"Fib" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... later I saw her punish her child for denying that she had committed some piece of mischief of which she was guilty. The mother's excuse to herself probably was that the child told a lie, she, a "society fib." Perhaps the smaller sinner had no reputation ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... would do any thing they desired; that they were not proud of fine clothes; let not their heads run upon their playthings when they should mind their books; said grace before they eat, their prayers before they went to bed, and as soon as they rose; were always clean and neat; would not tell a fib for the world, and were above doing any thing that required one; that God blessed them more and more, and blessed their papa and mamma, and their uncles and aunts, and cousins, for their sakes. "And ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... "Then he is more fortunate than I am, for I have never heard of him or what he is." This, I am sorry to say, was a fib, for it will be remembered that Mameena had mentioned him in the hut as one of her suitors, but among natives one must keep up one's dignity somehow. "Friend Umbezi," I went on, "I have come to bid you farewell, as I am about ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... good girl, and wrote me a letter. If Burney said she would write, she told you a fib. She writes nothing to me. She can write home fast enough. I have a good mind not to tell her that Dr. Bernard, to whom I had recommended her novel, speaks of it with great commendation, and that the copy ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... frankly, on your honour. . . . I see from your face you are telling a fib. Once you've let a thing slip out it's no good wriggling about it. Tell me, do you see him? ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... my honor, Doc.! Expect me to fib to you. Of course I talked him out of it, and told him not to bother about it. First of all that it wasn't up to him yet, and if it was, I ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... said that such a treaty was so manifestly for the interest of Austria, that she was fearful that France would not accede to it. Since she knew that the matter was already arranged and settled with the French court, this was a downright lie, though the queen probably regarded it as a venial fib, or as diplomacy. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... boon-companion, with 'blind affection,' as he phrases it, as seen above, literally 'unto death,' and therefore bound by the strongest ties to keep his secret, if secret there were. Besides, Ben can be convicted of at least one unqualified fib on the subject. Hear how he describes Droeshout's print of Shakspeare, prefixed to the first folio edition ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... the bed-clothes. Once was I caught by a sudden cough on my part, which brought Aunt Polly to her feet before I had time to slip back to bed; and the only plea that my guiltiness could make her kind remonstrance on my being up in the cold, was the very natural and very wicked fib, that I heard her move and thought she might want something. Unsuspecting old lady! May her ashes at least rest in peace! How she caught me in her arms, kissed and carried me to bed, tucking in the blankets so effectually that all attempts to get up again ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... bravado perhaps ... at having wasted so much money.... To try and forget that money I had sewn up, perhaps ... yes, that was why ... damn it ... how often will you ask me that question? Well, I told a fib, and that was the end of it, once I'd said it, I didn't care to correct it. What does a ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... morning openly of whom he intended to bring with him into the Cabinet." Truth demands that the chronicler should say that this was a positive fib. Mr. Bonteen, no doubt, had talked largely and with indiscretion, but had made no such boast as that of which the Duchess accused him. "Mr. Gresham will get astray if he doesn't allow some one to tell him ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... what would her mother say if she brought Wolfgang with her? No, that would really not do, this was just the day when their room had not been tidied. And she had told a fib too: there were no herrings, only onion sauce with the potatoes in ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... talk and say afterwards that they knew it all along. She saw that she must still make engagements which did not include her betrothed; she must meet the archnesses of her little world with blank looks above the music in her heart, with many evasions, and even, perhaps, a harmless fib or two. Nevertheless, the lovers secured many hours all to themselves. Shut from public view in Mr. Heth's study, and more especially in long motor rides down unfrequented by-lanes they were deep in the absorptions ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the codex contained the ten decades of Titus Livy, and that he had read some parts of these volumes. This he asserts with an air of truth that commands belief; he told the same tale to Cardinal Orsini, and to many more, and to all in the very same words, so that I think this is no fib of his. What more do you want? This statement of his, and his serious countenance, cause me to give some credence to him. For it is a very good thing to be misled in a matter of this kind, out of which coin can be made to such an amount as to be absolutely ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... ruddy-brown, with tight gray curls on his head, and deep dimples in his cheeks. If anyone had told me that he was not an English admiral I should have known it was a fib. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... mean that hired inmate over to Thankful Barnes'? Humph! So she told you she was goin', hey? Well, most likely she told a fib. I wouldn't trust her not to; sassy, impudent thing! I don't believe she's goin' at all. ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... did Avendano tell this fib that the landlord was quite taken in by it. "Very well, friend," said he, "you may stop ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... desired end. At any rate, I know it became easier in each succeeding examination for me not only to assist "Red," but absolutely to do his work. It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction. I knew boys at school who were too honorable to tell a fib even when one would have been just the right thing, but could not resist the temptation to assist or receive assistance in an examination. I have long considered it the highest proof of honesty in a man to hand his street-car fare to the conductor ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... are brought out with many a shamefaced: "It looks awful little, but 't was the best I could do for the money. You see I spent more on the children than I lotted to," and many a cheerful fib of: "Why, that's exactly what I've been wishing for." Some poor fools, that have never learned and never will learn that the truest word ever spoken is: "It is more blessed to give than to receive," make their husbands a present of a parlor ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... You forget that it is almost as important for you to self your manufactures to America as to get cotton from it. And articles in the Times, and speeches from your first statesmen, show that you really believe the enormous fib so generally current, that the South consumes the very great majority of all our imports. 'The South is where the North makes all ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... up your cat!" I cried, To think she'd fib quite horrified; "Why, how can you say that?" Her tears afresh began to run, She sobbed the words out, one by ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... the mate, fingering the presentation cigars, and then to himself: "What a whopping fib! I wouldn't sail in the same craft with such ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... This little fib (ready enough for Raffles, though I say it) earned me not only forgiveness but that obliging sympathy which is a branch of the business of the man at the door. The good fellow said that he could see I had been sitting up all night, and he left me pluming myself upon ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... keep quiet, will you, and let me go to sleep!" Harry Darcantel did not think of going to sleep; that was a fib he told the reefer; he wanted merely to shut his eyes and dream of—you know who—a tall, graceful girl with blue eyes and light hair, who looked at him once or twice such looks that there was no sleep for him for ever ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... "Edda," the dwarfs tell a monstrous fib, when they pretend that Kvasir, the inventor of poetry, has been suffocated by his own wisdom. Nevertheless, the little fellows showed thereby that they were not short of intelligence; for it is almost always in their own overflow that young poets are drowned. This superabundance seems ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... flimflam, cajolery, flattery; Judas kiss; perfidy &c (bad faith) 940; il volto sciolto i pensieri stretti [It]. unfairness &c (dishonesty) 940; artfulness &c (cunning) 702; misstatement &c (error) 495. V. be false &c adj., be a liar &c 548; speak falsely &c adv.; tell a lie &c 546; lie, fib; lie like a trooper; swear false, forswear, perjure oneself, bear false witness. misstate, misquote, miscite^, misreport, misrepresent; belie, falsify, pervert, distort; put a false construction upon &c (misinterpret); prevaricate, equivocate, quibble; palter, palter ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was a conscientious little girl. Miss Jenny said so. Miss Jenny was conscientious, too. Right at the beginning she told them how she hated a story, fib-story she meant. ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... said Kitty. 'That's a fib. The duchess and I were well "acquaint" when Duke did not stand quite so high in favour. But I am thankful for my part, you two people have given up mischief and settled down. Sit still among your ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... friend. The Squire has sent me a large supply. I am to divide with you," which was as near to a fib as the young clergyman ever got in his ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... baby back again; but on going to the hospital, says, that they informed her that her daughter has been just "put apprentice" in the very house before which she tells the story—part of it as great a fib as ever was told; for children once inside the walls of that "noble charity," never know who left them there; and any attempt to find each other out, by parent or child, is punished with the instant withdrawal of the omnipotent protection of the awful "governors." This lady, who bears all the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... axcuse she was afther makin,' an' she was lookin' that he'd be sayin' somethin' about the young Kings an' was afther dodgin' as long as she cud. So whin he shpoke so crass, she riz up aff the sate, for it was a fib she was tellin', an' she didn't shwape the kitchen at all, an' that was done be wan av the maids, an' gev a sigh, an' wint in the ould ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... colour, wrapt up in a tattered black silk capuchin; and I knew not which to admire most, their folly or their impudence; for surely never did an adventurer set out with less capabilities about him; his whole story was so flagrant a fib, that in spite of the very respectable certificates of My Lord Mayor, John Wilkes, and Mr. Alderman Bull, I was obliged to tell him plainly, that I did not believe him to be a gentleman, nor his wife to be a relation of the Prince of Monaco. All this he took ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... whom the withdrawal of her other guests has left alone with him: "How could you tell such a fib?" ...
— Five O'Clock Tea - Farce • W. D. Howells
... unconcerned canst hear the mighty crack: Pit, box, and gallery in convulsions hurled, Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world. Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain, The creature's at his dirty work again, Throned in the centre of his thin designs, Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines! Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer, Lost the arched eyebrow, or Parnassian sneer? And has not Colley still his lord, and w***e? His butchers ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... that she had torn it up, as an excuse not to show it to Basil, on second thoughts the affair appearing to be Somerled's business. Somerled did not, however, make the request, and Aline was spared an extra fib, at which she ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... whispered—right out loud, 'Lluella, that is your pencil and you know it!' And I had to say—right off, 'It isn't, and I didn't!' Now, what could I have said else? But it was an awful fib, I s'pose." ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... read what follows, because it's a fib"; and she ran her eyes over several lines. "In spite of my prayers, I must go. 'You are no longer a boy,' my father said, 'you must think of the future. You have to learn things your own country cannot teach ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... "Is it to watch the roses that you have put on the gown which matches your eyes, you sly one?"... "And the lilies in your hair, sweet? Is it to shelter them from the rain that you wear them?"... "Fie, Tata! Can you not fib ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... to him; and so he left the island, with a replenished purse, and from that time became a portrait-painter. If the poor fellow had been the veriest dauber, you, Eusebius, would have sat to him twenty times over, and have told all the country round quite as great a fib as he did the governor, that he was a very Raffaelle in outline, and Titian in coloring. And what shall the "recording angel" do? Poor fellow! he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... round thee break, Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack: Pit, box, and gallery in convulsions hurl'd, Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world. Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: 90 Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain, The creature's at his dirty work again, Throned in the centre of his thin designs, Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines! Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer, Lost the arch'd eyebrow, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... has hurt me awfully ever since," replied Jennie, with a toss of her head; "and then I believe you told me an awful fib." ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... made him a stately courtesy for the benefit of the three faces glued against the panes, but her words were incongruous. "You wretch," said she, "don't come here. Hide about, dearest, till you see me with Father Francis. I'll raise my hand so when you are to cuddle him, and fib. There, make me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... print, good company, a text By no vain annotations vexed Which call from students sore perplexed The patience of a Job; And, page by page, a first-rate crib, Neither too faithful nor too glib— That, without fulsomeness or fib, Is what we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... secret—I wouldn't have minded telling him a fib about a little thing. But he made it ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... kind gentleman and saint, whose name was Nicholas, restored these three children to life. It is said that once he lost his temper, and struck with his fist a gentleman named Arius; but the story-teller does not believe this, for he thinks it is a fib, made up long afterward. How could a ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... Vincent, he persists in saying that the defence is a fib from beginning to end, and that the Trotters were agreed to deceive Lady Raikes. But who hasn't had his best actions misinterpreted by calumny? And what innocence or ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... as you are there, he said that your honour was a very kind gentleman, and your word was worth any other ten men's in most things; but where it might be to get a friend out of trouble, and, for aught he knew, foe either, why then, he thought your honour might fib a bit." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... much—I didn't stay out long." She raised a kindling face to him. "And what do you think I've been doing? While you were sitting in your stuffy old theatre, worrying about the money I was spending (oh, you needn't fib—I know you were!) I was saving you hundreds and thousands. I've saved you the price ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... to soften such blows. She didn't want him, and had taken the shortest way to tell him so. Even in his first moment of exasperation it struck him as characteristic that she should not have padded her postponement with a fib. Certainly her moral angles were ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... "The Doctor, to whom we owe so much, will be most welcome to the half of any movables of mine that he can recover from the Abbot Maldon," and she paused, for the fib stuck in her throat. Moreover, she knew herself to be the colour of ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... had not time to make up my mind to tell the truth. I was taken by surprise; and you know one's first impulse is to fib—about THAT." ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... the least," June declared. "All the ingredients for my skin food came from the country—herbs and attar of flowers and all the rest of it. Besides"—she swallowed hard before uttering the biggest fib of all—"my agent lives ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... the boy should be scolded within an inch of his young life. And the fact that David maintained tenaciously that he had never swerved from the slow monowheel lane didn't bother his parents a bit. They were acquainted with another small-boy frailty. Small boys, on occasion, are inclined to fib. ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... continued solemnly, "and inquire very, very carefully concerning whatever business you go into. If I had known what the life of a False Hare really was, I doubt if I should have ever—But, dear me, this will never do—you're getting me into mischief! I've hardly done so much as a fib since we met." ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... the now Mr. Price of Foxley in Herefordshire, abounds with more falshoods than truths; indeed I have been told it was written, as many modern travels are, over a pipe in a chimney corner: and I hope Mr. Udal never was in Spain, as "one fib is more excusable than ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... to harsh language, I am quite prepared to hear my 'poetic rendering' branded as a 'falsehood' and a 'fib.' The vituperation is unmerited, for poetry or ideality, and untruth are assuredly very different things. The one may vivify, while the other, kills. When St. John extends the notion of a soul to 'souls washed in the blood of Christ' does he 'fib'? Indeed, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... many an artful fib Had in imagination fenced him, Disproved the arguments of Squib And all that Groom could urge ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... shouldn't any of us have to fib. I always said Cristobal is the luckiest saint to have for a patron. See how he's offering his help to you. And oh, did you know he's the patron saint of automobilists? To-morrow I'll give you a Cristobal medal to nail on your car. They're made ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... you look so pale then?' said she, smiling with delight at my emotion. 'Is it anger at poor me for telling such a fib? Well, I only "tell the tale as 'twas told to me:" I don't vouch for the truth of it; but at the same time, I don't see what reason Sarah should have for deceiving me, or her informant for deceiving her; and that was what she told me the footman told her:—that Mrs. Huntingdon was going ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... with her," said Pen, telling almost the first fib which he has told in the course of ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... heaven to smuggle the bread out of capable workmen's mouths. All this is Pagan, and arose thus. The Trojans had Oriental imaginations, and feigned that their Palladium, a wooden statue three cubits long, fell down from heaven. The Greeks took this fib home among the spoils of Troy, and soon it rained statues on all the Grecian cities, and their Latin apes. And one of these Palladia gave St. Paul trouble at Ephesus; 'twas a statue of Diana that fell down from Jupiter: ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... any talk about my being seen in a Staten Island beer garden with Bern Cameron, don't believe one word of it—we didn't go in at all, the place was too smelly. And that fib about his giving me a diamond ring,—deny it please, as I have never shown it to a soul—So you can ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... "You fib in a good cause, but you cannot deceive me; I read your thoughts, but I am very forgiving, and I am resolved that we shall have a pleasant ride to the hotel together. Now, entertain me, tell me about that war, of which you saw ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... she had plucked a certain little Nellie Taylor from a family near by, named her "Rose Featherstone" and taken her to and from the kindergarten daily, a distance of at least half a mile of crowded streets. The affair was purely one of innocent romance. Emma Abby Googins never told a fib or committed the slightest fault or folly save that of burying her name, assuming a more distinguished one, and introducing a sister to me who had no claim to the Googins blood. Her mother was thoroughly mystified by the occurrence and I no less so, but Emma Abby ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... current, which I am this moment honoured with, is a deep reproach to me for ungrateful neglect. I will tell you the real truth, for I am miserably awkward at a fib—I wished to have written to Dr. Moore before I wrote to you; but, though every day since I received yours of December 30th, the idea, the wish to write to him has constantly pressed on my thoughts, yet I could not for my soul set about it. I know his fame and character, and I am one of "the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... transparent fib was an infectious peal of laughter, and a kiss which amply repaid Teague for any discomfort to which ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... was a little fib on Lina's part. She had thought that the letter or, rather, the fact that it had been written to Miss Madeline, funny. The Rev. Cecil Thorne was Miss Madeline's pastor. He was a handsome, scholarly man of middle age, and Lina ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... being angry with Greville Fane when she announced these nuptials to me as magnificent; I remember asking her what splendour there was in the union of the daughter of a woman of genius with an irredeemable mediocrity. "Oh! he's awfully clever," she said; but she blushed for the maternal fib. What she meant was that though Sir Baldwin's estates were not vast (he had a dreary house in South Kensington and a still drearier "Hall" somewhere in Essex, which was let), the connection was a "smarter" ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... about the school bounds at the time, or I should never have allowed you! And on the way you asked me if I had hurt myself in falling. I told you "No"; but that was a fib, for my hip was growing weak even then. It's by reason of my hip that I have to lie here. But in those days there was no one else to take the dancing classes, and it would never have done to confess. And—and that was all. ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... note.] The doctor scoffed at me all day yesterday with this Sweden. The public education, says he, in Sweden, and everything else there is first-class! But what is Sweden, anyway? It may be that Sweden is but a fib, is but used as an example, and that there is no education whatever or any of the other things there. And then, we don't live for the sake of Sweden, and Sweden cannot put us to test. We have to make our lip according to our ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... excessive—it expressed the poor lady's distress at having her veracity tested. "Dear little daughter of the Puritans—she can't tell a fib!" Bernard exclaimed to himself. And with this flattering conclusion he took leave ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... failure. "He knows it isn't true," muttered the lad. "Serve me right for telling lies. It was only my fun, Fred," he cried hastily, to make honest confession of his fib. "But don't go on like that. Come out now, and let's get back. It ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... 'tis, but they hate to be reminded of it, and, when we came here, papa told us never to say anything bad about the town, as if we didn't like it, for we'd get everybody down on us. We did like it, though, so we didn't have to fib. But now you're here you'd better just keep still about anything that strikes you funny, when you're off with the boys. Then you can come back and talk it over with me, when they aren't round, if you want to; I don't mind; only don't let Howard hear you, for he'd tell the Everetts. See? That's all; ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... baggage!" The doctor scowled now. "Then you told him a tremendous fib. I meant a deal of it. Well, he'll get his deserts yet, if he gets you, you deceiving minx. I told him one thing that was true enough, anyway"—he smiled broadly again—"I told him Mary was worth ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... to heaven, but could not speak. "In fact," said Alfred, hesitating (for he was a wretched hand at a fib), "he saw him not a fortnight ago on board ship. But that is not all, mamma, the sailor says ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... more fib among so many couldn't matter, so I said you were. Heaven forgive me. By-the-by, are you really Dutch, or ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Kensington Museum. Lavender would have preferred going into the Park, but what if his aunt, in driving by, were to see them? He explained to Sheila the absolute necessity of his having to tell that fib about the four-o'clock engagement; and when she heard described the drive in the closed brougham which she had escaped, perhaps she was not so greatly inclined as she ought to have been to protest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... making me stay at home all the blessed day, and sending Captain Ussher all the way back to Mohill, and he having come over here by engagement to walk with me,"—this was a fib of Feemy's,—"and all to ask me where I got a ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... so clear, Pip and Trip and Skip that were To Mab, their sovereign, ever dear, Her special maids of honour; Fib and Tib and Pink and Pin, Tick and Quick and Jill and Jin, Tit and Nit and Wap and Win, The ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... him to tell a lie in order to avoid a scolding. Nothing is more unfortunate, nothing is more easy for an ordinarily good, but misunderstood man, than the tendency to fib about little things, if he feels in his heart that his wife will scold,—that she will fail to see the point. It wounds his self-respect to have to do so, yet he selects the minor evil as he sees it, he sacrifices his manhood in the interests ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... interesting). Another (truly pathetic). Felix ill (the dear pet, how sorry his grandchildren will be to hear it). Gatty in mischief (when is she ever out of it?) Schillie worked the most of all (and what has she got to do besides?) Very merry tea (what a fib, when we have had no tea this month). Sybil so amiable (yes, quite mawkishly so). Our dear captain (good me! what a monody). The good Smart (perfect epitaphs over them all, pity they are not in rhyme). Well, June, of all the nonsense ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... grain, who never opened her mouth without a lie, must be guarded against a remote inference, which she (pretty casuist!) might possibly draw from a form of words—literally false, but essentially deceiving no one—that under some circumstances a fib might not be so exceedingly sinful—a fiction, too, not at all in her own way, or one that she could be suspected of adopting, for few servant-wenches care to be ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... not have told what he said. Her mind was entirely full of what she had to say. Somehow she stammered out the story: how she had been afraid to go to Nancy Gookin's, and how she had lost the sixpence her uncle had given her, and how Martha had said she told a fib. Patience trembled and gasped out the words, and curtesied, once in a while, ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... Margaret, and, with all her nonsense, I believe she's honest. Besides, what interest could she have to be otherwise? To be sure, she didn't give me the true reason for the incognito; but that's nothing; she's just the woman to tell a useless fib, and reserve the truth for important occasions ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... picnic at Hepburn, and as no one else from North Dormer intended to venture so far it was not likely that her absence from the festivity would be reported. Besides, if it were she would not greatly care. She was determined to assert her independence, and if she stooped to fib about the Hepburn picnic it was chiefly from the secretive instinct that made her dread the profanation of her happiness. Whenever she was with Lucius Harney she would have liked some impenetrable mountain ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... corporal's stripe, given as a reward and an incentive, would be to me a talisman. I decided that I'd keep it in a place where I could rush to look at it whenever I needed encouragement to go on being a soldier. If I wanted to sneak myself out of trouble with a fib, or be snappish to Father or cattish to Di, or say "damn," or bang a door in a rage, it seemed to me that I should only have to think of that little triangle of black cloth and gilt braid to be suddenly as good as gold, all the way through to ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... I to say? You would not wish me to tell a fib. I don't like Mrs. Harold Smith—at least, what I hear of her; for it has not been my fortune to meet her since her marriage. It may be conceited; but to own the truth, I think that Mr. Robarts would be better off with us at Framley ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... a word of fib and not a grain of truth. Well, you would beat Jones if you went at his game, but I do think it a good idea to wire Nat Phillips. I'll go and do so at once," he added, feeling in his pocket to make sure he had with him change enough to pay ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... "you can't deceive me. I'm ashamed that I wrote the note, and your telling a fib about getting it won't make it any better. But it was wicked of you not to answer. I only wanted you to come to me and—and talk it all over, and say good-by for ever. ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... "Don't fib, Judith, dear," she answered. And, for Marcia, she was very grave. "I know you have a glass in your room. You wonderful, ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... over her face," Bristles admitted. "She looked all around as if she was afraid that Corny'd be popping up, and then shook her head again and again, saying the pin wasn't hers. But, Fred, I know the poor little girl was telling a fib, because she was afraid if she owned up to the old piece of fake jewelry that she seemed to value so much, it might get somebody in a peck of trouble; and we know who that is, ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... would much rather not have said that he was going to Bolton Street that evening, but he could find no alternative. "I believe I shall see her this evening," he said, simply venturing to mitigate the evil of making the communication by rendering it falsely doubtful. There are men who fib with so bad a grace and with so little tact that they might as well not fib at all. They not only never arrive at success, but never even venture to ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... the squares. At trump. At the cows. At the prick and spare not. At the lottery. At the hundred. At the chance or mumchance. At the peeny. At three dice or maniest bleaks. At the unfortunate woman. At the tables. At the fib. At nivinivinack. At the pass ten. At the lurch. At one-and-thirty. At doublets or queen's game. At post and pair, or even and At the faily. sequence. At the French trictrac. At three hundred. At the long tables or ferkeering. At the unlucky man. At feldown. At the last couple ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... in fact, could not keep Cecile d'Aubepine back any longer from hindering such shocking impropriety as out tete-a-tete. We overheard her saving her little girl from corruption by a frightful French fib that the gentleman in black was ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hundred years, and has, as they pretend, the names of the said knights in Saxon characters, and yet such as no man can read), all this story I see so little ground to give the least credit to that I look upon it, and it shall please you, to be no better than a fib. ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... may have my turn. You do not believe in Rumtunshid? Then why should farmer Buttercup be called on to believe in the communion of the saints? What does he believe about it? Or why should you make little Flora Buttercup tell such a huge fib as to say, that she believes in the ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... and the Republicans being in control in the Senate the outcome could hardly be in doubt. He had learned also of the other misfortunes which had befallen Judge Rossmore and he understood now the reason for Shirley's grave face on the dock and her little fib about summering on Long Island. The news had been a shock to him, for, apart from the fact that the judge was Shirley's father, he admired him immensely as a man. Of his perfect innocence there could, of course, be no question: these charges of bribery had simply been trumped ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... does not come?" observed Marfa Timofyevna, moving her knitting needles quickly. (She was knitting a large woolen scarf.) "He would have sighed with you—or at least he'd have had some fib to ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... such a roaring and bouncing, that I tho't he would have broke his cage and devoured us all; and the gentleman tittered forsooth; but I'll go to death upon it, I will, that my lady is as good a firchin, as the child unborn; and, therefore, either the gentleman told a fib, or the lion oft to be set in the stocks for bearing false witness agin his neighbour; for the commandment sayeth, Thou shalt not bear ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... yourself as well as you can, and AFTERWARDS read the rest of this note, which I have consequently pinned down. I find, to my surprise, whenever I act thus my platysma contracts. Does yours? (N.B.—See what a man will do for science; I began this note with a horrid fib, namely, that I want you to attend to a new point. (The point was doubtless described as a new one, to avoid the possibility of Dr. Ogle's attention being directed to the platysma, a muscle which had been the subject of discussion in other letters.)) I will try and get some persons thus to ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... could forgive the big fellow the fib. He knew well enough that Dade Morgan was getting his money from Richard Starbright, who, in order to earn anything, was working like a dog on a newspaper. The fact that he was helping Morgan along Starbright ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... (assuredly) in Padua, where there is no zest, but much decorum, in the practice of religion. To see her in church was, as it were, to see a child in her mother's lap—able to laugh, to play, to sulk and pout, ah, and to tell a fib, being so sure of forgiveness! No secret too childish to be kept back, no trouble too light; the mustiness of the season's oil, the shocking price of potherbs, the delinquency of the milliner's apprentice who had spoiled a breadth of silk. She could grumble at her husband, or impart and expect heaven ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... inclined to neglect her own part in the ceremony in order to perform pirouettes and pigeon-wings (so to speak) before the backgammon-player of the tropics. "If Aunt Lyddy forgets, after all," said Jane, anxiously, "and does mention Florida, why, I've told a fib for nothing." Jane had informed Mrs. Rhodes that the Bateses had lost their youngest child at Jacksonville, and so could not bear the slightest mention of the South; though she knew perfectly well that the youngest ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... your pardon for that little implied fib, Mr. Masters; and, auntie, don't look too much shocked. I could not allow Mr. Masters to lose his time, which is no doubt of value, or to go away perhaps before he had heard my experience.' And then, before the elder lady could utter her gentle reproof or I could ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... my young friend (for he was only about twenty-five) was not a very wise man; and this was a huge fib, which out of the kindness of his heart, he told in my behalf, for the purpose of creating a profound respect for me in the eyes ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... of Pao-ch'in. "Don't be humbugging us!" she remarked. "I know well enough that you are not likely, on a visit like this, to have left any such things of yours at home. You must have brought them along. Yet here you are now again palming off a fib on us by saying that you haven't got them with you. You people may believe what she says, but I, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... instantly. You cannot allow this man to come and call and yet say nothing about it. And he would not have called without some previous acquaintance. This you will have to describe, and if you say that you merely knew him at Exeter, there will be in that case an additional fib." The use of such words applied to herself by this woman was intolerable. But she could only answer them by an involuntary frown upon her brow. "And then," continued Miss Altifiorla, "of course he will refer to me. He will conclude that as you knew Sir Francis at Exeter I must have known ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... proposed arrangement, saying that we could walk, which was a fib, for I do not think that I could have done a mile; but Stella would not listen, she would not even let me carry my elephant gun, but took it herself. So we mounted with some difficulty, and Hendrika took up the sleeping Tota ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... now!" exclaimed Frolich, ceasing her stirring for a moment to look round; "what a capital story that is! and how few people know it! and how neatly you catch him in his fib! And why should not something like it be happening now with Rolf? Rolf knows all the ins and outs of the fiord: and if he has been playing bo-peep with his enemies among the islands, and frightening Hund, is it not the most natural thing in the world that Hund should come scampering ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... Townsend; that's all I ask. It is highly probable you have been corresponding with him for the last three weeks—perhaps even seeing him. I don't ask you—you needn't tell me." He had a moral conviction that she would contrive to tell a fib about the matter, which it would disgust him to listen to. "Whatever you have done, stop doing it. That's all ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... "I told you a fib just now"—Mrs. Piper's voice again dropped to a whisper. "Piper's made a clean breast o' the matter to me, and I do think as what it's common justice to admit that my 'usband's evidence at that inquest was worth more than twenty-five pound to you. It ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... and drank every drop to punish herself for her fib, for she was not in the least thirsty, and to drink a fairly large cupful of water when you are not thirsty is somewhat of an ordeal. Yet the memory of that draught was to be very pleasant to Rosemary. ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Hannah, Aunt Hannah," she wailed, half laughing, half crying; "that wretched little fib-teller of a clock of yours spoiled ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... Zuleika, marvelling at the lie—or fib, rather: he had been GOING to die for her. But why not have told the truth? Was it possible, she wondered, that her wretched vanity had survived her renunciation of the world? Why had she so resented just now the doubt cast on that irresistibility which ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... appreciated the fact that all men and women are liars, for Punch records the following as the dialogue between her and her mother when she had been caught in a fib: ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... even guessed Lady Cecilia had done. Helen showed her that she guessed wrong here and there, and smiled at her prejudices; and Miss Clarendon smiled again, and admitted that she was prejudiced, "but every body is; only some show and tell, and others smile and fib. I wish that word fib was banished from English language, and white lie drummed out after it. Things by their right names and we should all do much better. Truth must be told, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Admiral—between your crew and THEIR captain. I know I hire a worthy, clean, agreeable, and conscientious male or female hypocrite, at so many guineas a year, to do so and so for me. Were he other than hypocrite I would send him about his business. Don't let my displeasure be too fierce with him for a fib or ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sit on, in the absolute silence, unconscious—unaware of any thing round me; living only in my thoughts, and with a resolution growing ever stronger and stronger within me. I will not tell her! I will never tell any one. I, that have hitherto bungled and blundered over the whitest fib, will wade knee-deep in falsehoods, before I will ever let any one guess the disgrace that has happened to me. Oh that, by long silence, I could wipe it out of my own heart—out of the ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... told ye a fib the day ye fust come. I did have a dinner, though it war a terrible measly one—Mrs. ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... of Garn Goch and the Welsh castles with a strong and masterly nasal, that so delighted the worthy vicar, that he actually invited me in to see his museum. I excused myself by saying that my wife was waiting for me—mother, that was my only fib, I assure you—and hastened away, lest in his delight at finding an itinerant archaeologist, he should ask my wife to see his museum as well. The rest of my adventures you had the honour and glory of sharing, so I must beg to say they are at an end. And ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... exactly a fib on the part of the professor because he was thinking of it. But it did not include the whole truth, because he had already tried it, tried it very successfully only a few moments before. First he had made sure that ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... o' that," said the farmer. "No doubt I had business at the mill,—lots to do at the mill." Nor did he think that the fib he was telling was at all incompatible with the Holy Sacrament in which he had ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... that became known, before the purchase was made, and it was objected to him that he had borrowed the money from a client, then Cicero, instigated by the unexpected charge, denied the loan, and denied also that he was going to buy the house. But when he had bought it and the fib was thrown in his teeth, he laughed heartily, and asked whether men had so lost their senses as not to be aware that a prudent father of a family would deny an intended purchase rather than raise the price of the article against himself."—Noctes ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... by the thro at and yell ed, swear to me thou nev er wilt re veal my se cret, or thy hot heart's blood shall stain this mar bel fib or; she gave one ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... the prisoner.] This is not a place for parlor talk. I had chosen the English words that conveyed my meaning most distinctly. It was all very well for the prisoner's counsel to smooth things over; but was I, instead of calling him a liar, to say, he told a fib? When I call him a thief and a felon, do I go beyond the charge of the grand jury in the indictment? If this is stepping over the limits of propriety, in all similar cases I shall do the same. I do not intend to blackguard the prisoner,—I do not delight in using these epithets. My heart is ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... done anything of the kind, so this was a really whopping fib. But Elizabeth Ann didn't care if it was. It made her feel less ashamed, though she did not know why. She took another mouthful of pop-corn and stroked Eleanor's back. Uncle Henry got up and stretched. "It's time to go to bed, folks," he said. As he wound the ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... well as their feet. Some of the lady visitors are Beautiful Swimmers, and their Divers Charms excite universal admiration. Many of these fair Amphitrites are so constantly in or on the water that it would hardly be a Fib to call them Amphibious. Their husbands and brothers are, I regret to say, not so much On the Water, preferring something a trifle ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... Tom, adding humbug to cruelty. "You would be nothing but a sham!—A live dishonesty! A jackdaw in peacock's feathers!—I am sorry, Letty, your own sense of truth and uprightness should not prevent even the passing desire to act such a lie. Your fine dress would be just a fine fib—yourself would be but a walking fib. I have been taking too much for granted with you: I must bring you no more novels. A volume or two of Carlyle is ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... shall find you a dancer In Christ Church or Trinity hall. And perhaps, when the elders are yawning And rafters grow pale overhead With the day, there shall come with its dawning Some thought of that sentence unsaid. Be it this, be it that—'I forget,' or 'Was joking'—whatever the fem- -inine fib, you'll have made me your debtor And come,—you will come? ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to stand up and fib each other about (saying nothing of the practice), why let them do it; or if two dogs worry each other to death for a bone, or two cocks meet and contend for the sovereignty of a dunghill. In these last two cases the appearance of cruelty is out of the question, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... Sally analyses the position, and decides on the fib in the twinkling of an eye. She is going to make a son break a promise to his mother, and she knows it. So she gives him this as a set-off. "But people will talk to her, of course! Shall I get her ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... means of his success; but as Margaret only asked about the telegram, he was perfectly safe in denying any knowledge of it. Not that such a consideration would have prevented his meeting her question with a little fib, just ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... cashier was livid, haggard, distracted, and as soon as Reine had joined Mathieu's children, and could not hear what he said, he implored the young man to come with him. In a gasp he told the dreadful truth—Valerie was dying. Her daughter believed her to be in the country, but that was a mere fib devised to quiet the girl. Valerie was elsewhere, in Paris, and he, Morange, had a cab waiting below, but lacked the strength to go back to her alone, so poignant was his ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... to fib about ee. Uncle Dan saw you run past all wet this morning, and he asked. I had to tell him something. I said you fell in trying to reach them watter-lilies. I didn't want your own uncle to ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... two hours ago, when he asked me from his room, that Lorna had returned and was asleep. He believed me. I had to fib to save him from breaking his dear old daddy heart. Is ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... conversation as to her maiden name, she had not blushed as she answered the question with a falsehood. When, unfortunately, the name of her first husband had in some way made itself known to Clara, she had been ready again with some prepared fib. And when she had recognized William Belton, she had thought that the danger to herself of having any one near her who might know her quite justified her in endeavouring to create ill-will between Clara and her cousin. 'Self-preservation is the first ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... farther he began to lose his temper: it was too stupid, it made him look ridiculous. What did they mean by calling him "a Republican musician"; it did not mean anything.... Well, let the fib pass.... But when they set his "Republican" art against the "sacristy art" of the masters who had preceded him,—(he whose soul was nourished by the souls of those great men),—it was ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... to lie, but he might then have made his first assay had he had a fib at his tongue's end; as he had not, he gloomed ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... good Eastern quibble infinitely more dangerous than an honest downright lie. The consciousness that the falsehood is part fact applies a salve to conscience and supplies a force lacking in the mere fib. When an Egyptian lies to you look straight in his eyes and he will most often betray himself either by boggling or by a look ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... she wants to go," Rose continued, uttering the biggest fib of her life and only regretting it should be ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... had done nothing of the kind; but the feminine mind is prone to exaggeration. Also Hasan had told them a fib, to prejudice them against ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... standing most of this time; but he then sat down, and took me by both my hands, and said, Well said, my pretty Pamela, if you can help it! But I will not let you help it. Tell me, are they in your pocket? No, sir, said I; my heart up at my mouth. Said he, I know you won't tell a downright fib for the world: but for equivocation! no jesuit ever went beyond you. Answer me then, Are they in neither of your pockets? No, sir, said I. Are they not, said he, about your stays? No, sir, replied I: But pray ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... fib, Aunt Bettie," laughed Ruth. "You know you've been talking about him ever since we got off the train, and besides, you called him ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... took an hour or so of solitary shopping, and had the things I bought carried straight into my own room, for I had given out that I had a sick headache, and wanted to sleep—a fib so delicate, that it seemed almost conscientious, besides being worth forgiving on account ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... on with his teaching, lamenting from time to time the stumbling-block of the idol and expressing wonder as to how it might be circumvented by a change in the hearts of the islanders, or otherwise. Sad as it is to record, in fact, dear old Bastin went as near to telling a fib in connection with this matter as I suppose he had ever done in his life. It happened thus. One day Bickley's sharp eye caught sight of Bastin walking about with what looked like a bottle of ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... my hero all right, though," said Marie; "you told me a big fib just the same, but I could ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... to see whether his fib had taken me in. I replied, with an air of the utmost conviction, "That is putting it mildly. Paris, ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... his health in a bumper! "Old" Ponny—a fib; What's fifty? A baby. Bring tucker and bib. Add twenty; then ask us again, little boy, And till then may your life be all ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... how much of the tale, as it was now told to her, might be true and how much false. After a certain fashion she and Lizzie Eustace called themselves friends. But she did not believe her friend to be honest, and was aware that in some matters her friend would condescend—to fib. Lizzie's poetry, and romance, and high feelings, had never had the ring of true soundness in Lucy's ears. But her imagination was not strong enough to soar to the altitude of the lies which Lizzie was now telling. She did believe that the property which Lizzie was called upon ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... a nuisance, on our last day! But I forgot, I asked her to come. If she stays very long, just tell a little fib, won't you, and say you need ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... description. "Now blister my kidneys," said he, slapping his thigh, "but I'll sarve him out! I'll baste him as Randall did ugly Borrock. I'll knock him about as Belcher did the Big Ilkey Pigg. I'll damage his mug as Turner did Scroggins's. I'll fib him till he's as black as Agamemnon—for I do feel as though ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... give out in the world that it costs me from Thirty to Forty Thousand!" [1717: Forster, i. 213.] So that here is the Majesty of Prussia, who beyond all men abhors lies, giving orders to tell one? Alas, yes; a kind of lie, or fib (white fib, or even GRAY), the pinch of Thrift compelling! But what a window into the artless inner-man of his Majesty, even that GRAY fib;—not done by oneself, but ordered to be done by the servant, as ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... Cornelius Drinkwater—you know her mother was a second cousin to the Marquis of Balencourt and the family has a beautiful chateau near Nice. Of course we'll stay there part of the time——" A very little fib like that, Isobel had decided, could hurt no one! She had lain awake at night, staring into the half-darkness of her room, picturing herself sauntering beside Aunt Maria through long hotel corridors, to the Opera, to the little ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... paused a moment, thinking what reply she should make;—and then she told a fib. "No; he never asked me." But Violet did not believe the fib. Violet was quite sure that Phineas had asked Lady Laura Standish to be his wife. "As far as I can see," said Violet, "Madame Max Goesler is his ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... headache, and I asked if I could go home with her and read her the assignments for next day (they called the lessons 'assignments' there), and they thought I was such a meek little country mouse that I wouldn't ever fib, and so they let us go, and what do you think we did? She had tickets for 'The Two Orphans' at the stock company. (You've never seen 'The Two Orphans,' have you? It's perfectly splendid. I used to weep my eyes ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... thought for the two hours that the city had been burning, how she might return and snatch her property from the flames. The sleepy guards at the barrier allowed the carriage to pass without much difficulty, the worthy lady allaying their scruples with a fib, telling them she was bringing back her niece with her to Paris to assist in nursing her husband, who had been wounded by the Versaillese. It was not until they commenced to make their way along the paved streets that they encountered serious obstacles; they were obliged at every moment ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... years, mind, though she could have added somewhat to the figure without risking a fib. She said something else, a something that didn't sound exactly like a blessing; and, in a sudden fit of rage, started from her seat, sprang across the room, tore the offending Saint from the nail from which he had dangled for such long years, and, without further ceremony, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various |
