"Prank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... joker, and his tendency to break out without regard to fitness of time or place into some mad prank made him almost a terror to his friends. On one occasion he informed a young lady friend that he did not think he would be able to come to her wedding because he had such a terrible toothache. "Then why not have your tooth pulled out?" said the young lady. "I never thought of that," ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... that the boys ran away because of some childish prank put on by them the night before. They broke some windows in a couple of shanties down by the tracks, or, at least, the other boys say they did, and Joe thinks they ran away because of that. He accounts in that way for their not calling after ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... When, launched as on the lightning's flash, They bade me to destruction dash, That one day I should come again, With twice five thousand horse, to thank The Count for his uncourteous ride. They played me then a bitter prank, When, with the wild horse for my guide, They bound me to his foaming flank: At length I played them one as frank— For time at last sets all things even— And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... profit, the more prisoners he had, the happier he was, and the higher in rank the prisoners happened to be, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed the expression of countenance he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me, but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul and La ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... always are. They answered the call with a stentorian roar; and if Dick Winthorpe had imitated Richard the Second just then, and called upon the crowd to accept him as their leader, they would have followed him to the attempt of any mad prank he could have designed. ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... purely personal. With a broader outlook and a better understanding she might have protested on behalf of a slighted neighborhood, or, indeed, of a misprized town. A finer vision might have seen in Truesdale's prank a good-natured, half-contemptuous indifference alike to place and people. "I don't know what the Warners over the way will think," she emitted, as if ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... they were as ever the world beheld—was attempting to play off a smart, witty jest upon him. Indeed, Miss Eliza Bolles, who was of a lively, mischievous temper, was not herself above playing such a prank should the occasion offer. With this thought in his mind Barnaby inquired of her with a good deal of particularity concerning the appearance and condition of the man who had left the note, to all of which Miss replied with so straight a face and so candid an air ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... of his own, a certain Monsieur LaChaise, who was one of the conductors at the Metropolitan and was to have the direction of the summer opera out here at Ravinia this year. Portia added with the falsely deprecatory air of a mother apologizing for a child's prank, that Pietro had in fact, already invited him to the dinner and had only just informed her of the fact. Lucile had assured her, of course, that this addition to the company would cause not the slightest inconvenience, served on the contrary to bring it up ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... about; Lo! here come Mimi and Musette With: "S'il vous plait, une cigarette?" Marcel and Rudolf, Shaunard too, Behold the old rapscallion crew, With flowing tie and shaggy head . . . Who says Bohemia is dead? Oh shades of Murger! prank and clown, And I will ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... he. "Now here's ill prank to play a poor hangman, may I ne'er quaff good liquor more, let me languish o' the quartern ague and die o' the doleful dumps if I ever saw the like o' this! For look 'ee now, if I set these three rogues free, how may I hang 'em as hang 'em I must, since I by hanging ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... lower ebb in these modern days of quips and quodlibets than in the stirring times of my youth. Then, thank God, it was held more necessary for a page to know his seven points of horsemanship than how to tie a ribbon, or prank a gown, or ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... thing. But these widows—Then such a love in us all, both old and young, of being courted and admired!—and so irresistible to their elderships to be flattered, that all power is not over with them; but that they may still class and prank it with their daughters.—It vexed me heartily to have her tell me of this proposal with self-complaisant simperings; and yet she affected to speak of it as if she had no intention ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... I hope without blushing, That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter and larger ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... two hours before her excitement allowed her to sit down and begin to knit. Even then—and naturally enough—while she was musing the fire burned. It never occurred to her to reflect that there must have been some reason for Austin's extraordinary prank, and that the first thing to be done was to discover what that was. She was too angry to take this obvious fact into consideration, and so, when Austin at last appeared, his eyes full of suppressed ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... looking at one another much in the same way as we used to do years before, when she had detected me in some boyish prank, and assumed the mentor while I felt a culprit. How really I felt a culprit at that moment she ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... and, when I am at last on top, I look out through the small window at the wide heavens and am not at all cold. It seems to me then as if I must give vent to all my pent-up tears, and the next day I am so cheerful and feel new-born, and I look with cunning for a prank to play. And—canst thou believe ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Tom!" cried Fanny; and with the words out tumbled that incorrigible boy, red in the face, and breathless with suppressed laughter. Seating himself, he surveyed the girls as if well satisfied with the success of his prank, and waiting to be congratulated upon it. "Did you hear what we ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... all," she said. "It was a prank one would expect you to play. Though it's a very long time since I saw you, you haven't changed, Dick. Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... shame-faced plum, all simp'ring there. Walk in the groves, and thou shalt find The name of Phillis in the rind Of every straight and smooth-skin tree; Where kissing that, I'll twice kiss thee. To thee a sheep-hook I will send, Be-prank'd with ribbons, to this end, This, this alluring hook might be Less for to catch a sheep, than me. Thou shalt have possets, wassails fine, Not made of ale, but spicd wine; To make thy maids and self free mirth, All sitting near the glitt'ring hearth. ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... on the subject; and it was so far from my power to make a proper impression on her of the enormity that had been committed, that she made me laugh, in spite of my reason, at the fantastical drollery of her malicious prank on Miss Betty Wudrife. ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... positive, and by that time Jonathan had found his tongue, and both children explained the affair so clearly, that the old magistrates looked rather foolish, and dismissed the case with a reprimand to Jonathan for wasting his time so foolishly. But some good came of the boy's prank after all. For his father, seeing how near Jonathan came being proved a witch, bestirred himself in favor of poor School-master Halleck, who was set free from prison ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of the Eagle might set on us again," added Stephen; and as they went on their way to Warwick Inner Yard, he explained that the cause of the encounter had been that Giles had thought fit to prank himself in his father's silver chain, and thus George Bates, always owing the Dragon a grudge, and rendered specially malicious since the encounter on Holy Rood Day, had raised the cry against him, and caused all the flat-caps around to ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... no secret. But she drops her voice somewhat to disguise her feats of metathesis, about which she has doubts and which are involuntary: the "stand-wash," the "sweeping-crosser," the "sewing chamine." Genoese peasants have the same prank when ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... I followed them. At the same time, I was fully conscious that I was playing a mad prank without being able to stop myself. My disordered condition ran away with me; I was inspired with the craziest notions, which I followed blindly as they came to me. I couldn't help it, no matter how much I told myself that I was ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... that; but woe betide those that he didn't take a fancy to. I can hear Sally Andrews now, when she found the frog in her desk. It jumped right into her face, and fell into her apron-pocket,—we wore aprons with big pockets then,—and she screamed so she had to be taken home. That was the kind of prank Solomon was up to, every day of his life; and fishing for schoolmaster's wig through the skylight, and every crinkum-crankum that ever was. Master Bayley used to go to sleep every recess, and the skylight was just over his head. Dear me, Sirs, how that ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... potenco. Power (of attorney) konfidatesto. Powerful multepova. Powerless senpotenca. Practical praktika. Practice (custom) kutimo. Practice praktiko, kutimo, uzado. Practise praktiki. Prairie herbejo. Praise lauxdi. Prank petoleco—ajxo. Prate babili. Prattle babili. Pray (religious) pregxi. Pray (to request) peti. Prayer pregxo. Prayer-book pregxlibro. Preach prediki. Preacher predikisto. Preaching predikado. Preamble antauxparolo. Prebendary kanoniko. Precarious duba, necerta. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... before the heads of the Uniuersity: Dr. Cosens, being Vice Chancelor noe punishment is inioined him: but on Ash-wednesday next a recantation in regent house of some popish tenets Nicols let fall: I p'ceive by M^r Breercliffe some such prank vsed towards y^r sonne: I desire to know what y^u did therin: thinking I cannot doe god better seruice then bring it vppon the stage either in Parliament if it hold: or informing some Lords of the Counsail to whom ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... ringlets of the vale We flash our faery feet in gamesome prank; Or, silent-sandal'd, pay our defter court, Circling the Spirit of the Western Gale, Where wearied with his flower-caressing sport, 65 Supine he slumbers on a violet bank; Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... prayers, with a joke at the quality of his Latin. But Dieu protect you, Monsieur, if ever he gets whip-hand. A revengeful priest is more to be feared than a rabid dog. I stirred one of his breed once at the Cathedral by some wild prank, and carry the scar of it still. But come, it becomes dusk. Let's break our fast, and while eating consider the best plan for the night. Eloise, do ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... been in mischief herself too often when at Phil's age not to feel sympathy with him on the score of the prank he had played that afternoon. It was this same sympathetic understanding of their moods and actions which gave her so much influence with the boys, enabling her to twist them round her little finger, as ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... Pray don't mention it. I am only sorry that some one has played a mischievous prank on you—a servant, doubtless. Madame," sternly, looking at his step-mother. "I insist that you shall investigate the matter, and discharge ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... would mention a name, or allude to some boyish prank which would give them food for plenty of thought. And the home country, so dear and so distant, would little by little gain possession of their minds, sending them back through space, to the well-known forms and noises, to the familiar scenery, with the fragrance of its ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... spirit of mischief urged the Prince on to a gay prank, as also a wayward spirit urged him no longer to brook Queen ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... Annie's darling. The excellent spinster took pains never to show that Henry had supplanted him; nevertheless, she showed it all the time. Tom's faults flourished and multiplied. There can be no question that he was idle, untruthful, and unreliable. In earliest youth he had been a merry prank; he was still a prank, but not often merry. His spirit seemed to be overcast; and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not 'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... being so absorbed in her own affairs that she looked upon the other occupants as she did the furniture. Without even a direct glance at the young people in the corner she swept up to a chair within a few feet of them and sat down to wait. Jimmy, in the midst of some tale about a prank that the High School Invincibles had played on a rival base-ball team, faltered, grew confused and finished haltingly. For all her spectacles and crape the golden haired stranger ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... sifted sugar with leisurely satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all, there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business— Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on the table, he and his father-in-law were discussing the mysteries of the last ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... stole to the window. The sound of the lute and the distant tinkle of laughter persisted. The court, save for a page, who lay asleep on a bench in the gallery, was empty. Tignonville scanned the boy suspiciously; a male disguise was often adopted by the court ladies, and if Madame would play a prank on him, this was a thing to be reckoned with. But a boy it seemed to be, and after a while the young man went ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... dear, and not be so impatient. Papa promised to give you a chance before the season is over, and he always manages things nicely. That will be better than any queer prank of yours,' answered Bess, tying her pretty hair in a white net to match her suit, while Josie made a little ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and play-time of the year, . . . . the little ones, a sportive team, Gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prank ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... add, that this sin of wronging, of going beyond, and defrauding of my Neighbour, it is like that first prank that the Devil plaid with our first Parents, {97c} (as the Altar that Uriah built for Ahaz, was taken from the fashion of that that stood at Damascus, to be the very pattern of it.) The Serpent beguiled me, says Eve; Mr. Badman beguiles his Creditors. The Serpent beguiled Eve with lying promises ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... health, it was feared some accident had happened. The congregation then dispersed, much concerned at the absence of the worthy pastor, who, however, atoned in the evening, by unwonted eloquence, for his unpremeditated prank of the morning. ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... no more, for Wayne Wayland entered, followed by another gentleman, at the first sight of whom Emerson started, while his mind raced off into a dizzy whirl of incredulity. It could not be! It was too grotesque—too ridiculous! What prank of malicious fate was this? He turned his eyes to the door again, to see if by any chance there were a third visitor, but there was not, and he was forced to respond to Mr. Wayland's greeting. The other man had meanwhile stepped directly to Mildred, as if he had eyes for ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... since she died," Max asserted. "How do I know so much about it? I was down there last summer with Frank Sustis. His father sent him out to look the place over, with a view to buying it himself for a summer home. You should have heard Prank jeer at the idea while we ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... on either side the boom-poles clamped in their peavies, and, using these implements as handles, carried the booms some distance back into the woods. Then everybody tramped back and forth, round and about, to confuse the trail. Orde was like a mischievous boy at a school prank. When the last timber had been concealed, he lifted up his deep voice in a roar of joy, in which ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... more silent and less supportable torment, brought herself into a high fever, where she lay without so much as calling for aid in her extremity; not that she was afraid the cheat she had put on Octavio would be discovered; for she had lost the remembrance that any such prank was played; and in this multitude of thoughts of more concern, had forgot all the rest of that ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... at last, as if a bright thought had struck him, "I know what it must be, sir. You're up to a prank sometimes—in fact, rather often—and you've hidden away the yacht, for there's been no one else in the Cove but you; though where you can have put it I'm puzzled to say, seeing there's not a place fit to hide a walnut-shell I haven't looked in, not to say a schooner yacht ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... where they camped in the night. We heard no disturbance, no signs of violence are to be seen, and the other Indians would have known. If Indians killed him, why took they not his scalp, and why set they him floating on the water? Herein it looks like the foolish prank of drunken sailors. But then what cause of such enmity could there be? for all was done very quietly. And what has become of the missing Taranteens? Are they too killed, or in the forest on their way home? Has Sassacus any hand in this matter? Be it as it ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... shortly after noon when they rode away, the men on the ranch watching, and perhaps each feeling in his heart a little twinge, as though he'd like to be a kid again, and up to some such boyish prank. Whitey was on Monty, Injun on his pinto, leading a pack-horse laden with their few belongings. From the corral the intelligent eyes of the iron-gray colt regarded them with interest; the colt that was to be trained for ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... how the earth this fragrant spring is clad, And mantled round in sweet nymph Flora's robes: Here grows th'alluring rose, sweet marigolds And the lovely hyacinth. Come, nurse, gather: A crown of roses shall adorn my head, I'll prank myself with flowers of the prime; And thus I'll ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... grace vouchsaf'd. And from my bosom had not yet upsteam'd The fuming of that incense, when I knew The rite accepted. With such mighty sheen And mantling crimson, in two listed rays The splendours shot before me, that I cried, "God of Sabaoth! that does prank ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... mention that I have been able to find of this Fairy prank is in a small book of prose poetry called Gweledigaeth Cwrs y Byd, or Y Bardd Cwsg, which was written by the Revd. Ellis Wynne (born 1670-1, died 1734), rector of Llanfair, near Harlech. The "Visions ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have sufficed to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a year. In the first place, circumstances were not always propitious: sometimes the moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly irritated their betters; then one or another of their number refused to share in some proposed outrage because a relation was involved. But if the scamps were not at Mere Cognette's every night, they always met during the day, enjoying together the legitimate pleasures of hunting, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... lieutenant as he walked to and fro. "To think of the boy being missing like this.—Now you, sirs, in with that boat.—Where can he be? Not the lad to go off on any prank.—There, go below and get something to eat, my lads.—All comes of being sent into a miserable little boat ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... to articulate, the two fat youths lay there gasping for breath, while those gathered about them made mock gestures of "first aid to the injured." Nobody had been hurt, however, and the victims of the prank took it in the way ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... "Can't you see that I had no part in this, that the minx devised it all by herself expressly to thwart me? Don't let her have the satisfaction of outmanoeuvering both of us. Don't let a mere prank of a child spoil all our arrangements. She'll be a good wife as ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... This prank encouraged him very much indeed, for he then felt that now he had certainly escaped without any bad consequences; so he went on applauding his own ingenuity, and came to a farm where several little boys were at play. He desired leave to play with ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... me by the story of the wicked miller's wife, who transformed herself at night into a cat, and how I consoled myself with the fact that in the end she did indeed receive due punishment for this wicked prank. The cat, namely, when once starting out on her nightly walk, had a paw chopped off by the miller's apprentice, who thought she looked suspicious, and the next day the miller's wife lay in bed with a bloody right arm minus ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... Adam, clapping me on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly of me as ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... might be a hoax grew more and more implausible as he contemplated it. He was positive he knew no one capable of such a prank, and to suppose that any stranger had gone to so much trouble to play a trick on ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... suddenly a young sailor jumped through one of the open windows into the apartment, whistled and danced a hornpipe, and before they could recover from their amazement jumped out again. A few minutes later my father walked in at the door as sedately as though quite innocent of the prank, and shook hands with everyone; but the sight of their amazed faces proving too much for his attempted sobriety, his hearty laugh was the signal for the rest of the party to join in his merriment. But judging from his slight ability in later ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... river Bidassoa, the Rubicon of their journey. It formed the boundary between France and Spain. On reaching its southern bank they stood on the soil of the land of the dons, and the truant prince danced for joy, filled with delight at the success of his runaway prank. Gresley afterwards reported in England that Buckingham looked worn from his long ride, but that he had never seen Prince ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... granted, and he does not talk so much about the workhouse. He was a great deal better, and I could have forgiven this mad, boyish prank—though what could have influenced ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... to see no harm was done, and ran upon deck with my hair stiff on my head; nor could I conceive less than that some subtle spirit had done this prank merely to ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbours looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... you and your ladies might visit the Duchess de Duras, you should have advanced the clock by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... make him love thee; but my mother—I could not trust her where she thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ways ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this mad prank of Kelson's, Mr. Millinet invited Mary to walk out one lovely evening, to which she gladly assented. They took their way towards the "Whale's Head," a name given by the inhabitants of B—— to the high bluff already mentioned, that formed ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the Sunday-school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs, With a blow of his fist. Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin, And no children shall worship at ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... beautiful cut drinking-glasses, and loosened the tongues and opened the hearts of the three old gentlemen. Old Spangenberg especially, who, though advanced in years, was yet brimming with freshness and vivacity, had many a jolly prank out of his merry youth to relate, so that Master Martin's belly wabbled famously, and again and again he had to brush the tears out of his eyes, caused by his loud and hearty laughing. Herr Paumgartner, too, forgot more than was customary with him the dignity of the ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... door, which he laid on the floor lest it should play him the same prank over again, Joe Corney once more settled himself in the easy-chair and resolved to give his mind to meditation. Just then the City clocks pealed forth the hour of ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... tell Uncle Kit of the prank I played on the black tyrant. I also told him why I was so anxious to get away from St. Louis. That it was I feared Drake would discover me and take me back to his farm and the society of ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... quarters that the animal's head went down between his knees and he plunged so violently that the messenger was cast sprawling upon the ground. The cavalcade roared with laughter and Joseph, overjoyed at the success of his prank, begged Azariah to wait a little longer, for he was curious to see if the messenger would succeed in coaxing his horse. At present the horse seemed in no humour to allow himself to be mounted. Whenever the messenger approached he whinnied so menacingly that everybody laughed again. ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... as though I had driven my friend into a corner from which he would find it difficult to extricate himself. But I did him an injustice and shall therefore do everything in my power to right it. My memory, as it so frequently does, played me a prank. At the same time that I answered him, I was in active correspondence with one of the delegates to the Chicago Parliament of Religions, at which the love of God and one's neighbour had been adopted, as a sort of article of agreement which ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... you—you look so incredibly meek and meechin', like a cat eatin' the canary," he remarked severely. "Thank you for a biscuit. And the sugar! Now what warlockry is this?" He jerked a thumb at the far-off fires. "What's the merry prank?" ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... 1713, Lord Berkeley of Stratton told Lord Strafford of "a fine prank of the widow Lady Jersey" (see Letter 29, note 3). "It is well known her lord died much in debt, and she, after taking upon her the administration, sold everything and made what money she could, and is run away ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... gracious Lord, To chide at your extreames, it not becomes me: (Oh pardon, that I name them:) your high selfe The gracious marke o'th' Land, you haue obscur'd With a Swaines wearing: and me (poore lowly Maide) Most Goddesse-like prank'd vp: But that our Feasts In euery Messe, haue folly; and the Feeders Digest with a Custome, I should blush To see you so attyr'd: sworne I thinke, To ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... would have guessed, at farthest, two weeks. "I have been two months in one shirt? Impossible!" he exclaimed. His serious idea (he cherished it for the support of his reason) was, that the world above had played a mad prank since he had been shuffled ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... caught him red-handed. Thieving from a comrade was a serious offence, entailing severe punishment and public disgrace; but Schumann knew Niederlein was only thoughtless and greedy, and it had been more a stupid prank than a crime, for the money which lay near the sausage was untouched. So he had held the boy across the table and given him five-and-twenty strokes with his leather belt. He was not quite clear in ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... set to laughing in the pleasant French way that shakes all over and has no spite. Emboldened, I asked why Hortense could not play with us any more. Hortense, she explained, was become too big to prank on the commons. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... walk till the purple dieth, And short dry grass under foot is brown, But one little streak at a distance lieth Green, like a ribbon, to prank the down. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... and bowed to him. He walked past them without acknowledging their greetings. His presence silenced and confused the crowd, and evoked embarrassed smiles and low exclamations, as of repentant children who had already come to regret their prank. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... to us one day at Genoa, and enjoyed our dismay at it like a froward boy who has achieved what he considers some mischievous prank. He offered us a copy, but we declined to accept it; for, being in the habit of seeing Mr. Rogers frequently beneath our roof, we thought it would be treacherous to him. Byron, however, found others less scrupulous, and three or four copies of it ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... gracious lord, To chide at your extremes it not becomes me,— O, pardon that I name them!—your high self, The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscur'd With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid, Most goddess-like prank'd up. But that our feasts In every mess have folly, and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attir'd; swoon, I think, To ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... the price of her dress. Up to that point she seemed to be embarrassed, and did not know whether to resent such unconventional conduct or not. She asked if they were sailors; they replied in the affirmative. It then seemed to dawn upon her that it was merely a mischievous prank being played on her interrogator; but she was assured in a sailorly manner by both that they knew it was very funny, but they were in earnest all the same. She realized the true situation ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... remote from that gay, moonlit, lantern-decked, boat-thronged, water-lapped island in that far northern Canadian lake. Following the cheers there came stillness. Men looked sheepishly at each other as if caught in some silly prank. Then once more the Spectre drew near. But this time they declined not to look, but with steady, grave, appraising eyes they faced The Thing, resolute to know the worst, and in quiet undertones they talked ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... into his former shame, endeavoured to support himself by surliness and asperity. "He was not the first that had played away a few trifles, and of what use were birth and fortune if they would not admit some sallies and expenses?" His mamma was so much provoked by the cost of this prank, that she would neither palliate nor conceal it; and his father, after some threats of rustication which his fondness would not suffer him to execute, reduced the allowance of his pocket, that he might not be tempted ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Sais or Bubastus, among beds Of lotos flowers that close above their heads, Push their light barks, and hid as in a bower Sing, talk, or sleep away the sultry hour, While haply, not far off, beneath a bank Of blossoming acacias, many a prank Is played in the cool current by a train Of laughing nymphs, lovely as she whose chain Around two conquerors of the world was cast; But, for a third too feeble, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... depart— 230 My husband's unlamented tomb. My children knew their sire was gone, But when I told them,—'He is dead,'— They laughed aloud in frantic glee, They clapped their hands and leaped about, 235 Answering each other's ecstasy With many a prank and merry shout. But I sate silent and alone, Wrapped in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... play a part in the pantomime, Mr. Ridge, let an Englishwoman suggest that you be the harlequin. How I loved the harlequin in the Drury Lane pantomimes at Christmas time! He was always the ideal lover to me, for there was no trick, no prank this bespangled hero could not play to success. He always went incognito, for he wore his narrow mask of black. He performed the most marvellous things for his Columbine,—and was she not a worthy sweetheart? No, no, Mr. Ridge:—not the fool, I pray. Please be the harlequin," ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... He describes graphically his first meeting with the youth who was to be his lifelong friend. He first saw Jos sliding down from a third-story balcony on a tin waterspout. In the light of later years Escosura felt that in this boyish prank the child was father of the man. The boy who preferred waterspouts to stairways, later in life always scorned the beaten path, and "the illogical road, no matter how venturesome and hazardous it was, attracted him to it by virtue of that sort of fascinating charm which the abyss exercises over ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... much more talkative and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for servants, not ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... which he acted on the English stage, and the scheme he would offer for their mutual emolument. At the same time he resolved within himself to keep such a strict eye over his future actions, as would frustrate any design he might hereafter harbour, of repeating the prank he had so successfully played upon him, in their journey from the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... door.] Thank you, my good woman. Next time you want to play a little prank like this, I beg that you will select your partner with more care. The name of Hooper is not a suitable one to toy with, let ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... I appreciate this way he's got of treating it like a spoiled kid's prank. I'm going to make him recognize the fact that I'm a man, by golly, and that I look at things like a man. He's got to be proud to have me in the family, before I come into the family. He ain't going to take me in as ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... "This prank might have easily proved fatal to our beautiful companionship, but it had been done merely to make our ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in which the boys met and vanquished the savage hostility of Josh Owen and Dan Jaggers; they remember the desperate battle, in the ocean's depths, with the crazy boatswain's mate. They recall the dashing, laughable prank that Captain Jack played on one of the big battleships of the Naval maneuvers fleet, and remember the pretty romance, in which the submarine boys aided greatly, through which Mr. Farnum secured ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... him, the swirl of a petticoat, and the clang of a pewter plate as it fell noisily to the floor. His companion looked up swiftly, the smile on his face broadening to a snigger. Claude turned too as quickly as he could and looked, his face hot, his mind suspecting some prank to be played on him; to his astonishment he discovered nothing to account for the laugh. The girl appeared to be bending over the embers on the hearth, the men to be engaged with their meal; and baffled and perplexed he turned again and, his ears burning, bent over ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... Charles was brought home by his mother and sent to school at Taunton, where he stayed for five years. He is sure to have been liked by his schoolfellows, for he was a very lively, mischievous boy, constantly inventing some fresh prank, but never shirking the punishment it frequently brought. At Woolwich, which he entered as a cadet at fifteen, it was just the same. He was continually defying, in a good-humoured way, those who were set over him, and more than once he had a very narrow escape of having his career cut short ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... said Slimak bitterly, 'there was no policeman to certify that it was we who saved you the hog, but when a boy plays a prank on you, you go ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... haen the brains o' a cock spug," I heard him sayin' till himsel', "ye michta jaloosed they were to play ye some prank. You muckle, dozent gozlin'," he says; an' he took himsel' a skelp i' the side o' the heid wi' his open luif that near ca'd him on his back. In his stagger his feet tickled amon' his claes, an' he gaithered them up, an' lookit ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... the eyes," came the same breathless whisper. The little brown body held quite still. Warwick could not even feel it trembling against his own. For the moment, by virtue of some strange prank of Shiv, the jungle-gods were giving their own strength to this little brown son of ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... priest, a commander of the guard and the prince's tutor, under plea of the bath and stows them away in baskets which suggest Falstaff's "buck-basket." In Miss Stokes' "Indian Fairy Tales" the fair wife of an absent merchant plays a similar notable prank upon the Kotwal, the Wazir, the Kazi and the King; and akin to this is the exploit of Temal Ramakistnan, the Madrasi Tyl Eulenspiegel and Scogin who by means of a lady saves his life from the Rajah and the High Priest. Mr. G. H. Damant (pp. 357-360 of the "Indian Antiquary" of 1873) ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... to look So startled; but it is no secret here; For many of you are sharers of his wild Adventures. Now I hoped an end had come To these, until another rumour reached me, This very day, of yet another prank. You know, you know, how perilous a road My Marian must ride if Huntingdon Tramples the forest-laws beneath his heel And, in the thin disguise of Robin Hood, Succours the Saxon outlaws, makes his house A ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... few weeks, however, the school had closed; and the three boys were again hard at work, chopping and grubbing in Mr. Lincoln's clearings. They were good-natured, jolly young fellows, and they lightened their labor with many a joke and playful prank. ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or immorality of the Horner of Wycherley and the Careless ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... answer for a moment. He looked like a naughty schoolboy caught In a foolish prank. The confession ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... up to the bank. Since Wunpost had lost in his bet with Eells and deposited all his money in the bank he was looked upon almost with pride as a picturesque asset of the town. He made talk, and that was made into publicity, and publicity helped the town. And now this mad prank upon which he seemed bent gave promise of even greater renown. So he had had a bad dream? That piqued their curiosity, but they were not kept long in doubt. Dismounting at the bank, he glanced up at the front and then made ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... distance off. They bore down upon a trolley-car and took a wild possession. They sang their songs and yelled themselves hoarse. People turned and watched and smiled, setting this down as one more prank of those university fellows. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... in the tilted mirror caught and held his attention. Could that harsh semblance of a man be himself? Various periods of his life flashed in separate pictures before him. Glimpses of his college days; this and that gay prank of irresponsible youth. Then came incidents of his first business ventures; his dealings with Jefferson Henderson stood out sharply. The old man's first intuitive fears of coming loss rang in his ears, followed by curses of helpless, astounded despair. One after ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... one prank that evening that was near to costing dear. My lady Temple made up a party for Temple Bow at the course, two other coaches to come and some gentlemen riding. As Nick and I were running through the paddock we came suddenly upon Mr. Harry Riddle and a stout, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... myself that it had been some silly prank of a romantic amateur, hidden in the gardens of the shore or gliding unperceived on the lagoon; and that the sorcery of moonlight and sea-mist had transfigured for my excited brain mere humdrum roulades out of exercises of ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... but since your going to war will cut off both those assistances, those that are for going to war choose evident destruction. What hinders you from slaying your children and wives with your own hands, and burning this most excellent native city of yours? for by this mad prank you will, however, escape the reproach of being beaten. But it were best, O my friends, it were best, while the vessel is still in the haven, to foresee the impending storm, and not to set sail out of the port into the middle of the hurricanes; for we justly pity ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... he must run it through a series of aphoristic sentences twisted out of Greek and Roman lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his fellow-dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose Rosalynd contributed so much to the Poet's As You Like It: for it was then much the fashion for authors to prank up their matter with superfluous erudition. Like all the surviving works of Greene, Pandosto is greatly charged with learned impertinence, and in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt to overlook the real merit of the performance. It is better than Lodge's Rosalynd for ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... this prank with the wig, you can't suppose that Pen could have been very ill upstairs; otherwise, though she had grown to care for him ever so little, common sense of feeling and decorum would have prevented her from performing any tricks or ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know," answered the professed castaway. "I've been trying to get help for more than a day, and he always breaks in and queers my call. He makes everybody think I'm putting up a prank." ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... oh, take his pen away, That so feebly runs on paper; Keep him quiet, or he'll play Other trait'rous prank and caper. Why apologize for treason, Or for stealing give ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... they were men who when at home manifested the most gentle and wide-reaching feelings; most of them could not by any possibility have slapped a kitten merely for the prank and yet all of them who had seen an unknown man shot through the head in battle had little more to think of it than if the man had been a rag-baby. Tender they might be; poets they might be; but they were all horned with a provisional, temporary, but absolutely ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... view to take of the thing!' cried Urania, with an injured air. 'An innocent practical joke, not involving harm of any kind; a little girlish prank played on the spur of the moment. I thought you were more sensible than to be offended—much less ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... to the billiard room. "I have one piece of advice to give you," he said. "This prank is harmless enough, but establish a definite understanding with this fellow that you are not to be liable in damages for personal injuries which his Indians may receive. Explain to him that it is not child's play and have him put it ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... words they were perplext as to their affair, and said one to other, "What shall we do? Indeed we are unable to sit out three days in this stead." Hereupon the Pieman said to them, "Nay, rather let us play a prank whereby we may escape," and said they, "What may be the device thou wouldest devise?" Quoth he, "Whatso I do that do ye look upon and then act in like guise," and so speaking he arose and taking his minced meat fell to sticking it upon his skin until he was like a leper ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... marry her, he had never been in the least afraid of her, and he had deliberately attempted to carry her off against her will; and if she had looked upon his conduct then as anything more serious than a mad prank, she had certainly forgiven it ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... to come. Two libel suits mushroomed into view in as many days, provoked, as it were, out of conscious nothing; unimportant but harassing: one, brought by a ne'er-do-well who had broken a leg while engaged in a drunken prank months before, the other the outcome of a paragraph on a little, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... I played many a prank here in my boyhood. But you, sir, who are you? An adjutant of the Colonel's, or a ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... seemed that some one on the deck of the submarine must be playing a prank on his friends. But Bill Witt, who was doing lookout duty forward, declared that the cry was right at hand and apparently from the deck ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... he himself was a goody-goody—far from it; he was a terrible prank maker, and more than once narrowly missed suffering serious consequences. But when he really grew up and it came to an acquaintance with women, very few have even attracted him. I began to fear that he was becoming hardened and would ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... have come to this day of definite retrospect? How is it possible? But, I have done nothing; I have had no time; I have only been preparing myself—a mere apprentice to life. My brain is at some prank; I am suffering a momentary delusion; I shall shake myself, and return to common sense—to my schemes and activities ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... to Pyotr Pavlovitch, took him unexpectedly and firmly with two fingers by the nose, and succeeded in leading him two or three steps across the room. He could have had no grudge against Mr. Gaganov. It might be thought to be a mere schoolboy prank, though, of course, a most unpardonable one. Yet, describing it afterwards, people said that he looked almost dreamy at the very instant of the operation, "as though he had gone out of his mind," but that was recalled and reflected upon long afterwards. In the excitement ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... probable that there was any real connection between these Gates, of Saracenic design, carved (it is said) in Himalayan cedar, and the Temple of Somnath. But tradition did ascribe to them such a connection, and the eccentric prank of a clever man in high place made this widely known. Nor in any case can we regard as alien to the scope of this book the illustration of a work of mediaeval Asiatic art, which is quite as remarkable for its own character and indisputable history, as for the questionable origin ascribed ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... be so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was roused to anger. ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... storm rarely gives warning ahead that it is to be severe. It seems to be a meteorological prank in ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... that dull grief delights to see Vex'd Nature wear a kindred gloom; Not that she smiled in vain to me, When gaily prank'd in summer's bloom Nay, much I loved, at even-tide, Through Brahan's lonely woods to stray. To mark thy peaceful billows glide, And watch the sun's ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... your offer," said he, "but I tell you again I have no time either to drink or shear. I must be gone before those mad fellows return, and detain me by some new prank." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... talked, you may be sure. The Lunda boys were decidedly in favour of Yaspard's scheme—was there ever a boy who would have objected to any such prank? They saw no harm in ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... robbers were seized with terror, and let her go. She stood, a hideous monster, among them; and as it is the nature of the frog to do, she hopped up high, and disappeared in the thicket. Then the robbers saw that this must be a bad prank of the spirit Loke, or the evil power of magic, and in great affright they hurried away ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... ominously, sparks to fly out at the top, and soot and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if she ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... that he had seen various miracles in his own day, but, one reads between the lines, he doesn't believe any of them. One error, he says, begets another, and everything is exaggerated in the hope of making converts to the talker's opinion. One miracle bruited all over France turned out to be a prank of young people counterfeiting ghosts. When one hears a marvel, he should always say, "perhaps." Better be apprentices at sixty then doctors at ten. Now witches, he continues, are the subject of the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... At times, Jack and Prank would play a tune on their flutes, which I had made out of reeds; and my wife, who had a sweet voice, would sing some of the old Swiss songs, that brought to our minds the joys ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... off his chair and picking up the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in him, that the chesnut was originally his—and in course, that it must have been the owner of the chesnut, and no one else, who could have played him such a prank with it: What greatly confirmed him in this opinion, was this, that the table being parallelogramical and very narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for Yorick, who sat directly over against Phutatorius, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... he said: "It was a prank, and I cannot say I think it was an admirable performance. But young folks will be young folks, and I trust I'm not so old and grouty as to frown on innocent fun. To my mind, this came perilously near NOT being entirely innocent, but I'm not ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... though Evgenie was undoubtedly a man of wealth, yet certain of his affairs were equally undoubtedly in disorder. Arrived at this interesting point, Gania suddenly broke off, and said no more about Nastasia's prank ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... way it could be done in the time," I said, calling to mind a prank related by a gay little friend—"clap ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... understanding, is almost invariably the sign of a bad heart—a taste for severe practical jokes. If a courtier was fond of dress, oil was flung over his richest suit. If he was fond of money, some prank was invented to make him disburse more than he could spare. If he was hypochondriacal, he was made to believe that he had the dropsy. If he had particularly set his heart on visiting a place, a letter was forged to frighten him from going thither. These things, it may be said, are ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to prevent possible loss from some prank of mischievous boys or thieving negroes, Maurice had secured a long and stout chain, with a padlock, and at night this was so attached to the dinky that no one could sneak the stumpy little craft away without the use of a hatchet to chop out the staple; and ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... Commander de Jars kept his word, and about a month after the interview above related he sent word to Quennebert that the Chevalier de Moranges had left Perregaud's completely recovered from his wound. But the nearly fatal result of the chevalier's last prank seemed to have subdued his adventurous spirit; he was no longer seen in public, and was soon forgotten by all his acquaintances with the exception of Mademoiselle de Guerchi. She faithfully treasured up ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... gang having one night challenged a fellow-student and received no answer, fired, and took such good aim that the poor young man fell dead on the pavement. Horrified and amazed at the fatal result of his mad prank, the student fled, hoping to hide ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... me reason. This is some prank, which I am sure does not concern Ehrenstein in the least. They would never dare enter Dreiberg for aught else. There must be a flaw in our ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... the company that she had been frightened by an appearance at the window. At once they all faced the imperturbable window, and for a moment there was a silence. An astute lad made an immediate census of the other lads. The prank of slipping out and looming spectrally at a window was too venerable. But the little boys were all ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... not see how we are to keep it from her; but you have certainly won her in a most remarkable way. You must promise me, Holly darling, that you 'll never play such a wicked prank again.' ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent scholar. You are a ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)—that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Startled eyes of hazel bland Kindling, growing larger, Up thou leapest with a spring, Full of prank and ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... and print so fast,— If Satan take the hindmost, who'd be last? They storm the types, they publish one and all, They leap the counter, and they leave the stall:— Provincial maidens, men of high command, Yea, baronets, have ink'd the bloody hand! Cash cannot quell them—Pollio play'd this prank: (Then Phoebus first found credit in a bank;) Not all the living only, but the dead Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' head! Damn'd all their days, they posthumously thrive, Dug up from dust, though buried when alive! Reviews record this epidemic crime, Those ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore |
