"Swap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laying his hand with a large sympathy on Renshaw's shoulder; "but we'll drop that just now. We won't swap hosses in the middle of the river. We'll square up accounts in your room," he added, raising his voice that Rosey might overhear him, after a preliminary wink at the young man. "Yes, sir, we'll just square up and settle in there. Come along, Mr. Renshaw." Pushing him with paternal gentleness ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... and bawl and swap ends on yuh and raise hell all around, but he can be rode. That festive bunch up in the reserve seats'll think it's awful, and that the HS sorrel is a lady's hoss alongside him, but a real rider can wear him out. But that sorrel—when yuh think yuh got him beat, Billy, is when yuh want ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... fiscal 1984, the Federal Government will assume full responsibility for the cost of the rapidly growing Medicaid program to go along with its existing responsibility for Medicare. As part of a financially equal swap, the States will simultaneously take full responsibility for Aid to Families with Dependent Children and food stamps. This will make welfare less costly and more responsive to genuine need, because it'll be designed and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... all you cutlin' heroes, where'ersome'er you be, All you what works at flat-backs,(1) coom listen unto me; A basketful for a shillin', To mak 'em we are willin', Or swap 'em for red herrin's, aar bellies to be fillin', Or swap 'em for red herrin's, aar bellies ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... got a little red pony not as big as Nellie. it can go like time. Ed rides it without a sadle. when i ride without a sadle and sturups it nearly splits me in too, and hirts my backboan. today we raced. Nellie can trot faster than Eds but Eds can run faster. i woodent swap ennyway. ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... implement and ornament, they became the medium of exchange. Thus, copper and gold, iron and bronze have been used as metallic means of exchange—that is, as money. So from the beginning of trade and swapping article for article, it came to be common eventually to swap an article for something called money and then use the money for the purchase of other desirable articles. This made it possible for the individual to carry about in a small compass the means of obtaining any article in the market within the range of the purchasing power of his money. Trade, ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... had been lent to the Government of India for famine relief work. One Sunday we foregathered in the cool of the evening at a dak bungalow, near the point where our three districts met, to compare notes and to swap lies. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... consider hogs a first-class crop; Give me my own free choice, sir, and I'd swap The best of 'em for strawberries or sheep— But let me say again, you must plough deep; The trouble with our farmers is, that they Can't be induced to look beyond to-day; Let them get sub-soil ploughs and turn up sand And hang it, sir! let them ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various
... /vt./ To exchange two things, each for the other; to swap places. If you point to two people sitting down and say "Exch!", you are asking them to trade places. EXCH, meaning EXCHange, was originally the name of a PDP-10 instruction that exchanged the contents ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... left to me. Frequenting, as I had been doing, Ramon's store, which was a great gossiping centre of the maritime world in Kingston, I knew the faces and the names of most of the merchant captains who used to gather there to drink and swap yarns. I was not myself quite unknown to little Lumsden. I told him all my story, and all the time he kept on scratching his bald head, full of incredulous perplexity. Old Senor Ramon! Such a respectable man. And I had been ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... swap heads was accepted; lots were cast for the honor of meeting the lord, and, fortunately for us, the choice fell upon an ardent fighter of twenty-three years, named Captain John Smith. Nothing was wanting to give ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... impudent boldness characteristic of the man, he accosted the rider, and forthwith began talking in the slang of his trade, about the horse, his points, his age, and his value, and expressed a readiness to 'swap' horses. ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... Indian on the river, to Larsen the ship's carpenter, who worked with an adze and who starved the summer following on the Koyukuk. It had stretched a bit year by year, for the trader's family had been big in the early days when hunters and miners of both breeds came in to trade, to loaf, and to swap stories with him. Through the winter days, when the caribou were in the North and the moose were scarce, whole families of natives came and camped there, for Alluna, his squaw, drew to her own blood, ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... big dinner and a big time. After dinner one day, all de men folks 'semble at de woodpile. De sun was shinin' and old marster have me bring out a chair for him but de balance of them set on de logs or lay 'round on de chips. Then they begun to swap tales. Marse Ed P. Mobley hold up his hand and say: 'See dis stiff finger? It'll never be straight agin. I got out of ammunition at de secon' battle of Bull Run, was runnin' after a Yankee to ketch him, threw my gun 'way to ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... rough resemblance of the sign to that for cutting. Captain Burton is right, however, in reporting that this sign for trade is also used for white man, American, and that the same Indians using it orally call white men "shwop," from the English or American word "swap" or "swop." This is a legacy from the early traders, the first white men met by the Western tribes, and the expression extends even to the Sahaptins on the Yakama River, where it appears incorporated in their language as swiapoin. It must have penetrated ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... them then. Tie them in two strings and send them out with two policemen to wait for us ten miles along the road. Be sure they start ahead of us. Soon as we overtake them I'll dismiss Rafiki's men, who'll be nothing but his spies, swap the princess and her four men and their loads on to the fresh beasts, and leave the police to chase Rafiki's experts home again. ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... my neighbors I don't have nothin' to say to," answered Peakslow, gruffly. "If you mean the Bettersons, they're a pack of thieves and robbers themselves, and I don't swap words with none of 'em, without 't is to tell 'em my mind; that I do, when ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... mean with. Whether it takes nine tailors to make a man, I can't jist exactly say, but this I will say, and take my davy of it too, that it would take three such goneys as these to make a pattern for one of our rael genuwine free and enlightened citizens, and then I wouldn't swap without large boot, I tell you. Guess I'll go, and pack up my fixing and ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... resembling; But then I eat at leisure, And would not swap, for pleasure So mix'd ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... Mr. Sawyer," said he, "have you seen any little cot round here that you'd swap your Beacon Street ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... pedal away, shaking his head. Later on the handyman would come around to swap sanitary tanks under the trailers and Joey would ask him the same question. Once a month the power company sent out a man to read the electric meters and he was ...
— To Remember Charlie By • Roger Dee
... declared Andrew. "You all of you know I'm with the class I belong to; I ain't a toady to no rich folks; I don't think no more of 'em than you do, and I don't want any favors of 'em—all I want is pay for my honest work, and that's an even swap, and I ain't beholden, but I want to look at things fair and square. I don't want to be carried away because I'm out of work, though, ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in a line and praying God for air; They were Joaquin Miller and "Lumber" Lynch and "Stogey" Jack Ver Mehr, "Swift-water" Bill and "Caribou" Bill and a sick man from the hills, Who came to town to swap his dust for ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... thousand dollars per annum to spend in living, he says: "She is a poor, worldly woman, whose chief end in life is to dash!—shine, and out-shine—consequently envies those who have more means, or appear to out-shine her. I would not swap my old woman for as many of such as could stand between this and Mobile, and the fifty thousand per annum in the bargain!" To such among you (God forbid that there should be such!) I do not write; for I know how the world blinds by its dazzle, and you could see no beauty or use in living for the ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... a can of coffee in the other. This reminded Barney of his lunch, and setting his torch down on the top of the cab, he scrambled down on the other side and hurried off to the sand-dryer, where the gang used to eat their dyspepsia insurance and swap lies. ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... & butter to their breakfasts. He had none. But he bought one one morning. What did he do? He did not eat it, but cutting it in two, sold each one of the halves to a half-breakfasted Blue Boy for his whole roll to-morrow. The next day he had a whole roll to eat, and two halves to swap with other two boys, who had eat their cake & were still not satiated, for whole ones to-morrow. So on ad infinitum. By one morning's abstinence he ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... already begun to feel a liking for Anne's brother, and that speech of hers settled me. I knew that "Arthur" was the right sort—or, at least, my sort. I would have been willing, even then, to swap the whole Jervaise family with the possible exception of Brenda, for this ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... Larry, you can swap it for a good slice of 'down' when we get to the front," said Jack from the depths of his blankets. "It strikes me that it will be the cause of your sleeping on 'down' for the rest ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... king in silks and laces And with jewels on his breast, With whom I would alter places. There's no man so richly dressed Or so like a fashion panel That, his luxuries to win, I would swap my shirt of flannel And the rusty, Frayed and dusty Suit that ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... portion of it is to be appropriated as a personal compliment. . . . I do not allow myself to suppose that either the Convention or the (National Union) League have concluded to decide that I am the greatest or best man in America, but rather they have concluded that it is best not to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it trying ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... the consequences of theft. "Good-morrow, Bush," said Art, addressing that on which the third shirt was spread. "Isn't it a burnin' shame an' a sin for you," he continued, "to have sich a line white shirt an you, an' me widout a stitch to my back. Will you swap?" ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... hundred dollars a week. Advantages? What were they? Would a higher grade of wall paper, a more expensive set of furniture and steam heat compensate me for the loss of the solid comfort I found here by the side of my little iron stove? Was an electric elevator a fair swap for my roof? Were the gilt, the tinsel and the soft carpets worth the privilege I enjoyed here of dressing as I pleased, eating what I pleased, doing what I pleased? Was their apartment-house friendship, however polished, worth the simple genuine ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... thing to yourself one of these fine days.' remarked the horseman with evident relish, 'if you don't quit carrying that sort of life-saver. Come over to the ranch and I'll swap ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Hebrew David was thought to be punished for taking a census; nor is the story without significance. To reckon numbers alone a success is a sin, and a blunder beside. Russia has sixty millions of people: who would not gladly swap her out of the world for glorious little Greece back again, and Plato and Aeschylus and Epaminondas still there? Who would exchange Concord or Cambridge in Massachusetts for any hundred thousand square miles of slave-breeding dead-level? Who Massachusetts in whole for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... acting on sealed orders from their leader, had been round borrowing a screw-driver and screws, a few yards of rope, and other material of war, among which was a squirt belonging to Reynolds, who had been pleased to "swap" it for a couple of Greek stamps which ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... as he ambled homeward, laughter broke through his annoyance, as he recalled old Charlie's family pride and the presumption of his offer. Yet each time he could but think better of—not the offer to swap, but the preposterous ancestral loyalty. It was so much better than he could have expected from his "low-down" relative, and not unlike his own whim withal—the proposition which went with ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... Gay gets home with more whiskey aboard than is good for his vitals. And don't you think I'm not putting a good value on myself when I say that. Not that Gay's given to sousing a heap. No, he's a good feller, sure, an' wouldn't swap him for—for your Will—on'y when he snores. So you see it's a kindness to me letting ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... author Senator Pettigrew instances the case of the Northern Pacific Railroad. "The Northern Pacific," he writes, "having patented the top of Mount Tacoma, with its perpetual snow and the rocky crags of the mountains elsewhere, which had been embraced within the forest reservation, could now swap these worthless lands, every acre, for the best valley and grazing lands owned by the Government, and thus the Northern Pacific acquired about two million acres more of ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... surpassed in business ability. They were old in their office, it was true, but the affairs of the county were passing through a critical period in their history, and it was an old and well-tried saying: "Never swap horses in the midst of a stream," anyhow, he was content to leave the matter to the vote ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... he resolved to help it along. As the boat approached, it was hailed by the sentinel on the fore-castle, who asked the men their business, and was informed that they had "garden truck" which they wanted to "swap for ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... years of stress and struggle when I've been tempted to join the gaudy, cackling fowl whose feathers I flatter myself I've plucked pretty thoroughly in my book! But I've resisted the devil by prayers and fasting; and, by George, sir, I wouldn't swap my modest victory for the vogue of the biggest boomster in England! [Boisterously.] Ha, ha, ha! Whoop! [Seizing ROOPE and shaking him.] Dare to preach your gospel to me now, you arch-apostle ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... the work of the riding class at West Point, and one day wished to exchange his heavy horse for a lighter animal. The dragoon in charge called out: "Oh, don't swap, don't you swap! ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... naturally raised hell with me because my wife's goin' to have another baby. She sez, sorter sharp-like, 'The only way to make a farm pay is to stock it with somethin' besides children.' That made me a leetle mad, so I up an' sez back to her: 'I wouldn't swap my seven children fer all the hogs an' cattle in the state o' Indianny.' So she sez, kind o' grinnin', 'Well, I'll bet your wife would jump at the chance to trade your NEXT seven children, sight onseen, fer a new pair o' shoes er that bonnet she's been wantin' ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... celebration, that's just the beginning of it. Might as well set down. When them boys that fought together all get in one square—they have to swap stories all over again. That's the worst of a war—you have to go on hearing about it so long. Here it is—1879—and we haven't taken Gettysburg yet. Well, it was the same way with the war ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... he said in his whispery voice. "Hey, you know I'm getting out this morning. Guess you'll want to swap blankets again, huh?" ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole
... hands or ringing a bell), the two persons having No. 1 pinned on their packages exchange them, those having No. 2, and so on, until all have exchanged or swapped. Then all open their packages, some may have received better things, while others may have a worse swap. ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... learned how to traffic among the tribes and swap, or barter their goods, for as yet there were no coins for money, or bank bills. So they established markets or fairs, to which the girls and boys liked to go and sell their eggs and chickens, for when the wolves and foxes were killed off, sheep and ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... up—you make me tired. You're not such fighters as ye think ye are. Swap generals with us and we'll come over and ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... to be close friends albeit I was only an apprentice and he the first mate. "I only heard them joking about that beastly marmalade the skipper has palmed off on them, and us, too, worse luck, in lieu of our proper rations of salt junk; and one of them said he'd 'like to swap all his lot for the voyage for a good square meal of ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... one of them claimed to be based on your life. Better make them pay for that, Hoddan! In short, Walden had rediscovered the pleasure to be had by taking pains to make a fool of one's self. People who watched that raid on visionscreens had thrills they'd never swap for tranquilizers! And the ones who actually mixed in with the pirate raiders— You deserve well ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... rabbits and drag them home. We knew a fossicker whose cat used to bring him a bunny nearly every night. The fossicker had rabbits for breakfast until he got sick of them, and then he used to swap them with a butcher for meat. The cat was named Ingersoll, which indicates his sex and gives an inkling to his master's religious and political opinions. Ingersoll used to prospect round in the gloaming until he ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... to be swift and silent and adventurous. But they're superstitious; they're afraid of anything supernatural." I hesitated, with a laugh in my mind at a memory. "It's not fitting that I should swap stories with a hero of the Great War, yet—I believe you might be amused with an adventure of one of my guides." The Frenchman, all civil interest, disclaimed his heroism with hands and shoulders, but smiling too—for he had small chance at disclaiming with ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... seldom plays any part, and the little swindler always believes he has got the best of the bargain. And why? Because he has what he coveted, and what was another's. Somehow the other fellow's knife is a little better than his own, it is three blades to his two. When he finds the cheat he has only to swap again. In this way I traded a dozen times in one summer and came out with one blade, but ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... of my imprisonment I anxiously longed to be exchanged, being willing any day to swap incarceration for the toils and dangers of active military service. In the early part of the war there were some partial exchanges, but as it was prolonged the government at Washington rejected all overtures for a cartel. ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... and other Confederate scrip appears to be at par of exchange with Austrian bank-notes,—in fact, of the same worth as that "Brandon Money" of which Sol. Smith once brought away a hatful from Vicksburg, and was fain to swap it for a box of cigars. The South cannot long hold out under the wastefulness of war, unless relief come. "With bread and gunpowder one may go anywhere," said Napoleon,—but with limited hoecake and no gunpowder, even Governor Wise ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... we git together To swap yarns an' tell our lies," Said the old time Texas cowman As a mist comes to his eyes. "So let's drink up; here's how!" As we drain our glasses two, "Them was good ol' days an' good ol' ways— Now ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... famishing, not with hunger but with the cravings of digestive ferocity, find in Thackeray's "Memorials of Gormandizing" or "Barmecidal Feasts?" Such banquets are spread for the frugal, not one of whom would swap that immortal cook-book review for a dinner with Lucullus. Rascals will not read. Men of action do not read. They look upon it as the gambler does upon the game where "no money passes." It may almost be said that the capacity ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... it and talks about it. 'I don't care what the old woman did,' he says, 'not—reely. What 'urts me about it is that I jest made a sort of mistake 'ow she'd tike it. You see, I sort of feel I've 'urt and insulted 'er. And reely I didn't mean to. Swap me, I didn't mean to. Gawd 'elp me. I wouldn't 'ave 'ad it 'appened as it 'as 'appened, not for worlds. And now I can't get round to 'er, or anyfing, not to explain.... You chaps may laugh, but you don't know ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... shut up—you make us tired! You're not so much as you think you are. Swap Generals with us and we'll come over and lick ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... "Swap this here goat for that rooster of yours," said "Sinker," a youth whose early education in art had ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... money,' says he, 'but I've got a claim over 'long side of the Yankee Doodle, and I'm ready to swap a half interest in it for all the liquor I can drink between now and morning.' There was a kind of a desperate look about the man that meant business. Rumsey stepped out among the boys and got a pointer or two on that claim, and ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... don't expect too much o' God, it wouldn't be quite fair If fer everything ye wanted ye could only swap a prayer; I'd pray fer yours an' you fer mine an' Deacon Henry Hospur He wouldn't hev a thing t' do but ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... there were always the Indians to barter skins and furs against powder, lead, rifles, blankets, and unhappily "fire-water." Then, the white men who penetrated to those semi-wilds were always ready to "dicker" and to "swap," and to "trade" rifles, and watches, and whatever else they might happen to possess, almost ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... Costells, as well as two afternoons later, thoroughly enjoying, not merely the long, silent drives over the country behind the fast horses, but the pottering round the flower-garden with Mrs. Costell. He had been reading up a little on flowers and gardening, and he was glad to swap his theoretical for her practical knowledge. Candor compels the statement that he enjoyed the long hours stretched on the turf, or sitting idly on the veranda, puffing Mr. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... a stormy day, so they had few callers, and devoted themselves to arranging the album; for these books were all the rage just then, and boys met to compare, discuss, buy, sell, and "swap" stamps with as much interest as men on 'Change gamble in stocks. Jack had a nice little collection, and had been saving up pocket-money to buy a book in which to preserve his treasures. Now, thanks to Jill's timely suggestion, Frank had given him a fine one, and several friends ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... of sadness came into Enoch's keen gaze. "I wonder if the game is worth it, after all," murmured he. "Abbott, I'd swap it all for—" he stopped abruptly, looked broodingly out of the window, then said, "Charley, my boy, why are ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... as I have described. The queer part of it all is,' I continued, handing him the decanter, and taking a couple of loaded six-shooters out of my escritoire—'the queer part of it all is that I have the watch and you have the tiara. We'll swap the swag. Hand over ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... I don't care; though I don't think it's harder to get the mules than to bring water, cut wood, and get breakfast, do you? I'll swap jobs if you want to, but getting the mules includes watering them at the creek, ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... return to Boston and its court-house. As it was the time of the assizes, some fifty or sixty individuals had come from different quarters, either to witness the proceedings, or to swap their horses, their saddles, their bowie knife, or anything; for it is while law is exercising its functions that a Texian is most anxious to swap, to cheat, to gamble, and to pick pockets and quarrel under its nose, just to shew his independence of ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... up them things I thought ye might be havin' suthing to swap or sell. That is,"—with tactful politeness,—"mother was wantin' a new skillet, and it would have been handy if you'd had one. But"—with an apologetic glance at his equipments—"if it ain't your business, it's all ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... eternity as Bill Williams' Mountain? Who but an iconoclast would rend the sensitive ear with such barbarities as the Loss Angglees of to-day for the deep-vowelled Los Angeles of the last century? Who but a Yankee would swap the murky "Purgatoire" for Picketwire, and make Zumbro River of the Riviere des Ombres of brave old Pere Marquette? And so, too, it goes through all the broad Northwest. Indian names, beautiful in ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... pursued the former avocation entirely in the past, in company with the speculative growing of fruit and vegetables in his garden patch—not to sell to his neighbours, the fishing folk of the tiny hamlet of Eilygugg, but to "swap" them, as he termed it, for fish. Then the time came when the Den gardener happened to be enjoying himself at Rockabie with a dozen more men, smoking, discussing shoals of fish, the durability of nets, and the like, when they suddenly ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... hard just to live; where busy policemen despised you because you didn't know which trolley to take; where it was incredibly hard to remember even the names of the unceasing streets; where the conductors said "Step lively!" and there was no room to whistle, no time to swap stories with a Bill McGolwey at an Old ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... lectured pretty steadily that winter, often in the neighborhood of Boston, which was lecture headquarters. Mark Twain enjoyed Boston. In Redpath's office one could often meet and "swap stories" with Josh Billings (Henry W. Shaw) and Petroleum V. Nasby (David R. Locke)—well-known humorists of that day—while in the strictly literary circle there were William Dean Howells, Thomas ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... school and college no great difficulty will be experienced. But if it does not square with the youth's set of verifiable facts then there is added to his necessary moral struggle for self-possession and spiritual control the unnecessary and dangerous quest for a new faith, so that he is forced to swap horses in midstream and when the ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... anymore?" was all Dickie could find to say to this; but Honeybunch had too much on her mind to stop and swap ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... net fowks' better lot— Aw should'nt like to swap. Aw'm quite contented wi'mi cot; Aw'm but a warkin chap. But if aw had a lot o' brass Aw'd think o' them 'at's poor; Aw'd have yo' childer workin' less, An' mak yor wages moor. ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... the pouther, I e'en changed it, as occasion served, with the skippers o' Dutch luggers and French vessels, for gin and brandy, and is served the house mony a year—a gude swap too, between what cheereth the soul of man and that which hingeth it clean out of his body; forbye, I keepit a wheen pounds of it for yoursell when ye wanted to take the pleasure o' shooting: whiles, in these latter days, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... natural enough at the writing; but how will it be when one has turned one's back upon it? Will it not lapse into the gross fable of travellers, and be as the things which the liars who swap them cannot themselves believe? What will be said to you when you tell that in the Summer Islands one has but to saw a hole in his back yard and take out a house of soft, creamy sandstone and set ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Tinker's Wedding," for instance. The theme is the desire of a tinker woman, youngish if not young, to wed the man who has long been her mate; his mother's unstudied frustration of that scheme by stealing, to swap for drink, the can they were to give to the priest along with a half-sovereign for marrying them; and their joy, in the end, that they have escaped matrimony and the wasting of good money. And yet this theme is underlaid with an emotion so vital, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... Toad in the Hole. Toad in the Hole consists of a full-grown and fragrant sheep's kidney entombed in an excavated retreat at the heart of a large and powerful onion, and then cooked in a slow and painful manner, so that the onion and the kidney may swap perfumes and flavors. These people do not use this combination for a weapon or for a disinfectant, or for anything else for which it is naturally purposed; they actually go so far as to eat it. You pass a cabmen's ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... an' kill rattlesnakes an' hunt partridges. Or doesn't his eyes quite reach the Holyoke hills? Do they fall kind o' lovingly but sadly on the little buryin'-ground jest beyond the village? Ah, Father knows that spot, an' he loves it, too, for there are treasures there whose memory he wouldn't swap for all the world could give. So, while there is a kind o' mist in Father's eyes, I can see he is dreamin'-like of sweet an' tender things, and a-com-munin' with memory,—hearin' voices I never heard an' feelin' the tech ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... his boots, don't he? He hasn't got any hammock; but I've seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging. No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye see, in the eye of the rigging. What's the old man have so much to do with him for? Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose. Bargain? —about what? Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale, and the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap away his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort, and then ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... something closely akin to it between the two wings and the two leaders. No little heat was generated from the strong, sharp things said on both sides. Garrison was wiser than Phillips in his unwillingness to have the country, in the homely speech of the President, "swap horses while crossing ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... notions, I cal'late," he drawled. "If they wasn't queer they wouldn't be mine, I suppose. If I was—er—as you might say, first mate of all creation I'd put some church folks in jail and a good many jail folks in church. Seems's if the swap would be a help to both sides. . . . I—I hope you don't think I'm—er— unfeelin', jokin', when you're in such worry and trouble," he added, anxiously. ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... home well charged with electricity, the new-woman idea that was claiming half of the war, the true squaw-spirit that takes up the drudgery at home while the braves go out to swap missiles with the enemy. When Marie Louise said that she, too, had come to Washington to get into harness somewhere, Polly promised her a ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... of the request—for indeed it flew straight in the face of all traditions that a girl who might stay in Chicago if she liked, taking it easy and having a lot of fun, and rejoicing in the possession of a job that was going to last for months, should deliberately swap this highly desirable position for the hazards and discomforts of a second-rate road company, playing one-night stands over the kerosene circuit—was one too many for him. He demanded explanations without getting any. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Walton's direction for the bait, "Use them as though you loved them," applies here as many otherwheres. Unless you love cake-making, not perhaps the work, but the results, you will never excell greatly in the fine art. Better buy your cake, or hire the making thereof, else swap work with some other person better gifted in ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... process of reasoning. Polly was standing in the highroad where "a wayfaring man, though a fool," could look at her; and when Edgar explained that it was his duty to see her safely to her destination, they all bowed to the inevitable. The one called Tony even said that he would be glad to "swap" with him, and the whole party offered to support him in his escort duty if he said the word. He agreed to meet the boys later, as Polly's quick ear assured her, and having behaved both as a man of honor and knight of chivalry, ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... coming to the army he had been led to deplore his deficiencies, and, a week ago, he had suggested to Allan that in the interim of active scouting the latter should continue his education. "When thar air a chance I want to swap into the artillery. Three bands of red thar," he drew a long finger across his sleeve, "air my ambition. I reckon then Christianna and all the Thunder Run girls would stop saying 'Billy.' They'd say 'Sergeant ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... beloved brethren and sistren, we come to the subject of wedding gifts." He turned to look down at the Devereuxs, and some of the levity went out of his voice. "We thought we'd bring you a little something for good-luck, old man. It's from all of us. Hope you like it. If you don't, you can swap it for a few tons of ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... one the worse for wear, Has Sims well earned by service to the King. 'Tis said at court, Howe's spirit following The ocean still, found Sims his natural heir And said: "Swap souls; and, that the swap be fair, Give me to boot, the bone of Freedom's wing, To make the skyey bird a hobbling thing In marshes, where ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... wouldn't, papa; such a good, kind father as you are," responded Max. "I wouldn't swap fathers with any other boy," he added, with a look of ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... more time talkin' about it, Benjamin; you can jest take that puppy-dog and carry him off. I don't care what you do with him; you can carry him back where you got him, or give him away, or swap him off; but jest as sure as you leave him here half an hour longer, I'll call Jimmy up from the hay-field and have him shoot him. I won't have a dog round the place, nohow. Couldn't keep Seventoes a minute; he's dreadful scart ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... they coin, they "fire up," "brake up," "switch off," "prospect," "shin" for us when we are "short," "post up" our books, and finally ourselves, "strike a lead," "follow a trail," "stand up to the rack," "dicker," "swap," and "peddle." They are "whole teams" beside the "one-horse" vapidities which fail to bear our burdens. The Norman cannot keep down the Saxon. The Saxon finds his Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. Now "Mose" brings his Bowery Boys into our parlor, or Cromwell Judd recruits his Ironsides from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... "wish I knowed where that there place was. I'd get me enough of them there jewel things to swap for a autermobile an' a—an' ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... He would buy, sell and trade them all the time. The slaves were judged by the Masters. If they were big and strong they would bring a good price, as they would be better workers for the fields, and then, I would watch my uncle swap and buy slaves, just the same as he was buying any other stock for his farm. I am getting [HW: old] now, and my memory is not so good no more, and it is hard to remember the things of so long ago. You see, I will be ninety years old, next ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... animals, taking great care to hide our tracks, and give the game no indication of the presence of an enemy. The pelts began to pile up in our shack. Most of the day we were busy at the traps, or skinning and salting the hides, and at night we would sit by our little fire and swap experiences till we fell asleep. Always there was the wail of the coyotes and the cries of other animals without, but as long as we saw no Indians ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... easing over toward the Indiany line, and we was having a purty good time. They wasn't no work to do you could call really hard, and they was plenty of vittles. Afternoons we'd lazy around the camp and swap stories and make medicine if we needed a batch, and josh back and forth with the people that hung around, and loaf and doze and smoke; or mebby do a little fishing if ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... been in once yet because I like to watch the boys play best. I can bowl at cricket and bat too, and I give a boy called 'Gnat' twopence a game to do my runs for me. I'm collecting birds' eggs. There's a boy here who has got 250 of them. I mean to find a sea gull's nest, and then he'll swap twenty of his with me for one gull's, because he has never got one yet. There is a boy called 'Simple Simon,' he thinks I am a wonder because I let him run pins into my cork leg and never cry out. He does not know it's a sham leg and I shan't tell him. We should like ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... lady in England has a maid who, to use that domestic's own expression, is capable of "giving satisfaction." If any lady does rejoice in such an Abigail, I shall be too happy to "swap" with her, and give anything else I possess except Brilliant into the bargain. Mine is the greatest goose that ever stood upon two legs, and how she can chatter as she does with her mouth full of pins is to me a perfect miracle. Once or twice ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... dare say you're tired," said Cousin Jack, "for Indian club exercise is a strain on the muscles. So sit in a circle on the grass, and we'll all smoke pipes of peace and swap stories for ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... Fact is, he belongs to me right now, in a way, and I wouldn't swap him for any string of cow-horses that I ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... Wolf sot out dar on de back peazzer, en he shot one eye, he did, en open um 'g'in, en let de smoke oozle out'n he nose. Sis B'ar, she jolt de sick baby en swap it fum one knee ter de yuther. Dey sot dar en talk twel bimeby der confab sorter slack up. Fus' news dey know Sis Rabbit drap 'er knittin' en fling up 'er ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... repairs had to be done, they hired a carpenter to make them. Sears, when he got around to it, devoted some consideration to the wood and repair question and, after much haggling, affected a sort of three-cornered swap. Benijah Black, the carpenter, was a brother-in-law of Burgess Paine, who owned the local coal, wood, lumber and grain shop by the railway station. The captain arranged that Black should do whatever carpenter work might be ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... few social pleasures. Though the organs of the five senses were missing in his economy, he possessed an inner sixth sense which answered for all and also gave him power of speech. He would converse, swap news and views, with creatures of his own and other species, provided that they were of equal size and prowess; but he wasted no time on any but his social peers. Smaller creatures he pursued when they annoyed ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... was again elected President, the people seeming impressed with the wisdom of his quaint phrase that "it was best not to swap horses while crossing a stream." Through all the vicissitudes of his first term he justified the unbounded confidence of the nation, supporting with no laggard hand, cheering and inspiring the citizen soldier with noble example and kindly word. The reconstruction acts, legislation for the enrollment ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... she ain't been hurt any yet," he encouraged. "She's safe till they git her back to the towns. Black Hoof is too smart to hurt her now. If he gits into a tight corner afore he reaches the Ohio he'll need her to buy an open path with. She ain't in no danger s'long as he wants her on hand to swap if the ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... all kept silent, but soon Frank began a louder "Oo-oo-oo!" than before, and, much excited, exclaimed: "I see 'em: four red bright little fellows, all in a straight line," and then he ran as if half crazy, shouting, to his mother: "We got 'em, mother, all four of 'em! I wouldn't swap our telescope for any ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... two other gentlemen by me who were in the same ridiculous circumstances. These had made a foolish swap between a couple of thick bandy legs and two long trapsticks that had no calves to them. One of these looked like a man walking upon stilts, and was so lifted up into the air, above his ordinary height, that his head turned round with it, while the other made such awkward circles, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... that the Americans almost invariably put on their best clothes when they travel; such is the case whatever may be the cause; and the ladies in America, travelling or not, are always well, if not expensively dressed. They don't all swap bonnets as the two young ladies did in the stage-coach ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... five cents per pound, and a pound and a half loaf of bread for ten cents. The cheapest tobacco sold at one dollar per pound, and the men suffered as much for tobacco as for bread. The most of the users of tobacco would swap a piece of bread for a chew of tobacco. Tobacco retailed mostly by the chew. Tobacco was the most common medium of exchange. All of the smaller gambling concerns used pieces of tobacco cut up in chews, the larger ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... thou beest so, it must be the old Tempter himself. [Aside. Look ye, Madam, I'll propose a fair Swap; if you'll consent that I shall marry Teresia, I'll consent that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... roll of dirty one-pound notes round the potato dish, and after due haggling received back one, according to the mystic Irish custom of "luck-penny". On the sofa two farmers carried on a transaction in which the swap of a colt, boot money, and luck-penny were blended into one trackless maze of astuteness and arithmetic. On the wall above them a print in which Ananias and Sapphira were the central figures gave a simple and suitable finish to ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... criticism, and by not a few of his colleagues he was considered directly responsible for the want of combination which had marred McClellan's plan of attack. More than once Mr. Lincoln infringed his own famous aphorism, "Never swap horses when crossing a stream," but when he transferred the destinies of the Army of the Potomac from McClellan to Burnside he did more—he selected the weakest of his team of generals to ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... "He can swap a good yarn; kind of handy man and sometimes helps me with the hammer, but I guess that's all there ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... waiting for the market to open, grows rapidly as 9.30 approaches. Members of the Exchange saunter in from the smoking-room, swap good-natured banter or confer earnestly with their representatives on the floor. In response to the megaphoned bellow of a call boy, individuals hurry to the telephone booths. Messengers shove about, looking for certain brokers. The market is very unsteady; it may go up or down. ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... weight of luscious black cherries for something less than a rupee and got a drink of icy-cold water for nothing, while the untended team browsed sagaciously by the roadside. Once we found a wayside camp of horse dealers lounging by a pool, ready for a sale or a swap, and once two sun-tanned youngsters shot down a hill on Indian ponies, their full creels banging from their high-pommeled saddles. They had been fishing, and were our brethren therefore. We shouted aloud in chorus to scare a wild ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... up to me, one of the three hundred bosom friends with whom I am wont to swap shady stories. He is pallid with sleeplessness, deep horizontal lines furrow his forehead, his brows are convulsively drawn. So we ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... together every morning—got the meeting habit, you know. Everybody's in a blue funk, but we still have the daily round-up to swap funeral statistics." ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... plain as pudding. Presto! change! That's all. Aren't we both Elsie, and don't we both want just what's coming to the other? All we have to do is to swap surnames. See?" ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... house and goes all the way across one end of the dining room. It isn't walnut, it's solid mahogany! Not veneering—solid mahogany! Well, sir, I presume the President of the United States would be tickled to swap the White House for the new Amberson Mansion, if the Major'd give him the chance—but by the Almighty Dollar, you bet your sweet life ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... to the Half-way House, and questioned Mrs. BACKUP and TEDDY for four hours, without finding out the first thing. "You're a numskull," said BELINDA. "If I hadn't got any more brains than you have, I'd swap myself off for a dog, and then kill ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... just under the clouds and among the fragrant sandal-woods, lived Hana and her son, Hiku. They made their living by beating bark into cloth, which the woman took to the coast to swap for implements, for sea food, for sharp shells for scraping the bark, and she always went alone, leaving Hiku on the mountain to talk to the animals, to paint pictures on the cloth, and to play on curious instruments he had made from gourds, reeds, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... "Let's swap!" he said. And while they were swapping, old dog Spot took a swim in the mill pond. Somehow he felt that all ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey
... with their fathers; though," he added with a happy laugh, "I've said to myself many a time, that mine was enough nicer than theirs to make up for having to do without him so much of the time; at least, I'd never have been willing to swap fathers with one of 'em. ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... him. Some of his teeth had been stole, so they said. Good land! what did they want with his teeth! But it wuz a dretful interestin' spot. And I thought as I went through the big square, roomy rooms that I wouldn't swap this good old house for dozens of Queen Anns, or any other of the fashionable, furbelowed houses of to-day. The orniments of this house wuz more on the inside, and I couldn't help thinkin' that this house, compared with the modern ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... pleasantly. "She's gone over to Friar's End, but she'll be back any time now. I wish you'd come in. I haven't seen you for years, and I'd like to swap yarns with you about what we've been doing all ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West |
