"Tomfoolery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'This is tomfoolery. I asked you to be my mistress, and then, at your suggestion, I asked you to be my wife; I really don't see what more I can do. You say you're very fond of me, and yet you want to be ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... "I won't have any tomfoolery and expense. If she chooses to marry a clerk in an office, she shall marry him as clerks ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... done with me. Was it in jest, or with some serious purpose of his own, that he brought me plump upon a pair of lovers, silent, face to face o'er a discreet unwinking stile? As a rule this sort of thing struck me as the most pitiful tomfoolery. Two calves rubbing noses through a gate were natural and right and within the order of things; but that human beings, with salient interests and active pursuits beckoning them on from every side, could thus—! Well, it was a thing to hurry past, shamed of face, and think on no more. But this ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... and lit a cigarette. Dale, the stoic, folded his arms and looked fixedly at the press of vehicles passing the end of the street. Vivid memories of Lord Medenham's chivalrous courtesy—his lordship's dashed tomfoolery he called it—warned him that life was about to assume ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... omnipotent Democrats, the Whig candidate for the Presidency was successful. This was General Harrison, a respected soldier of the last war, who was glorified as a sort of Cincinnatus and elected after an outburst of enthusiastic tomfoolery such as never before or since rejoiced the American people. But President Harrison had hardly been in office a month when he died. Some say he was worried to death by office seekers, but a more prosaic ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... tickling his nose with a straw. Camille sneezed, got up, and pronounced the joke a capital one. He liked Laurent on account of his tomfoolery, which made him laugh. He now roused his wife, who kept her eyes closed. When she had risen to her feet, and shaken her skirt, which was all crumpled, and covered with dry leaves, the party quitted ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... waste. But they all say it's unlucky, and full o' all kinds o' wicked, strange critters, ghosts and goblins, and gashly things that live underground to keep people from getting the treasure. I used to laugh to myself and say it was all tomfoolery, and old women's tales; but it's true enough, as I know ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... looks to me like tomfoolery!" ejaculated the banker, as he drew the papers toward him, and signed them rapidly. "Patricia, you are the party of the third part, here, and you can sign them at your leisure. I've got to go, also. Melvin, you can send ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... with you?" cried Benjamin Wright, pulling off his hat and banging it down on the table so fiercely that the crown collapsed on one side like an accordion. "Good God! Can't you see the tomfoolery of this business of ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... and planted for your Joris. I swear to you that I like England as little as you do. I despise the tomfoolery of courts and ceremonies. I count an earl no better than any other honourable gentleman. I desire most of all to marry the woman I love, and live here in the home that reminds me of you wherever I turn. I want your likeness on the great stairway, and in all the rooms; so that ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... Belmont episode had long been things to laugh at. Marriage had turned out an unredeemed tragedy, which had never had even the poor excuse of a passing infatuation behind it He had never loved Annette, and she was fast growing into a terror and an aversion. And now all this tomfoolery of telepathic communion, this wilful brooding over an absent woman, this summoning of her features to mind, this recalling of her tones, this yearning in which his own soul seemed to beat its mortal bars in the strife to draw her spirit near, made ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... two who, by nine o'clock in the morning, were at the head of the Rowan Pool; their plans prearranged in every detail; both men in excellent form, head, body, and spirit; and Burdock, the keeper, resigned to the innovation of photography which he sniffingly flouted as a piece of downright tomfoolery. ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... of tomfoolery. M. Heineffettermach estimates the number of printed volumes at more than a thousand millions; and a man cannot read more than a hundred and fifty thousand in his lifetime. So, just tell me what that word education means. For some it consists in knowing the name of Alexander's horse, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... time I have been pestered, as I was this morning, at least once a week. I seldom enter into any discussion with him, but fix my eyes on the portrait over the mantelpiece, and endeavour to conjure up some comic idea or situation, whilst he goes on talking tomfoolery by the hour about Church authority, schismatics, and the unlawfulness of sacerdotal wedlock; occasionally he brings with him a strange kind of being, whose acquaintance he says he made in Italy. I believe he is some sharking priest, who has come over to proselytize ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... "All tomfoolery!" he blustered. "There isn't any nobility in your country, nor have you five dollars all told to rub against each other. If you had, you wouldn't come over here to play the gallant to women who are . . . you know what they are ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and not keep the village a-guessin' as to who they is and where they come from. I don't believe a word of this outcast yarn. Guess Miss Lucy is all right, and she knows enough to stay away when all this tomfoolery's goin' on. She doesn't want to come back to a child's nussery." To all of which her mother nodded her head, keeping it going like a toy mandarin long after the subject of discussion had ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a deal of rules about the fashioning of shirt collars and the hemming of sheets and the sewing on of buttons and the folding of bandages which The Woman characterised as tomfoolery. The President was for keeping the rules. She believed in system, she stated in her address to the Society, but Mrs. Johnnie Dunn believed only in her own system, and told every one to go ahead and do things the way they had always done and they'd ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... he said. "I should want a woman to marry me for love of me, and not out of romantic admiration because I was lucky enough to drill a hole in a man's shoulder with smokeless powder. I tell you I am disgusted with this adventure tomfoolery and rot. I don't like it. Tudor is a sample of the adventure- kind—picking a quarrel with me and behaving like a monkey, insisting on fighting with me—'to the death,' he said. It was like ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... people, not financial magnates themselves in all probability, have given this substantial dweller of the under-water plateaus undignified names. They call him pilker, scrod, groper, etc. This is pure envy. When he bites it means business. There is none of the bait-stealing tomfoolery of the cunner, none of the dancing hilarity of the pollock. It is just a steady down tug that makes the line cut your fingers and likely takes your hand under water. If he is a good one you will need to sit back and snub the line ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... I put in. "It was not so at all. I grant you that my behaviour was bad—I fully confess that it was so, and make no secret of the fact. I would even go so far as to grant you that my behaviour might well be called stupid and indecent tomfoolery; but, MORE than that it was not. Also, let me tell you that I am very sorry for my conduct. Yet there is one circumstance which, in my eyes, almost absolves me from regret in the matter. Of late—that is to say, for the last two or three weeks—I have ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... an opportunity to sever your relations, and nobody need have been wiser—and she'd have had all the blame—and it's only what she's accustomed to—you—you! you, James North!—you must nonsensically go, and, by this extravagant piece of idiocy and sentimental tomfoolery, let everybody see how serious the whole affair was, and how deep it hurt you! and here in this awful place, alone—where you're half drowned to get to it and are willing to be wholly drowned to get away! ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... "My tomfoolery came near to being the end of the poor dear," said Cousin 'Ratio, walking with us to the carriage, when we had taken leave of his wife. "I feel mighty bad about it, too, as you may suppose, for it was my fault in not reminding her of those cussed side-blades. Between ourselves, ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... men came in and limply dropped into comfortable chairs in my library, with the air of having made martyrs of themselves in the great cause of charity. But they did not deceive me. They originated all that tomfoolery for their ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... Injuns around, and you with naught but a scalping knife? 'Tis not bravery but tomfoolery," said the elder Letitia. "I'll warrant you stole out without the knowledge of Goodman Cephas Holbrook and Mistress Holbrook, and they having taken you in as they did and given you food and shelter, with nine of their own to care for, ...
— The Green Door • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... what?" I said. "That's just the thing I've come to ask you. A pretty pair of fools you made of the two of us up on the poop just now, with your hysterical tomfoolery." ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... true that a man has a perfect right to dress his hair in this fashion, or in any fashion he pleases; but a more absurd appearance than the blue ribbons gave to his broad, brown, beardless face, it is impossible to imagine. The solemn dignity, too, with which he carried off this tomfoolery was not the least laughable part of it. I wonder which of his wives—for I was told he had several—braided all these small rings of hair, and confined them with the blue love-knots; but it is more than probable that the grave Indian performed his own ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... travels to India by the overland route, gets to America per Cunard line, strikes the base of the Rocky Mountains, and, rebounding back to Europe, mostly perishes on the steppes of Russia from inanition and extreme cold." When he felt he was not under observation, and that tomfoolery would not be frowned upon or gazed at with astonishment, he gave himself up without reserve to healthy amusement and strengthening mirth. It was his mission to make people happy. Words of good cheer were native to his lips, and he was always doing what he could to lighten the lot ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... devil guided my hand,' said the deaf painter to me, with mysterious gesticulations and a satirical yet good-natured wag of the head, such as he was wont to indulge in when in the midst of his genial tomfoolery." ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... truth—can laugh at himself as well as others; that's what makes him precious. These humming-birds here to-night couldn't raise a smile at their own tomfoolery to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... small fragments of some early work have also been preserved. Beyond the Sarthe is another fine Romanesque church, also a complete minster, the church of Notre-Dame-du-Pre. A fine hospital, the work of Henry the Second, is now perverted to some military purpose, and some military tomfoolery forbids examination, in marked contrast to the liberal spirit which allows free access to everything that the antiquary can wish to visit at Fontevrault and at Saumur. But the ecclesiastical remains of ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... good enough to remember for the future, sir,' said the Chief of the Staff, 'that His Majesty does not require his lieutenants to execute manoeuvres on their own responsibility, and also that to attack a battery with three men is not war, but damned tomfoolery. You ought ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... with desire to injure. "Your wife—you melodious sinner! Do you think such tomfoolery has any effect in this civilized country? She is about as much your wife as I am your brother. Don't talk your heathenish rot here. I said I'd help you to get your own, because you played the fiddle as few men can play it, and I owe you a lot for that hour's music; but there's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of tomfoolery you are up to doesn't matter. We needn't quarrel. I've another proposition to put before you—much more to your fancy, I think. You like this Mr. ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... jumping about for just ten seconds, and give me a chance to observe that I am your maiden aunt from Devonshire, all this tomfoolery can be avoided." ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... not, but—but—well, I wish I had been left to pay the price of my tomfoolery all alone. It would have served me right. But to drag you ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... what I mean," Merriman answered irritably. "Let's drop this childish tomfoolery about plots and mysteries and try to get reasonably sane again. Here," he went on fiercely as the other demurred, "I'll tell you what I'll do if you like. I'll have no more suspicions or spying, but I'll ask her if there is anything wrong: say I thought ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... with an oath threw the letter on the table. "I'll pay the rest as soon as I can, if you'll stop this damned tomfoolery," he said sullenly, for he saw that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wondered how he would shape "at camping out," with an irrepressible chuckle. "Often thought I'd like to try it," he said, and invited us to help him make up a camping party. "Be a change for us city chaps," he suggested; and then exploding at what he called his "tomfoolery," set the dining-net ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... a spurt out of her every now and then. He's blown enough wind in her to get up a hurricane, and I expect nothing else but he'll get the old machine so chock full that she'll blow back at him some day and burst his brains out, and all along of your tomfoolery. You're a pretty mother, you are! You'd better go and join some asylum for feeble-minded idiots, ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... one or two exclamations, "The truth!" he cried, "this is what I understand you to say,—the truth. The truth is your bargain; I think I'm right, the truth; Hm; what is truth? What in heaven and earth do you mean by truth? where did you get that cant? What oriental tomfoolery is bamboozling you? The truth!" he cried, staring at him with eyes, half of triumph, half of impatience, "the truth! Jove help the boy!—the truth! can truth pour me out a cup of melilotus? can truth crown me with flowers? ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... out because the mere fact of its doing so is a sure indication of nobility, probity, and rugged grandeur of character.'—'Very well, Vagula, have your own wayula! But I,' says the brain, 'flatly refuse to be mixed up in this tomfoolery. I shall go to sleep till it is over.' The brain then wraps itself up in its own convolutions, and falls into a dreamless slumber from which nothing can rouse it till the body has ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... Stephen Andrews and other charlatans; listened to mysterious rappings and tappings coming out of the darkness; felt inanimate objects being lifted across the room; heard tambourines rattled by invisible hands; and unquestionably swallowed all the traditional tomfoolery that appears to be part and ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... this great world state of ours seems to a Victorian Englishman. You regret all the old forms of representative government—their spectres still haunt the world, the voting councils and parliaments and all that eighteenth century tomfoolery You feel moved against our Pleasure Cities. I might have thought of that,—had I not been busy. But you will learn better. The people are mad with envy—they would be in sympathy with you. Even in the streets now, they clamour to destroy the Pleasure Cities. But the Pleasure ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... like, it wouldn't be long before half the people in my district would be living on you—giving nothing—no effort, no work, no self-respect in return. You don't mind if I say so, but that sort of thing isn't charity, Jerry. It's merely sentimental tomfoolery which might by accident do some good, but ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... if ten foot snowbanks don't bother you at all, Er slosh 'nd mud 'nd drizzlin' rain, combined with a snowfall, It's just the most delightful spot this side o' heaven's dome— But I kind o' sorter reckon that I couldn't call it home. When you talk about that climate, it's all tomfoolery, Fer sunny ol' Cal'forny's ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... 59; betise [Fr.]; extravagance, romance; sciamachy^. sell, pun, verbal quibble, macaronic^. jargon, fustian, twaddle, gibberish &c (no meaning) 517; exaggeration &c 549; moonshine, stuff; mare's nest, quibble, self- delusion. vagary, tomfoolery, poppycock, mummery, monkey trick, boutade [Fr.], escapade. V. play the fool &c 499; talk nonsense, parler a tort et a travess [Fr.]; battre la campagne [Fr.]; hanemolia bazein [Gr.]; be absurd &c adj.. Adj. absurd, nonsensical, preposterous, egregious, senseless, inconsistent, ridiculous, extravagant, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and the heralds stood at attention in the hall. While Clarence and his father struggled into their great-coats, neither of them in a very good temper, Mr. Stimpson being annoyed at postponing his dinner for what he called "tomfoolery," and Clarence secretly sulky because his parent could not be induced to see the propriety of going up ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... guilty of a tomfoolery among principles at the start. If by any chance we could, in English, find the right way to translate Homer, why should we waste it on translating him? We had a hundred times better be writing ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... David's motives selfish or unworthy. His patients were his friends. He had a sense of responsibility to them, and very little faith in the new modern methods. He thought there was a great deal of tomfoolery about them, and he viewed the gradual loss of faith in drugs with alarm. When Dick wore rubber gloves during their first obstetric case ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... headache," he said, rather as a child might complain to his elder, "for two days, and now it's suddenly gone. I never used to have headaches. But I've been irritated lately by some of the tomfoolery that's been going on. Don't tell your mother; I haven't said a word to her; but what do you take when you ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... care." Monck paused to lay an unexpected hand upon the lad's shoulder. "And you must take care of yourself, Tommy," he said. "Don't get up to any tomfoolery while I am away! And if you get thirsty, ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... own. Many gnashed upon him with their teeth, and would have laid violent hands on him had they dared. Sundry little spiteful tricks also were played off upon him. Thus, one morning he found that the word "Surgery" had been obliterated from his private door, and the word "Tomfoolery" painted under it. He let this pass for a while unnoticed and unremedied, and then restored the original word; and as his friends and the police were on the watch, the outrage was not repeated. All open scoffs and insults he took very quietly, sometimes ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... grey eyes unveiled some of their gentleness, "you can tell the truth still. Now, Ray, the shock of your disappointment has deprived you of reason, or you, of all people, would see that this tomfoolery outside is ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... think it's all tomfoolery, the way she's going on. There ain't any rhyme nor reason to it." He stopped, and his wife waited. "If she said the word, I could have some help from them." He hung his head, and would not meet his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "No—this tomfoolery. I don't believe you have to earn your living. I'd lay a wager that you are doing it as a stunt to vary the monotony of a dull existence, but there are other and better ways ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... me sick, with your eternal chatter!" Henley burst out, angrily. "I don't care what them two silly women do. I'll not be here to witness such tomfoolery. I'm going to Texas, to ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... moon signs, their owl signs, their cat and dog signs, and I know not what all other kinds of signs, all of which were regarded with the reverence due only to sacred things. I must confess I have often been disgusted at the tomfoolery of some ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... to spoil your style with tagging rhymes together. You have a chance to make thirty thousand francs per annum by writing for the papers, and you will not exchange that chance for three thousand francs made with difficulty by your hemistiches and strophes and tomfoolery——" ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... but not so drunk as not to know what you are doing. Enough of this tomfoolery," said the officer sternly, "or I will have you put under arrest in ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... preparation always involves this; and every man must prepare until he is able to think more clearly on his legs than sitting down. It was just the kind of speech which was wanted at a moment when the general air is rent with the rhodomontade and tomfoolery of Ulster. Applying to these wild harangues the destructively quiet wit of obiter dicta, Mr. Birrell made the Orangemen look very foolish and utterly ridiculous. Mr, Gladstone was one of Mr. Birrell's most attentive and cordial hearers. Mr. Birrell is going to do great things in ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... essential to the management of a powerful political organization. The weaker brethren, unable to penetrate by the strong will and by 'spontaneous secresy,' to cooeperation with the leaders and to the arcana, have always required the tomfoolery of ceremony, and among the K.G.C. it has not been spared. Those desirous of learning what the forms were or are in which the action of the Order has been enveloped, we refer to pamphlet itself, premising ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... you had but one rival; a very young lady, wise before her age; a blonde, with violet eyes. She was dressed in light mauve-colored silk, without a single flounce, or any other tomfoolery to fritter away the sheen and color of an exquisite material; her sunny hair was another wave of color, wreathed with a thin line of white jessamine flowers closely woven, that scented the air. This girl was the moon of that assembly, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... the secret of her vitality. We must find it for her,—distraction, a system of physical exercises, perhaps. But we must occupy the mind. Those Christian Scientists have an idea, you know,—not that I recommend their tomfoolery; but we must accomplish their results by scientific means." And he went away highly satisfied ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... it's all damned tomfoolery!" said Sir Richard. After saying which he swung himself into the saddle with a lightness and ease that many ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... some political tomfoolery? I thought so. Well, don't you get down in the mouth—and never mind all the stuff Julia talks. It's only her spiteful tongue; and if you want help,—cash, or anything,—let me ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... old imbecile," cried he, jumping off his chairs and running up to him, "What are you after?" bursting into a loud laugh as he looked at Mr. Jorrocks's mustachios (a pair of great false ones). "Is there no piece of tomfoolery too great for you? What's come across you now? Where the deuce did you get these things?" taking hold of the curls at one side ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... out at some of his tomfoolery," conjectured the visitor, in a tone of virtuous conviction. "Johnny never would stick to anything long enough to succeed. I wonder how he manages to run his business here, and never be 'round ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... listen to any tomfoolery, and I ain't goin' to have anybody dictatin' to me about ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... be on this island much longer. The judge tells me that he means to make short work of them when he gets a chance. If the Militia have really been called out, I should not be surprised to learn that the Messiah has been up to some new tomfoolery." ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... he muttered, with a touch of impatience in his voice. "And now, what about those tickets? I suppose, Basil, you're dying to see all this tomfoolery?" ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... text of an awful row, in which the old gentleman exposed himself more than I am willing to repeat, and called on me to choose between his hides and tallow and what he was pleased to call my tomfoolery.' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Any tomfoolery and you will go off," replied the Parson sternly—"out of this world into the next—pop! as you say yourself. You've only one chance against the finest marksmen in the world, and that's to show em a clean pair of heels. If you don't, you've fought your ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... tomfoolery of this sort never pays. I know. I've done it myself in my time. If I were you, I should pull up and try some less expensive hobby than that of mending broken men. The pieces are always chipped and never stick, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... but since that doctor waccinated me and nearly killed me by it, tough as I be, I come to call all tomfoolery by the same name. I've been in theatres, yer honour, and played in pieces, and I've known the willain in the play get up a shindy like this. I knows they're on'y got up to 'arrow up the feelin's o' tender females; but I'm afeared as 'ow ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... into if such fools as that get their way! We're soft enough as it is, Heaven knows. Why couldn't they hang the scoundrel as he deserved? That's the surest way of putting an end to savagery. But to stop the sport altogether! It would be tomfoolery!" ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... to be wound up with a jerk," answered his companion. "I've settled all that. She wanted to hire somebody to take charge of the store while we're gone, and to sell out the things on her old plan; but that's all tomfoolery. I have engaged a shopkeeper at Romney to come out and buy the whole stock at retail price, and I gave him the money to do it with. That's good business, you know, because it's the same as money coming ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... devil's tomfoolery? Explain it to me. Are you mad?" His suppressed feelings overmaster him. He gives way ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... grinned, giggled, tittered, chuckled, and guffawed. A wine of merriment flushed the crowd and mounted to the old mummer's brain and heart. He skipped and danced and sang; he went through all the drollery and tomfoolery, all the old comic ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... know, Alfred Burton, is first how long this tomfoolery is to last, and secondly what it all means?" Ellen began, with her elbows upon the table and a reckless disregard of neighbors. "Haven't we lived for ten years, husband and wife, at Clematis Villa, and you ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Tapster, he had thought all this tomfoolery, but while Bubbles had been speaking to, or at, his sister, he had felt amazed, as well as ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... old man in a dudgeon, 'if that is all your invention can tell me, good-bye. You told me you were able to make gold. Instead, you make foolish prophecies. I'll put no money into such tomfoolery. I'm a practical man,' and with that he ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Was is Solomon, though? Never mind. He couldn't ride. Never had a horse till he was grown up. But he said some uncommon wise things about having to do with such friends as T. B. So, Harry East, if you please, no more tomfoolery after to-day. You've got a whole skin, and a lieutenant's commission to make your way in the world with, and are troubled with no particular crotchets yourself that need ever get you into trouble. So just you keep clear of other people's. And if your friends must be mending the world, and poor ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... them all along, of course," said the foreman. "But I never paid any attention to them. I just quit, like Mr. Sinclair, when they started all that tomfoolery about wearing uniforms ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... head nor tail of—no, not even Mrs. Abel, as was always backing him up; and to think of him breedin' sheep all his life; why, that man, sir, if only he'd learned a bit o' commonsense reasonin', might ha' done wonders, instead o' wastin' himself wi' a lot o' tomfoolery about stars and spirits, and what all." Thus he continued to pour forth till a fit of ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... other is crazy. One wants to blow her out of the water—with what? The other wants to do something no one can understand—and why? But they both agree upon killing everyone on board except a privileged lady. It is school-boy tomfoolery!" ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... baronet should, and to step into the living which is fattening for you, then I must refuse to take any further responsibility for your future. Here is a thousand pounds; it is the money I had set aside for your college course. Use it for your musical tomfoolery if you insist, and then—get what living you can.' Which was severe but dignified, unpaternal yet patrician. But what does my governor do? That cantankerous, pig-headed old Philistine—God bless him!—he's ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... pieces. He roared, he raved, he swore, he pushed them about, slapped them on the back, shoved them against the wall, and occasionally rushed out to the head of the stair to address them en masse. At the same time, behind all this tomfoolery, I, watching his prescriptions, could see a quickness of diagnosis, a scientific insight, and a daring and unconventional use of drugs, which satisfied me that he was right in saying that, under all this charlatanism, there lay solid reasons for his success. ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... you try; I wish there was time to train you. We'll do the 'logs duet' once more after this tomfoolery. Ha! Captain Armytage. You are an awful pirate, and no mistake. Where did ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for now," he said, "the piles of money that boy had abroad, his privacy with his mother, and all the other tomfoolery I could not understand. Katy," and pausing in his walk, Mr. Cameron came close to his daughter-in-law, who was lying with her face upon the sofa. "Katy, be glad your baby died. Had it lived it might have proved a curse just as ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... with cowards, Pierre flew into a passion. It was the marquis's fault, it was his wife's fault, the fault of all his family. Had he ever thought of politics at all, until Monsieur de Carnavant and Felicite had driven him to that tomfoolery? ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... begun to grow red and angry. "I don't know whether you are playing a game with us, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said he. "If you know anything, you can surely say it without all this tomfoolery." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he, gripping hard at his courage. 'We are in a civilised land here, and we can't have tomfoolery of this kind. Where does ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... that's your concern. Find him, and give the chit into his own hand, and be back without any tomfoolery, or by thunder I'll lay a rope across ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... cropping up in an unexpected place. In spite of these encounters, Fitzjames not only formed some very warm friendships on circuit, but enjoyed many of the social meetings, and often recurred to them in later years. He only despised tomfoolery more emphatically than his neighbours. Nobody, indeed, could be a more inconvenient presence where breaches of decency or good manners were to be apprehended. I vividly remember an occasion upon which he was one of a little party ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... he said the new boss was a—a philandroper, or something. He seemed kind of tickled over it, too, as if he thought it was a kind of tomfoolery, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... dog. Cats, by the way, rarely suffer from excess of adulation. A cat possesses a very fair sense of the ridiculous, and will put her paw down kindly but firmly upon any nonsense of this kind. Dogs, however, seem to like it. They encourage their owners in the tomfoolery, and the consequence is that in the circles I am speaking of what "dear Fido" has done, does do, will do, won't do, can do, can't do, was doing, is doing, is going to do, shall do, shan't do, and is about to be going to have done is the continual theme of discussion from ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... glasses; all this business was idiotic, it was a boy's foolishness. "It shows how young you are, Blair," she said kindly, "though the Lord knows you are old enough in years to have some sense!" But if he kept the foolishness up, and this other tomfoolery on account of which she had had to leave the Works and spend her valuable time talking to the Dean, why, he might be expelled. He would certainly be suspended. And that would put off his getting into business for still another year. "And you are ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... care what the colonel says; if he wants to know why, tell him I ordered it. I'm not going to have this night spoiled by any tomfoolery of Talbot's, I don't care what he says. You hear me, Alec? Not a drop. Take out those half-empty bowls and don't you serve another thimbleful of anything until I say so." Here he turned to the young doctor, who seemed rather surprised at St. George's ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "Come, don't make a tomfoolery of it; that's enough. I shall have all the fellows at me for your coming up in that way, you know. Why couldn't you shake ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on me. Yes, and the horse too; the whole three of them. But there's that bit of meat at the end of the performance, so I suppose I may as well appear "to come the docile highly trained beast," and go through with the tomfoolery and collar it. "Snarl?" Do I? Of course I do. It's the one outlet I have for my feelings. Who wouldn't snarl under the circumstances? Fancy, me, the "King of Beasts" (it sounds like chaff), dropping off a platform, at a given signal, on to the back of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... scurrying round the woods and fields with nets to catch butterflies. And she lugs in a lot of corn husk and shows them how to make a few dinky baskets and thinks she's doing some wonderful thing. For all that she draws her salary and gets away with all that tomfoolery—guess because she can smile and humbug some people—them red-headed women are all like that, boy. She's not the right teacher for Crow Hill school and I'm going to make several people see it. Then let her twiddle her thumbs ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... cries out, and eke the pillow and bolsters indented here and there, and the creakings and joggings of the quivering bed: unless thou canst silence these, nothing and again nothing avails thee to hide thy whoredoms. And why? Thou wouldst not display such drained flanks unless occupied in some tomfoolery. Wherefore, whatsoever thou hast, be it good or ill, tell us! I wish to laud thee and thy loves to ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... mean me!" he exclaimed. "Now, Mr. Fakrash, will you kindly explain what tomfoolery you've been up to now? I know you're at the ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... hand on the butt of his revolver at his hip, meaning to whip out the weapon and fire before the miscreant had finished his high-sounding tomfoolery. His daughter had also grasped hers, intending to obey to the letter the command of her parent, when the Ghoojur chieftain abruptly paused in his speech, staggered for a moment, and then sank to the ground like a bundle of rags, ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... task. For my mistress said the child was over young; and my master told me I had somewhat else to think of than such tomfoolery. Howbeit, when I told them that, say what they pleased, Jeannette was mine, and that so soon as my time was up two years hence I should take her to myself with leave or without, they thought better of ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... forth that a certain "tomfoolery lemma," with its "tomfoolery" superstructure, "never had existence outside the shallow brains of its inventor," Euclid. He then ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the active co-operation of every member of the Committee; and whilst the majority regarded it as an august and impressive vindication of the majesty of parliament, the minority regarded it with equal conviction as a puerile tomfoolery, and declined altogether to act their allotted parts in it. Besides, they did not all want to part with the books. For instance, Mr Hugh Law, being an Irishman, with an Irishman's sense of how to behave like a gallant gentleman on occasion, was determined to be able to assure me that ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... am Bill Cameron, the owner of these ice-houses, that's who I am! And I know you, in spite of them tomfoolery dresses you've got on. ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... They crowned a king this day, and there has been great rejoicing and elaborate tomfoolery, and I am perplexed and saddened. I never saw anything to compare with the pageant, except Yankee circuses and Alhambra ballets; nor did I ever see anything so ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... friend, my twin, Born at the time when I was born,— Whether tomfoolery you inspire Or animate with love's desire, Or flame the soul with bitter scorn, Or lull to sleep, O jar of mine! Come from your place this festal day; Corvinus hither wends his way, And there's demand ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... he went on, "that they are teaching a lot of this Radical tomfoolery in Oxford now; he says his son has come home stuffed with it, thinks agricultural labourers are underpaid and all the ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... he will overthrow you; 'tis easy to see, that he will beat you in roguery, in brazenness and in clever turns. Come, you, who have been brought up among the class which to-day gives us all our great men, show us that a liberal education is mere tomfoolery. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... all say," scoffed Grimm. "Seekers after the truth! And madly eager to believe everything they hear or read except the commonsense truth. And you, a level-headed Scotchman, old enough to be your own father, actually gulp down such tomfoolery! Next we'll have you chasing around the streets at night, looking with a dark lantern for ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... this opal is probably blasphemous. But I own that I could do without the Shandean prologue and epilogue of the narrator and his man-servant Daniel Cameron. And though, as a tomfool myself, I would fain not find any of the actions of my kind alien from me, I do find some of the tomfoolery with which Nodier has seasoned the story superfluous. Why call a damsel "Folly Girlfree"? What would a Frenchman say if an English story-teller christened some girl of Gaul "Sottise Librefille"? "Sir Jap Muzzleburn," the Bailiff of the Isle of Man, and his black poodle-equerry, Master ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... what tomfoolery has possessed you, mother, I'd like to know? What's the use of scarin' folks half to death? As if we hadn't had enough things happen without your cuttin' ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... I said, putting in my oar. 'You looked at the trees, and you will at once tear them down. You fell on the fruit like a wolf. You saw the garden, and at once wanted to buy. Now you want the ring, and will exchange for it your wares. What sort of tomfoolery are you talking to us? You are either crazy yourself or will make others so. The apple falls not far from the ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... hand to such tomfoolery for one," replied Tommy. "I'm dead beat." He went and sat down doggedly on the main hatch. "You got us on; get us off ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the afternoon and is not in evidence at half-past seven. Perhaps, too, the knowledge of the particular cause of the captain's delay somewhat added to his chief officer's ill-temper—that cause being a pretty girl; for the mate was a crusty old bachelor, and had but little sympathy with such "tomfoolery." ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke
... later, and there was a head-splitting racket in the room, a storm of tomfoolery, a sort of cats' concert, with Vautrin as conductor of the orchestra, the latter keeping an eye the while on Eugene and Father Goriot. The wine seemed to have gone to their heads already. They leaned back in their chairs, looking at the general confusion with an air ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... the man he is trying to pass, like the mirror pantomime in Hanlon's Fantasma. Finally, both come to a standstill, facing each other, and one tries to execute a quick flank movement to the left. Just at this moment the other suddenly remembers that he would have avoided all this tomfoolery if he had only kept to the right, and tries to make good on this hypothesis. The result is that they bump into each other violently and begin side-stepping again. After another round or two of Terpsichorean gymnastics one of them breaks through the other's guard and ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... if you don't spoil it by your tomfoolery. I should not have been surprised to find you had allowed him to go ashore to look around a little. You must leave here to-morrow morning. You ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... said Belch. "Look here. If we don't get this grant from Congress, what on earth is the use of having worked so long in this devilish old harness of politics? Haven't we been to primary meetings, and conventions, and elections, and all the other tomfoolery, speechifying and plotting and setting things right, and being bled, by Jupiter!—bled to the tune of more hundreds than I mean to lose; and now, just as we are where a bold push will save every thing, and make it worth while to have ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... "Now, Sir, heads or tails?" I happen to have seen it fall head uppermost—but no doubt he has manipulated it some way—if I say tails, he will look rather foolish. Tails, then. Will I lift my hat? I do—a guinea-pig! Renewed roars. I ought to be above feeling annoyed at this tomfoolery—but these conjuring fellows go ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... reminding the father that it was his duty to sacrifice himself to the interests of his children. She endeavoured to separate him from his friends and to make him forsake his party and his fidelity to his ideas. She made fun of what she called his tomfoolery, which prevented him from turning his position to account. Every day there were fresh attacks and reproaches until he was fairly haunted by them; it was the terrible battle of all that is most prosaic against the conscience of a ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... parents were poor, or because she was too kind hearted to say no. Anyway, it must have been horrid for her to know that he was rich enough to let her do anything she liked, but wouldn't let her do anything nice, because he was a Consistent Democrat, and didn't believe in show or "tomfoolery." ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of fiction superseded by interesting company and conversation, and made obsolete by the human mind outgrowing the childishness that delights in the tales told by grownup children such as novelists and their like! An end to the silly confusion, under the one name of Art, of the tomfoolery and make-believe of our play-hours with the higher methods of teaching men to know themselves! Every artist an amateur, and a consequent return to the healthy old disposition to look on every man who makes art a means ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... con-founded Idiot,' muttered Tackleton, 'that I was afraid she'd never comprehend me. Ah, Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk, beadle, glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favours, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a wedding. Don't you know ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... rock, and we gathered round her. She was not more than twenty-two or three, but as perfectly assured and fearless as only a well-bred woman can be in the presence of unshaven men she does not know. Fred would have continued the tomfoolery, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... This isn't severity: it's tomfoolery. And if you think it's reforming my character or teaching me anything, you're mistaken. It may be a satisfaction to you; but if it is, all I can say is that ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw |
