deuce. Then I got in a really fine serve, which beat him. 'Vantage in. Another Slosh. Deuce. Another Slam. 'Vantage out. It was an awesome moment. There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood—I served. Fault. I served again—a beauty. ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... small-pox; and which attacks every one of us, from the first duke in the Peerage down to Jack Ketch inclusive: which has no respect for rank, virtue, or roguery in man, but sets each in his turn in a fever; which breaks out the deuce knows how or why, and, raging its appointed time, fills each individual of the one sex with a blind fury and longing for some one of the other (who may be pure, gentle, blue-eyed, beautiful, and good; or vile, shrewish, squinting, ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you'll stow those shore-going togs and get into working rig before you tackle him.' Merritt was arrayed in all his finery, and if you'd ever seen him you'd know that that meant a lot, for when he was flush he could make Solomon in all his glory, or any other swell dresser look like a dirty deuce in a new deck. He had on a light suit with checks which were so loud they drowned the music of the orchestra, and a shirt which would make a summer sunset hide its head in disappointment. Patent leather shoes with yellow tops and a white plug hat with a black band around it completed his costume, ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... "The deuce you did!" says he. "Just like Warrie to do that, though. But, if I know Miss Prentice at all, she will pay him back for that ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... he would go to the deuce with it, he will leave it to a hospital. Is that what you ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... not shoes. There is your little Tom, just ten, ordering the great, large, quiet, orderly young man about—shrieking calls for hot water—bullying Jeames because the boots are not varnished enough, or ordering him to go to the stables, and ask Jenkins why the deuce Tomkins hasn't brought his pony round—or what you will. There is mamma rapping the knuckles of Pincot the lady's-maid, and little Miss scolding Martha, who waits up five pair of stairs in the nursery. Little Miss, Tommy, papa, mamma, you all expect from Martha, from Pincot, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you have. How the deuce did you know she would be here? All right, but she won't get away from me so easy this time. I see the old man's with her, and the idea of supposing that he could have been her husband ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... Leven, stopping short behind Aldous, who was alone conscious of the lad's indignant astonishment; "what the deuce is he ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on the Elysium road?" The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from me before ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... and courteous individual called Billali, spoke of her as "She-who-is-everlasting." What the deuce could he mean by that, I wondered? Probably that she was very old and therefore disagreeable to look on, which I confessed to ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... big proposition to offer you. One that will beat Mascola's like an ace beats a deuce. Because this one ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... and went afar to find the witch, and pay her severely for all her wickedness. And on that very [true] day the lady Trinali heard how Merlin was [is] a great, powerful wizard, and said, "What sort of a man is this? I will punish him or he shall kill me, deuce help me! I will bewitch him. Let us see who has the most cleverness and who is the most knowing." And then Merlin went on the road all day alone, always in sunshine; and Trinali went in the forest, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... "I haven't. Why the deuce should I? Is he gun-running, or threatening to vote against the Government, or likely to ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... pincushion on my table," she said; "but I think it's a black one. I dont know where the deuce all the pins go to." Then, casting off the subject, she whistled a long and florid cadenza, and added, by way of instrumental interlude, a remarkably close imitation of a violoncello. Meanwhile the man went into her room for the pin. On his ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... to Valre). Thither no coxcomb comes. (Valre again bows to him). What the deuce!... (He turns and sees Ergaste bowing on the other side). Another? What ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... DIMPLE. The deuce! Has he heard of those bills! Nay, then, all's up with Maria, too; but an affair of this sort can never prejudice me among the ladies; they will rather long to know what the dear creature possesses to make ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... units belonging to the civilized nations of such social and racial divergence that the mind is staggered by the conception of them all fighting under one banner. But are we sure they are all fighting for the same thing? If they're not, there will be the deuce to pay all over the terrestrial globe, even with ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... unspeakable vanity of the race. It was the death-blow to private judgment. At least, it ought to have been. But, alas! human vanity and presumption are eternal and indestructible. From the corner-boy here at my window, who asks indignantly, "Why the deuce did not Gladstone push his Bill through the House of Lords, and then force the Commons to accept it?" to the flushed statesman, whose dream is Imperialism; from the little manikin critic, who swells out his chest, and demands summary vengeance on that idiot of an author who has had the daring presumption ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... deuce I ever came—why the deuce I ever went overboard after a couple of senoras—I don't know,' he repeated to himself during the hours of ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... growled. "Mr. Robert an' the ol' man didn't hit off, an' there was a deuce of a row between 'em the other day, Saturday it was. My niece, Mary, was a-dustin' the banisters when the two kem out from breakfast, an' she heerd the Gov'nor say: 'That's my last word on the subjec'. I mean to be ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... is a hard thing for me to say. I know it will sound heartless. But I am bound to say so. It is for your sake. I can't hurt myself. It does me no harm that everybody knows that I am philandering after you; but it is the very deuce for you." She was silent for a moment. Then he said again ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... "The deuce he does!" and now Gaston laughed. "He's going to be a comical imp, if I don't miss my guess. See, he's calming down ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... loud and clear, And his tones are sweet, yet his terms are dear! The glove won't fit! The deuce a bit. I shall give ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... lists. It must go well, for most people are content with it. If I knew history enough, I should prove to you that evil has always come about here below through a few men of genius, but I do not know history, no more than I know anything else. The deuce take me, if I have learnt anything, or if I find myself a pin the worse for not having learnt anything. I was one day at the table of the minister of the King of——, who has brains enough for four, and ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... earth has the prince got to do with it? Who the deuce is the prince?" cried the general, who could ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sides have each scored three points in a game, or five games in a set; to win the game or set two points or games must then be won consecutively. The earliest instances in English of the use of the slang expression "the deuce," in exclamations and the like, date from the middle of the 17th century. The meaning was similar to that of "plague" or "mischief" in such phrases as "plague on you," "mischief take you" and the like. The use of the word as an euphemism ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... in bitter self-apostrophe. "Why didn't I jump in after Forbes? Now I am out of the hunt! I wonder what the deuce Furneaux ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... Spanish, thought Luck, why the deuce hadn't he done it at first? But there is no fathoming the reticence of an Indian—and Luck, by a sudden impulse, hid his own knowledge of the language. He stood up and turned toward the rocks, cupped his hands around his lips and called for the Native Son. "And leave your rifle at home," he added ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... anything about law? He's a classic winner, the very deuce of a top-notcher. He's been hung over and over again. You can't teach him anything about ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... tyrant, though?" remarked Walter. "I've just been to walk and am tired as the deuce. What do I wish to go tramping ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... Rocksworth. "Stop this beastly noise! What the deuce do you mean, sir, permitting these scoundrels to raise the dead like this? Confound 'em, I stopped them once. Here! You! Let up on ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... By jings, the devil has his own way about half the time, and his influence is mighty powerful the other half. Now, we're gittin' at it. I reckon we'd better go on to breakfast, though. I almost forgot that you had to go to your school. Why, man, what the deuce is the matter with you ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... hear him groan over the wire. "Hang Josie!" says he. "See here, McCabe, I've had a deuce of a time with that case. Must have been something wrong with the address, ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... "You see," he explained diffidently; "you see, I'm just engaged to be married—and though business is fairly good and all that—my being away from the office six or eight weeks is going to cut like the deuce into my commissions—and roses cost such a horrid price last Fall—and there seems to be a game law on diamonds this year; they practically fine ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... which circumstance greatly elated him. Dobbin, who was a friend of the general commanding the division in which their regiment was, came laughing one day to Mrs. Osborne, and displayed a similar invitation; which made Jos envious, and George wonder how the deuce he should be getting into society. Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon, finally, were of course invited, as became the friends of a general commanding a ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... is never swift (Shells are a deuce of a weight to lift); When they are ready to open shop, Where they are planted, there they stop, The grey guns, The gay guns, That know what they're about, To wait at fifteen hundred yards and clear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... deuce is going on outside?" asked Bill Williams. "Has the circus come to town or why this procession so early in ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... send a missionary up here to marry us. I don't figure that two days of savage rites constitutes a marriage—but I'm going to have a deuce of a time trying to explain it ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... don't know where I am," he said, "but I expect we shall all be in the deuce of a mess before long. About Mrs. Halton running after me, that is absolutely all rot. What brutes women are to each other! And they say, to use your expression, that I've been walking out ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... is frightened out of her wits—that is all. These Yankee horses of yours have been playing the very deuce. Clear the ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... halfway between supreme content and violent anger. At last he delivered himself. "Let's duck him... hey?... Let's duck him!" He spoke with a sort of benevolent chuckle, then raised his voice and called, "Tinsley! Tinsley! Where the deuce is Tinsley?" ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... weaker sex is coming it amazingly strong. The sceptres of three of the first kingdoms in Europe are swayed by female hands. The first writer of young France is a woman. The first astronomer of young England, idem. Mrs Trollope played the Chesterfield and the deuce with the Yankees. Miss Martineau turned the head of the mighty Brougham. Mademoiselle d'Angeville ascended Mont Blanc, and Mademoiselle Rachel has replaced Corneille and Racine on their crumbling pedestals. I might waste hours of your precious time, sir, in perusing a list ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... deuce asked you for your opinion?" rapped out the "senor" savagely. "And what are you doing in here, anyhow? If we want the service of a vet., we're quite capable of getting one for ourselves without having him shove his presence ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... strange fancy; "but there's only one about, and it seems a deuce of a long way off—however, I'll try;" and, with that, I reached my arm up in the direction of the solitary planet, which lay in the vast obscure like a small silver candlestick, with a greenish tinge in its icy sparkling, mirrored far below in the indigo flood of the abysmal ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... in my time, and I've played the deuce with men! I'm speaking of ten years past—I was barely sixty then: My cheeks were mellow and soft, and my eyes were large and sweet, POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes were the standing toast ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... pretty well proved it last night, and I've always known she disliked me—since she grew up, that is. To be perfectly frank, aside from the fact that I don't care for young girls, she always irritates me like the deuce, and I've never made any secret of it. Night before last I couldn't well have made myself more disagreeable if ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... turned up a corner of the table-cloth, and were playing at dice. The good-natured A—came in. He laid down his hat when he saw me, approached me, and said in a low tone, "You have met with a disagreeable adventure." "I!" I exclaimed. "The count obliged you to withdraw from the assembly!" "Deuce take the assembly!" said I. "I was very glad to be gone." "I am delighted," he added, "that you take it so lightly. I am only sorry that it is already so much spoken of." The circumstance then began to pain me. I fancied that every ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... whom you mean—but, deuce take her, I can't hit off her name either—paints, d'ye say? Why she lays it on with a trowel. Then she has a great beard that bristles through it, and makes her look as if she was plastered with lime and ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... all into the deuce of a mess with your confounded coolness," said the Duke after a pause, during which he had in vain searched all his pockets for his cigar-case. Barker had watched him, and pushed an open box of Havanas across the ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... "Deuce take the Witch of Endor and you also. There's a shilling. Go and drink yourself into a more cheery frame ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... drizzle so thick, one can't see the ship's bows; but we ought to make Largo Light soon, if I am not far out in my reckoning. But you can't tell, in these chop seas, where you are. The wind drives you ahead and the current pulls you back, and the first thing you know you're on the rocks, and the deuce and all to pay," remarked the captain, his sharp, gray eyes still searching the rainy darkness. "I estimate our speed at fourteen knots—what ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... I may hunt a Molly Cotton-tail," he grumbled, bringing his horse's gait down to an amble. "There ought to be good hounds about, judging from the hang-dog look of the natives. Why in thunder did the old boy want to bury himself and his heirs forever in this god-forsaken land's end, and what in the deuce have mother and Aunt Kesiah done with themselves down here for the last twenty years? Two thousand acres? Damn it! I'd rather have six feet on the good English soil! Came to get rid of one woman, did he?—and tumbled ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... deuce do I care about your confounded old tire? I'll pay for it. I'll pay you anything you ask if you get me to the ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... turned quickly. "Then it would be a pack, monsieur, in which you would be about equal to the deuce," he said. ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... "That's the deuce of it!" replied Tomsky, "she had four sons, one of whom was my father; all four were determined gamblers, and yet not to one of them did she ever reveal her secret, although it would not have been a bad thing ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... African War afterwards assured me it was the hottest corner he had ever been in. Bush-country fighting is detestable chiefly because you cannot see your enemy until you are on top of him. Our centre cantered in extended order up an avenue flanked by dense bush. We were laughing and asking where the deuce the rebels were, when a hail of rifle fire at short range greeted us. Our fellows were out of their saddles in a second, and advanced to the attack through the bush. Meantime, the South African Police ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... you and Elizabeth into a deuce of an unpleasant position. I've told you what a fine woman my mother is, and how she'd welcome Elizabeth with open arms, and now I find I was all wrong. My mother isn't a fine woman; she's an ancestor-worshiping, heartless, selfish snob. I'm ashamed of her, Tom. ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... inclined to be a little old-fogyish, thinks we are too young for any definite engagement, and wants me to be permanently established in some business before we are married, and all that; when I can't see what in the deuce is the difference so long as I have plenty of stuff. So the upshot of it all was that he and his wife took Grace to Europe, and they're not coming back until the holidays, and if, by that time, we have neither of us ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... of my heart; some massacre of liberty. I behold here a pair of eyes that seem to be very naughty boys, that insult liberty, and use a heart most barbarously. Why the deuce do they put themselves on their guard, in order to kill any one who comes near them? Upon my word! I mistrust them; I shall either scamper away, or expect very good security that they do ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... any credence in the thing, no matter how hard I try!" said the doctor, shaking his head gravely, as they trudged on through the mud and mire. "And if Wynne isn't found—well, there'll be the deuce to pay with the authorities. We'll have to report to the police first thing ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... "The deuce with formality," the sheriff said heavily. "There's some kid around here who thinks he saw that ... that machine you're supposed to ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss
... "What the deuce do I care for the usual price, you—you—you perfect prodigy of patches? There, for the Lord's sake, go get yourself a decent suit of clothes! Drive on, cabman!" roared Old Hurricane, flinging an eagle upon the sidewalk and rolling off ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... and oblong in shape. Ours is very rotten, and has a big hole burnt in the top as well as a large rent at one end. These we have, however, patched up to our satisfaction and comfort. As we are here for the deuce knows how long, the beloved army red tape and routine is coming ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... who write of loves that are loose, (Those little perversionist scribes of the Deuce!) Laughter of lies lilting lewd at their lips, Their souls and brains both in a maudlin eclipse; Their bosoms as bare as their stories and songs; These coaxers of dogs with their ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... make six," muttered Mr. Nabley; "six and four are ten. Why, I could have sworn that there were eleven. Yes, certainly there was another. Where the deuce ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... friend of mine. I ain't more than deuce-high in the district as far as influence goes, but Mike's as good a friend to a little man, or a poor man as he is to a big one. I met him to-day on the Bowery, and what do you think he does? Comes up and shakes hands. 'Andy,' ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... the question! Very likely he hasn't one at all. It seems to me there's a good many young fellows in that case nowadays. They have education, they have money, and they don't know what the deuce to do with either one or the other. They're a cut above you, Mr. Jack; it isn't enough for them to live and enjoy themselves. So they get it into their heads that they're called upon to reform the ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... very best." Her looks did not worry him. Water pouring over marble runs off as smoothly. "You want to be judged as men—you never will be till you can cut your hair short and dress the part. Clothes have the deuce of a lot to do with it. I can love a woman, but, my God, ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... "The deuce!" thought he, thus led to an unforeseen conclusion. "To be sure, it is not necessary perhaps that the church itself should offer so complete a parallel, or that the Old and New Testaments should be ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... me you found out every thing, though how the deuce you contrived it is more than I can ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... "The deuce you are," said he. "No, you're not, boy. If I catch you down there I'll play the game as you've mapped it out for me. I'll grab Jerry's axe or pitchfork and run amuck, blest if I don't. You'll wake up and find yourself sending ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... the head of A18 was mightily surprised to hear a civilian walking side by side with the captain of his troop remark, as he passed up the stable, "Why, there's old Smut!" When the officer and civilian had passed out he turned to the next man, and asked who the deuce the bloke was in the brown hat. "Why, that's Captain Baden-Powell," said the man; and then he added with great pride, "I was his batman once." The young soldier had heard of Baden-Powell before, and was furious that he had not looked longer at him as he passed. An odd circumstance, by the way, concerning ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... little magnifying glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me, very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often. But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it be from? Pooh! it's only ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... "The deuce, my young fellow!" cried the usurer, fiercely. "But, bah!" he added, twirling his black moustache caressingly between his fingers, "I have proved my bravery scores of times—I, an old soldier, perforated with bullets, can pass such ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... silence for a while. Then came the verdict, delivered from rolling clouds: 'If you were only a mass of blathering vanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,—I'd let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you add the twopenny-halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir myself ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... "What in the deuce does it matter?" returned Will desperately. "It was the only quiet night I've had for three weeks: I slept like a log straight through until the breakfast-bell. Then I was late, of course, and he threatened to take an hour's time from my day's wages. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... That day, at five of the afternoon, it was one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade. And we, through necessity of reaching the next water, journeyed over the alkali at noon. Then the Desert came close on us and looked us fair in the eyes, concealing nothing. She killed poor Deuce, the beautiful setter who had traveled the wild countries so long; she struck Wes and the Tenderfoot from their horses when finally they had reached a long-legged water tank; she even staggered the horses themselves. And I, lying under ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... and stepped toward the tea-table. His head once turned, the smile took on a wry twist. He was no squire of dames, no frequenter of afternoon receptions. Why the deuce had he come to this one? Why had he yielded so readily to the urgings of the professor of mathematics?—himself urged in turn, perhaps, by a wife for whose little affair one extra man at the opening of the fall season counted, and counted hugely. Why must he now expose ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen, And sair wi' his love he did deave me: I said there was naething I hated like men; The deuce gae wi'm to believe me, believe me, The deuce gae ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... groaned, "he sits up all night, and then his conscience smites him and his head aches, and he thinks the college is going to the deuce and is to be saved from perdition by his being rude. What you want, old chap, is a sedlitz powder; go and have one, and you won't be so gloomy, you may even smile when you see our eight ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... "'The deuce!... How amusing you are! And with what a face you say all these things! Just like the priest of ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... deuce should I know?" growled the doctor. "Shall we move this poor chap, do you think? ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Well, if I must, I must. We cleaned out the second trench line, bomb and bayonet thrust; And on we went to the third one, quite calloused to crumping by now; And some of our fellows who'd passed us were making a deuce of a row; And my chaps—well, I just couldn't hold 'em; (It's strange how it is with gore; In some ways it's just like whiskey: if you taste it you must have more.) Their eyes were like beacons of battle; by gad, sir! they COULDN'T be calmed, So I headed 'em bang for the bomb-belt, racing like ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... the rummiest go!" said the bewildered Dempsey to himself, as he walked towards his bicycle. "Mistake be damned! She was Mrs. Delane, and what's she up to now with my captain? And what the deuce was she doing ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... What the deuce were they at? and what was a "tink-an"? I dragged the filly nearer, and discovered that a hound puppy was the central point of the tumult, and was being contended for, like the body of Moses, by Miss Trinder and ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... come from—with whom had he studied—what were his plans? Had he ever been abroad? No. Strange! The artists nowadays neglected travel. 'But you go! Beg your way, paint your way—but go! Go before the wife and the babies come! Matrimony is the deuce. Don't you agree with me, Philip?' He laid a familiar hand on ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the deuce!" I replied, cordially, holding out my hand as if welcoming him back, whereat he frowned suspiciously. "Now that I'm reconciled to your system, and know that there is no possible escape for me, I don't seem to feel so badly. How have you been, and ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... deuce do you think of giving your daughter in marriage to an old man? Don't you see that it is the longing she has for a young one that makes her ill? See the ...
— The Flying Doctor - (Le Medecin Volant) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... possess more than their share of good looks; but 'beauties' are rare, and the sun plays the deuce with complexions. The commonest type is the jolly girl who, though she has large hands and feet, no features and no figure, yet has a taking little face, which makes you say: 'By Jove, she is not half bad-looking!' Brunettes are, ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... staring at those fixed, glazed eyes in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... suddenly exclaimed, "D-n me, I must read prayers this morning at All-Souls!" D-n me is an abbreviation of G-d d-n me; which, in England, does not seem to mean more mischief or harm than any of our or their common expletives in conversation, such as O gemini! or, The deuce take me! ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... followed next would have appeared unbelievable to any who have not over and over watched the inexplicable happenings of a gaming table. Kendric made his second throw and lifted his eyebrows quizzically at the result. He had turned out the deuce, the lowest number possible. A little eagerly, while men began to mutter in their excitement, Rios snatched up cup and die and threw. Once already he had counted ten thousand as good as won; now he made the same mistake. For the ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... like that nowadays." He gazed at the photograph whilst his eyes twinkled. "Legs—by Heaven! what legs!" He chuckled. "Wouldn't do for Clare to see that; she was shaking my pillows this mornin' and I was in a deuce of a fright—thought the ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... that was the deuce of it. Waterproof it was not, no more than a sponge. Indeed, with such recklessness had I bequilted my jacket, that in a rain-storm I became a universal absorber; swabbing bone-dry the very bulwarks I leaned against. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... should have known it anywhere. I think you've caught the likeness most wonderfully!" i.e., "Why the deuce doesn't he tell one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... forbid! and keep me from being so silly as to go and make myself lean with any such grief. Your heart guarantees your fidelity; besides, I have too good an opinion of myself to believe that any other could please you after me. Where the deuce could you find any one ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... state of affairs when Johnny Behind the Deuce brought matters to a crisis by killing an engineer from ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... a long and hotly contested deuce set, and ended in favor of Dorothy and Alice just as Katie ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... Now, who the deuce was Bibi? She might be a baby. Or—who could tell?—she might be a poodle? On this point, however, I was left uninformed; for my unknown friend, who, luckily, seemed fond of talking and had a great deal to say, launched off into another ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... them for Dolcino," I said: surprised a moment afterwards at being in a position—thanks to Miss Ambient—to be so explanatory; and surprised even now that Mark should n't have shown visibly that he wondered what the deuce I knew about it But he did n't; he simply exclaimed, with a tenderness that ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... to judge for yourself. Tuesday the 12th was the day fixed; and we were to start at five in the morning—sharp. I turned out at four; shaved and dressed; got some bread and milk; and, throwing up the window, looked down into the street. Deuce a coach was there, nor did anybody seem to be stirring in the house. I waited until half-past five; but no preparations being visible even then, I left Mr. Q. to look out, and lay down upon the bed again. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... I'm a Dutchman!" said Tommy to himself. "And running the show darned systematically too—as they always do. Lucky I didn't roll in. I'd have given the wrong number, and there would have been the deuce to pay. No, this is the place for me. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... added, "I wish Arend had let the horse go to the deuce. It was not worth following into a place ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... play the deuce with us, though," I replied. "Now what do you suppose they intend ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... end of a week that the ship which Barny had hitherto kept ahead of him showed symptoms of bearing down upon him, as he thought, and, sure enough, she did; and Barny began to conjecture what the deuce the ship could want with him, and commenced inventing answers to the questions he thought it possible might be put to him in case the ship spoke him. He was soon put out of suspense by being hailed and ordered to run under her lee, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... still your idea of the furnace. But look here, deuce take it! you have not had one cold since ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... spare him?" Osborne said to his friend's remonstrances, when they quitted the invalid, leaving him under the hands of Doctor Gollop. "What the deuce right has he to give himself his patronizing airs, and make fools of us at Vauxhall? Who's this little schoolgirl that is ogling and making love to him? Hang it, the family's low enough already, without ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the best, I don't deny, Thou'st fee'd the keeper, and he likes to feed us, But, then the situation I decry, But crying's useless—who the deuce will heed us? Then, reader would you listen to my wail, Come, and but see me, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... place as afterwards;—namely, the account of the manner in which Scott—whom we shall always find, as aforesaid, to be in salient and palpable elements of character, of the World, worldly, as Burns is of the Flesh, fleshly, and Byron of the Deuce, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... important that Gresson should not see this, but it was the deuce of a business to shake him off. I went for a walk in the afternoon along the shore and passed the telegraph office, but the confounded fellow was with me all the time. My only chance was just before we sailed, when he had ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... "The deuce!" he exclaimed, with his hand over the transmitter so that his voice would not be heard ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... explain. I can alter my will yet, let me tell you. I'm of sound mind—can reckon compound interest in my head, and remember every fool's name as well as I could twenty years ago. What the deuce? I'm under eighty. I say, you ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... deuce would you have one do—with a dead horse and a lamed leg? Shift for yourself ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... should think so; how the deuce should they be forgotten, when one is bored with them morning, noon, and night, for everlasting, by old Sam, and all the other pastors and masters in the kingdom? Hang me, if I can read this trash; the only poetry that ever was written ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... brother! Why the deuce should I? Do you think I belong to the rag, tag, and bobtail, that'll mix with the very scum of society so long as there's money about? Do you think I'd lower myself to associate ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... my trespasses, Abjured but not disowned. I'll not accuse Determinism, nor, as the Master {26} says, Charge even "the poor Deuce." ...
— A Father of Women - and other poems • Alice Meynell
... the thing along the road, and then two loutish men who made game of him and sent him here to get his car fixed. There had been a man, a queer man who gave him bread and butter instead of wine—he remembered that—and he had failed to get his car fixed, but how the deuce did he get landed on this couch with a world of books about him and a thin muslin curtain blowing into the room, and fanning the cheeks of a lovely rose in a long stemmed clear glass vase? Did he try to start and have a smash up? No, he remembered going down the steps with the intention ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... been the matter here?" asked Jack. "As we were coming along, we heard a dreadful row outside, and saw a large body of troops bolting off in a deuce of a hurry." ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... that Semple had a just cause of anger; "but then," he argued, "Neil is a proud, pompous fellow, for whom I never assumed a friendship. His father's hospitality I regret in any way to have abused; but who the deuce could have suspected that Neil Semple was in love with the adorable Katherine? In faith, I did not at the first, and now 'tis too late. I would not resign the girl for my life; for I am sensible that life, if she is another's, will be a very tedious ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... implied Inflates me with legitimate pride, It nevertheless can't be denied That it has its inconvenient side. For I'm not so old, and not so plain, And I'm quite prepared to marry again, But there'd be the deuce to pay in the Lords If I fell in love with one of my Wards: Which rather tries my temper, for I'm SUCH a ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Elizabeth, a Catherine de' Medici. She sits enthroned behind the counter all day long and takes the money and counts the saucers and smiles on rich clients, and if a waiter in a far corner gives a bit of sugar to a dog she spots it, and the waiter has a deuce of a time. That woman is worth her weight in thousand-franc notes. She goes to bed every night at one, and gets up in the morning at five. And virtuous! Didn't Solomon say that a virtuous woman was more precious ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... "we got 'em, anyhow. And if they try to arrest us without a warrant there'll be the deuce to pay. But they aren't going to make any more trouble. I know these country crooks. They've got no stomach for trouble outside their ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... "Deuce take it!" said a voice outside. "Why doesn't the woman open the door if she doesn't want to get herself into trouble? She's ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... "The deuce they do!" Sebastian cried. However, he had such confidence in Nurse Wade's judgment that he bought a couple of hawks and tried the treatment on them. Both birds took considerable doses, and, after a period of insensibility extending to several hours, woke ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... "No! The deuce! We should have to explain everything to him. He knows what's what, and would find the idea too good, and want a share of the spoil. No! Sign that, and don't be alarmed. The sheep will be back in the fold before the shepherd ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... see what's against a decent clean-up and breakfast at the club. It doesn't much matter when I report, and the club's handy for your show. I know the A.C.G.'s office, because it's in the same house as the Base Cashier, and the club's just at the bottom of the street. But it's the deuce of a way from the station. If we can get a taxi, I vote ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... faithless and sadly failed in its duty of support,—gazed distractedly at the speaker. Visions of Jewish money-lenders, of ladies more fair and kind than wise, of guinea points at whist, of the prize ring of Baden-Baden, of Newmarket and Doncaster, arose confusedly before him. What the deuce,—he did not like bad language, but really,—what the dickens, had all these to do with his ewe-lamb, innocent little Constance, her virgin-white body and soul, and her ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... my right hand to ride, only it wouldn't carry him. I can't make horses. Harry brought home that brown mare on Tuesday with an overreach that she won't get over this season. What the deuce they do with their horses to knock them about so, I can't understand. I've killed horses in my time, and ridden them to a stand-still, but I never bruised them and battered them about ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope |
