"Wager" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fishing-boat on the Nile, the queen amused him by having salted fish fixed by divers on his hook, which he drew up amid the laughter of the party. Again she wagered that she would consume ten million sesterces at a meal, and won her wager by drinking vinegar in which she had dissolved a priceless pearl. All the enjoyments that the fancy of the cunning enchantress could devise were spread around him, and he let the world roll unheeded by while he yielded to ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... exclaimed De Royster. "It seems a queer thing that Roy should be taken sick so suddenly. Why, he was as healthy as a young ox. I'll wager there's something wrong. He came here to New York to expose a man he thought was a swindler, and I believe the man has him in his power now. I must do something to ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... if she doesn't, the invitation will give me ample excuse for calling. I'll do it to-morrow evening. I suppose women need a little time to get ready for such functions. Anyhow, I'll call on her to-morrow evening and invite her. I wonder if anybody else has anticipated me in that? No, I'll wager not. I never heard of her going out, or even of anybody calling upon her. Still," he reflected, as he mounted to his room and lighted his lamp and his fire, "that sort of thing might happen." Then, after a pause: "I reckon I'd better send her ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... an they did," said Donald, "an that were the warst o't, for we have a wheen canny trewsmen here that wadna let us want if there was a horned beast atween this and Perth. But this is a warse job—it's nae less than a wager." ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... wife whom he loved beyond anything in the world. And one day there was with the knight a friend who was a soldier, and after dinner, in foolish talk, the knight said that he would go to the Hill, and he made a wager on it. The knight's lady besought him not to go, but he girded on his sword and went laughing. Now at the time, the old man said, there was much fighting in the valley, for the people were not yet subject to the English king, but paid tribute to their own Lords; and ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... him a letter more bulky in weight and appearance than any he had yet received. His eyes glistened with pleasure as he read the postmark. "A letter from Frank," he said joyfully, "and an important one, I 'll wager." ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... table heaped with dusty books and papers; and at a desk in the centre of the room, with a great paraffin lamp flaring upon his face as he wrote, sat John Saltram, surrounded by fallen slips of copy, writing as if to win a wager. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... house; 'tes natural for yu to stand up for un; I'll wager Mrs. Burlacombe don't, though. My missis was fair shocked. "Will," she says, "if yu ever make vur to let me go like that, I widden never stay wi' yu," ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... won. Then the "Chevalier" remarked, as though he were doing the lad a favour, "Now we'll not prolong this; I must be going. Here's my wager." ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... if he comes on this side of Spur Creek!" muttered Snake Purdee. "Him and his 'adios'! Nothin' but a Greaser, I'll wager!" ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... handsome and can turn a tune moderately well, I shall be willing to wager a fair young planet against the moon that you will propose to her ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... have been something, miss," she said, "or your pa would never have taken, this freak into his head—racing back as if it was for a wager; and me not having seen half I wanted to see, nor bought so much as a pincushion to take home to my friends. I had a clear month before me, I thought, so where was the use of hurrying; and then to be scampered and harum-scarumed off like this! ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... it whispered, but cannot undertake to vouch for the truth of the rumour, that a considerable wager now depends upon the accomplishment of this prophecy within nine calendar months after the Doctor has obtained ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... carry her downstairs every morning, and upstairs every night. She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if I did it for a wager. Jip would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we were coming. My aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and pillows. Mr. Dick ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Gainsborough was immortalizing a hat; Doctor Johnson was waiting in the entry of Lord Chesterfield's mansion with the prospectus of a dictionary; and pretty Kitty Fisher had kicked the hat off the head of the Prince of Wales on a wager. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... Cuthbert. You know well enough they will be hung, and more than that, they will be a success. I would wager a hundred dollars to a cent on it, though you haven't as yet settled on the subjects. You know that you are Goude's favorite pupil and that he predicts great things for you, and there is not one of us who does not agree with ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... spend all you have—to say nothing of the blows. But marriage—I am sure that that nonsensical idea of getting married buzzes around in your head when you see the others. That's what gives you that simper, I'll wager. Bon Dieu de Dieu! Now turn a bit, so that I can see you," said Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, with an abrupt change of tone to one that was almost caressing; and placing her thin hands on the arms of her easy-chair, crossing her legs and moving her foot back and forth, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... time you've heard it, I wager!" said Mr. Gilman. "And it won't be the last! Any man who knows women can see at once that you are one of the women who understand. Otherwise, do you imagine I should have ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... hopping about active as a grasshopper! A great age that. 'Tis little, I'm afraid, many of us young ones will be thinking of climbing steep hillsides when we're coming on to seventy-five. 'Tis you was the active one in your young days, I'll wager." ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... to do so until the very morning of the fight. I believe I have that right within the terms of our wager." ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... carpenter, who had once eaten two geese for a wager) opened the door, and showed me into the best parlor. Here, Mr. Trabb had taken unto himself the best table, and had got all the leaves up, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity of black pins. At ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... for,—than to put aside the adventure,—waive the wondrous probability of such best fortune, in a fear of the barest possibility of an adverse event, and so go to my grave, Walter the Penniless, with an eternal recollection that Miss Burdett Coutts once offered to wager sundry millions with me that she could throw double-sixes a dozen times running—which wager I wisely refused to accept because it was not written in the stars that such a sequence might never be. I had rather, rather a thousand-fold ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... hope of ever getting out of the army when I was summoned to appear before the Travelling Medical Board. You can wager I lost ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... sluggard? That is well! quick! quick! let not thy clapper be seen! Make them all deaf like me. That's it, Thibauld, bravely done! Guillaume! Guillaume! thou art the largest, and Pasquier is the smallest, and Pasquier does best. Let us wager that those who hear him will understand him better than they understand thee. Good! good! my Gabrielle, stoutly, more stoutly! Eli! what are you doing up aloft there, you two Moineaux (sparrows)? I do not see you making the least little shred of noise. What is the meaning ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... King Nebuchadnezzar's head-cook, chosen to the exclusion of all other captains to besiege and destroy Jerusalem? I hear you, replied Pantagruel. By St. Christopher's whiskers, said Friar John, I dare lay a wager that it was because they had formerly engaged Chitterlings, or men as little valued; whom to rout, conquer, and destroy, cooks are without comparison more fit than cuirassiers and gendarmes armed at all points, or all the horse and foot in ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... bull, and remit all penalties for their non-observance; and certainly it is for the honour of the Catholics, that this Earldom should continue in a Catholic family. In short, I'll venture to lay a wager, my Lord Elmwood is ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... is that boy doing?" said Mrs. Jo to herself, as she watched Dan running round the half-mile triangle as if for a wager. He was all alone, and seemed possessed by some strange desire to run himself into a fever, or break his neck; for, after several rounds, he tried leaping walls, and turning somersaults up the avenue, and finally dropped ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Oh, come now, sweetheart, I could wager he didn't see, and suppose he did? We've nothing to conceal. I'm for telling ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... these six weeks. I don't see how they've gone, for my part. I'd lay any wager there were two in the smoke-house when I took the last one out. If Mr. Didenhover was a little more like a weasel I should think he'd ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the bye, I dare say it is, because he looked so conscious when I mentioned her. May be she is ill in town; nothing in the world more likely, for I have a notion she is always rather sickly. I would lay any wager it is about Miss Williams. It is not so very likely he should be distressed in his circumstances now, for he is a very prudent man, and to be sure must have cleared the estate by this time. I wonder what it can be! May be his sister is worse at Avignon, and has sent for him over. His setting ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... wager five shillings you never had such an inexpensive one before," said John. Phyllis didn't answer that; and John added, "Your uncle will send your pretty clothes to—to—wherever you ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... he could not sleep, and beguiled the long hours by humming under his breath all the airs he knew belonging to the already popular opera. Next morning he flew about his work as if for a wager, and when Will came for him there was not a happier heart in all the city than the hopeful one that thumped under Jimmy's threadbare ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... accusations against me, when he had no longer any hope of securing my co-operation; premising that in my ardour to get the army at once to Lima, and unsuspicious at that time of San Martin's secret designs, I had laid Paroissien a wager that by a given day we should be in the Peruvian capital; the Aide-de-camp being a better judge of his chief than I was, accepted the wager, and as a ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... speech Columbus answered nothing, but he asked for an egg to be brought to him. When it was brought he placed it on the table saying, "Sirs, I will lay a wager with any of you that you cannot make this egg stand up without anything ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... for the blood of the unfortunates, who had thus fallen into their hands, was opened by a tall, burly ruffian bending over, seizing one of the children, hurling it into the air, and yelling with an awful imprecation while so doing, that he would wager a gold mohur to five rupees, that he could, with his tulwa, strike off the child's right arm at the elbow without touching any other part of the body. This was accepted at once by half-a-dozen voices; the wretch immediately raised his tulwa and, as the infant descended, made a sharp, quick, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... earnestly trying to recollect a painter's name, and she first looked to one corner of the ceiling, and then to the opposite corner, arching the one eyebrow on that side, although of course there was nothing to be seen there." "Many years ago I laid a small wager with a dozen young men that they would not sneeze if they took snuff, although they all declared that they invariably did so; accordingly they all took a pinch, but from wishing much to succeed, not one sneezed, though their eyes watered, and all, without ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... howling, and rattling among slates and chimney-tops, and making whirligigs of the dust, in the town; and in the country, soughing among the boughs, as though the trees had got some horrible secret which they were whispering to each other, while their long arms lash each other as if for a wager; the whole exciting in us a most uneasy and undefinable sensation, as though we had done something wrong, and were every minute expecting to be found out! A sensation which might fairly be deemed punishment sufficient for all the minor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... send him a letter without the inevitable addendum—the result being that, after having composed the epistle and signed her name, she artlessly appended the observation, 'You see I have written you a letter without a postscript,' capping it with 'Who has won the wager, you or I?' ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... the story Pete had forgotten about the wager. Owen's eyes twinkled as he studied Pete's face. "We ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the afternoon, while the chariots ran, and wager on wager marked the excitement of the cloud of spectators, Gabinius had only eyes for one object, Fabia, who, perfectly unconscious of his state of fascination, sat with flushed cheeks and bright, eager eyes, watching ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... on a wager,' cried Tetraides; 'Clodius bets on me, for twenty sesterces! What say ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... no takers. Not a man believed him capable of the feat. Thornton had been hurried into the wager, heavy with doubt; and now that he looked at the sled 15 itself, the concrete fact, with the regular team of ten dogs curled up in the snow before it, the more impossible the task ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... Green during the day resulted in a meeting between the horsemen, an argument, loud words, and a heated offer to wager money, which was ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... some jealous outburst, some keen questioning of the motives which had made her beg them not to pursue this man. But Charles Merchant was only interested in what the fellow had said and done when he talked with her. "He was just like a man out of a book," said the girl in conclusion, "and I'll wager that he's been raised on romances. He had the face for it, you know—and ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Is your mother? No. Your sister? Again it's no. Then who is it that composes the great army of female ballot seekers? Is it the cook? The chambermaid? The woman that does the plain sewing? I'll wager 'tis not. They have too much to do already; it's not looking for additional burdens they are. Then where does this advanced woman flourish and have her being?" Here one hand went up and descended with a slap. "In the mansions of the rich," he declaimed positively; "in the lap of luxury. Among ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... chat. And now comes the most wonderful part of the affair. He is no real street-car conductor at all. I don't mean just that, but—oh, Jess! this is what I mean: he—he bet with a number of young gentlemen the last election and lost the wager. If he lost he was to come to New York and be a street-car conductor for three months, and that is what he did. He is a young lawyer in a small town near here, and ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... on hers. He laughed into her eyes. "I'll wager you have a lingering fellow-feeling for ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... took her way in a silent and gentle stream, while the other rushed along with a sounding and rapid current. "Sister," said the latter, "at the rate you move, you will probably be dried up, before you advance much farther; whereas, for myself, I will venture a wager, that, within two or three hundred furlongs, I shall become navigable; and, after distributing commerce and wealth wherever I flow, I shall majestically proceed to pay my tribute to the ocean. So, farewell, dear sister! and patiently ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Englishman for perjury or murder, theft, homicide, or 'ran'—as the English call evident rape, which cannot be denied—the Englishman shall defend himself as he prefers, either through the ordeal of iron or through wager of battle. But if the Englishman be infirm, he shall find another who will do it for him. If one of them shall be vanquished he shall pay a fine of forty shillings to the King. If an Englishman summon a Frenchman, and be unwilling to prove his charge ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... Tim, who had come up to announce all ready. "Ecod, measter Frank, you munna wager i' that gate* [*Gate— Yorkshire; Anglice, way.] wi' master, or my name beant Tim, but thou'lt be ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... words for its own sake; the rigidity of intricate metrical forms stood him in lieu of precise thought; instead of communicating truth, he observed the laws of a game; and when he had no one to challenge at chess or rackets, he made verses in a wager against himself. From the very idleness of the man's mind, and not from intensity of feeling, it happens that all his poems are more or less autobiographical. But they form an autobiography singularly bald and uneventful. Little is therein recorded beside sentiments. Thoughts, in any ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... laughing! you, with your short legs!" said the Hare contemptuously. "But still, since you have such a particular wish, I have no objection to try. What shall the wager be?" ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... her laugh. The conversation proceeded something as follows: "I am charmed that I have fallen to your Highness." "Equally charmed," I replied; "but my rank does not admit the adjective you do me the honor to apply." "No?" was the answer. "Well, I'll wager you anything that when the butler pours your wine in the first course he will call you Count, and in the next Prince. You see, they become exhilarated as the dinner progresses. But tell me, how many wives have you in China, you look very wicked?" Imagine this! But I rallied, and replied that ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... off straight for the house, because it was already getting light; but on their arrival they found that they had lost their wager, and that it was not the devil who had routed them in the ...
— The Story of Tim • Anonymous
... we left them, that I wouldn't object to asking the President of the United States to breakfast. You ain't from around here, are you?" she asked, looking at the boys. "I thought not. And you're hungry, I'll wager," she said, as she bustled away with the little girl tugging at her skirts, not waiting for the boys to disaffirm, as they most assuredly would have done had a chance been given them, for they were not in the least hungry. But then, what was ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... the dog team, and the tall, brass-mounted milk cans, don't you, Hanky Panky?" asked Josh quickly. "I saw her a while ago, and heard her speak to the little child in wooden sabots that is tagging at her heels. It was pure French she used, and I'd wager a cookey she isn't a Belgian at all. There are lots of people from northern ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... a trooper who did not wager all the cash he had or could by any means get. There was not an officer who was not dragged in by the growing power of the craze. And daily, parties of Indians came to the Fort to put up cash, or peer around to get a glimpse of the horses. The whites made no attempt this time to spy ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... is that of the Devil's wager with the architect of the cathedral. The Evil One was much irritated at the good progress made in the erection of the building and resolved, by means of a cunning artifice, to stop that progress. To this end he ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... the major, warmly, when I had stepped down. "I'll wager you wiped out a bit of the German trenches with that shot! I think I'll draft you and keep ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... this particular "gamble." The wager had, obviously, something to do with me. I suppose I should have felt flattered at being made the subject of a bet in such select circles, but I did not. I had not been informed as to the ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... on and read it; don't let me keep you from it. Some charmer, I'll wager. Here I pour all my adventures into your ear, and I on my side never so much as get a hint of yours. Go ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... played, with varying fortunes, by the flickering flame of the lamp, he sipped his beer and became communicative. He seemed immensely tickled by the fact that I had come to Boston. It leaked out presently that he and the Captain had had a wager on ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Jack and I are making a wager. He's to go out in my hobo clothes and he's not to use his own name—he's not to see any of his old friends, nor to communicate with them. He's to depend absolutely on his own efforts—to shift for himself for six ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... Launcelot, with some warmth, asked the reason of this attack, the squire replied in these words: "The devil, God bless us! mun be playing his pranks with Gilbert too, as sure as I'm a living soul—I'se wager a teaster, the foul fiend has left the seaman, and got into Gilbert, that he has—when a has passed through an ass and a horse, I'se marvel what beast a will get into next." "Probably into a mule," said the knight; "in that case, you will be in some danger—but I can, at any time, dispossess ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... almost be found for the Ariadne in the saloons of some of the twentieth-century Atlantic greyhounds. But I will wager that the whole fleet of them could not show a tithe of her grace and spirited beauty in a sea-way. And, be it noted, they would not be so extravagantly far ahead of the Ariadne even in point of ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... "I'll wager ten to one, this Lihoa is one of the greedy Chinamen who is going to sail on the 'St. George'," said Mr. Black. "Let's go down to the office of the Chief of Police, and, if my conjecture is true, we'll find the people we want on board the 'St. George'—'kill two ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... said Marianne, full of an idea of her own, "I'll wager that Rickety is not broken in the ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... to have made a wager with you, Mr. Royson," she cried, pronouncing his name very distinctly. "Our English-built craft cannot hold its own ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... lieutenant of marines to take a day watch. Being, as he supposed, put to do something, he naturally wanted to do it, if he only knew what it was, and how it was to be done. The master of the ship was named Peter Wager, and to him, when taking sights, the marine appealed. "Peter, what's the use of being officer of the deck if you don't do anything? Tell me something to do." "Well," Peter replied, "you might send all the watch aft and take in the mizzen-royal"—the mizzen-royal being the ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... perhaps left something behind him in his hurry; if so, then let Hector get his nose to it, and I'll wager anything that he'll follow him up even if ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... formed one constellation in the southern hemisphere. But after we had all done, Ingham offered to bet Newport for the Six that he would substantiate what he said. This is by far the most tremendous wager in our little company; it is never offered, unless there be certainty to back it; it is, therefore, never accepted; and the nearest approach we have ever made to Newport, as a company, was one afternoon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 'I must congratulate you, and am ready to wager you two bottles of beer that your affair is as good as settled. In a few seconds a fresh lot of verses shall be turned out, for poetry constitutes a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... disposed to wager that you have never listened to so strange a story as that which I am about to tell you now. So astonishing, indeed, is the chapter in my life which I am about to open out to you, that I have more than once had to take myself to task, and fit the incidents together with ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... half an hour later—I'll wager my head on that. He can't get away from town to-night; an', what is worse, I don't think he can cross for two or three days. We've got our Christmas storm on hand, an' a worse one than we've had for twenty years, or ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... all right. And I wager she'll do some good work when you get to looking over the sights. Handles great, too. Although I think I like my own gun a little the better, still that's only a matter of prejudice. You're lucky to have such a dad, Bones," remarked Frank, as he drew an imaginary bead ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... of General Robertson in the House of Lords. And if these soldiers are Irishmen, you can wager they're Catholics. And why should we pass laws 'gainst these crowds of Irish Papists and convicts who are yearly poured upon us, unless they were Catholic convicts fleeing ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... thought seems to please you! You want to see me discomfited and defeated. Very well; you can drop me right here if you like, but I'll wager something handsome that you'll regret your skepticism all the rest of your days. Resistance to the course of events marked by the stars is bound to result in confusion. And here's another striking coincidence: You mentioned casually that Isabel spoke ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... woods especially interested Elvira. It was the home of a lately-married pair, young folks full of energy and ambition. The husband chopped down trees, ploughed, or ditched his land, as if he were working for a wager, and the wife was equally active and industrious. Her bright tin milk-pans were out sunning early every morning, her churning and ironing were done in the cool part of the forenoons, her front ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... types on the water-side are of the sort that arrest a sketcher—figures of stalwart, brown-faced Basques, such as I had seen of old in great numbers at Biarritz, with their loose circular caps, their white sandals, their air of walking for a wager. Never was a tougher, a harder race. They are not mariners nor watermen, but, putting questions of temper aside, they are the best possible dock-porters. "Il s'y fait un commerce terrible," a douanier ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... I replied, sarcastic. "Just out for a swim. When we get off the Banks I'm going to jump overboard and swim to the Azores on a wager." ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... brace of siagosh are often pitted against each other by the natives who keep them, a heavy wager pending as to which of the two will disable the greater number out of a flock of tame pigeons feeding, before the mass of them can rise out of reach, and ten or a dozen birds are commonly struck ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the Chevalier, "we are all drunk. Let us see if there be steady hands among us. I make you a wager." ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... all day, and we shall see her paddling back before noon, I'll wager anything," said Charlie; and the rest so strongly inclined to his opinion that they resigned themselves to the loss of the little queen of the revels, sure that it would be ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... I felt certain that I could pick my scrap of paper out of a thousand scraps, the doctor insisted on making sure. The bet was consigned to writing on the very piece of paper that suggested it. The doctor went out and captured it himself. On the back of it the conditions of the wager were formally drawn up and signed by both of us. Then we opened the window and the paper was cast forth again. The doctor solemnly promised not to interfere with it, and I gave him a convalescent's word of honor to ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... eh? An old wine of China, unknown to Western Europe." Victor gave it a musical name in what Sofia took to be Chinese. "Outside my cellars, I'll wager there's not another bottle of it this side of Constantinople. Drink it all. It ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... and see what they've run you about, for you won't escape, I'll wager," laughed Peggy as merrily as though it were broad daylight ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... going the conversation with such skill and verve that soon every one, even the shyest, is drawn into it. There is plenty of argument and divergence of view. If the Emperor is convinced that he is right, he will, as has more than once occurred, jestingly offer to back his opinion with a wager. "I'll bet you"—he will exclaim, with all the energy of an English schoolboy. He enjoys a joke or witticism immensely, and leans back in his chair as he joins in the hearty peal about him. When cigars or cigarettes are handed round, he will ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... fourteenth century, to which family it still belongs. On the church door hang two horseshoes, commemorating a victory that George Carew, Earl of Totnes, wrested from his cousin, Sir Arthur Champernowne. A wager was laid as to whose horse could swim farthest into the sea, and the horse of 'the bold Carew' won. The story is ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... considerable annoyance to the motoring public. Finding that his cutaway coat caused jeers and merriment, he removed it; and when any one showed a disposition to inquire, he explained that he was doing penance for an ill-judged wager. His oscillating perch above the boiler was extraordinarily warm, and he bought a gallon jug of cider from a farmer by the way. Cheering himself with this, and reviewing in his mind the queer experiences of the past months, ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... boy's face, was on the point of offering to wager two bits with Allison that the prophecy held good, but Sarah's well-known attitude toward the vice of gambling checked him in the rash offer. Besides, he wondered how he could make sound anything but foolish an offer ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... as charming as you are." His Argentine betting proclivities rose. "Here; we shall make a wager!" He took a card from his pocket, scribbled on it, handed it to Emma McChesney. "You will please present that to my secretary, who will conduct you immediately to my office. We will pretend it is a friendly call. Your friend need not know. If ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... not to be forced to plead without the city's walls; they were to be exempt from scot and lot and of all payments in respect of Danegelt and murder; they were to be allowed to purge themselves after the English fashion of making oath and not after the Norman fashion by wager of battle; their goods were to be free of all manner of customs, toll, passage and lestage; their husting court might sit once a week; and lastly, they might resort to "withernam" or reprisal in cases where their goods ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... The wager was accepted with alacrity, and Mrs Causand begged to lay an equal stake against me, which I took. I then purposely turned the conversation; and after some time, when we were fairly in the hollow made by the surrounding hills, I exclaimed, "Rip, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Montrose.—The tragic and savage circumstances which are represented as preceding the birth of Allan Mac Aulay, in the "Legend of Montrose," really happened in the family of Stewart of Ardvoirloch. The wager about the candlesticks, whose place was supplied by Highland torch-bearers, was laid and won by one of the Mac ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... Tom quickly. "As soon as I tell the fellows how mean he acted they'll vote to send him to Coventry at once, I'll wager. Not a ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... innocent, she will become transfigured Into an angel, such as they say she is; And they will see her flying through the air, So bright that she will dim the noonday sun; 395 Showering down blessings in the shape of comfits. This, trust a priest, is just the sort of thing Swine will believe. I'll wager you will see them Climbing upon the thatch of their low sties, With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail 400 Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps Of one another's ears between their teeth, To catch the coming hail of comfits ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... one advantage in fast readin', that it gets the business soon over, which is some sort o' comfort to fellows that has got to attend whether they like it or not, hot or cold, fresh or tired, unless dooty prevents. But the hofficer that did dooty to-day seemed to me to 'ave made a wager to read the prayers against time, an' that can do no good at all to any one, you know. Far better, in my opinion, to 'ave no service at all. No wonder men won't listen. Why, it's a ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... real advance and offer no genuine solution to spiritual enigmas. The saving force each of them invokes is merely some remnant of that natural energy which animates the human animal. Faith in the supernatural is a desperate wager made by man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes; it is as far as possible from being the source of that normal vitality which subsequently, if his fortunes mend, he may gradually recover. Under the same religion, with the same posthumous alternatives and mystic harmonies hanging ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... said the gratified Sergeant-Major, "it wud be the polite thing to make a few for thim dacent people on the ground-flure. I'll wager they've niver seen th' taste av' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... copy of which is in the British Museum, date 1560—and entitled, "The longer thou livest more fool thou art," W. Wager, the author, ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... gentlemen of this or any other kingdom, choose to make your pastime of contest, do so, and welcome; but set not up these unhappy peasant-pieces upon the green fielded board. If the wager is to be of death, lay it on your own heads, not theirs. A goodly struggle in the Olympic dust, though it be the dust of the grave, the gods will look upon, and be with you in; but they will not be with ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... not so sure about that wager of yours. I think yer life is safe. I want to tell ye ye've saved mine." She put one hand gently on her little stomach and cried: "I am so hungry me soul ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... [the plaintiff] had a particular fancy for a [certain] horse, and in an evil hour induced [the defendant] to lay him a wager about this animal at the long odds of two shillings to threepence. When the horse had romped triumphantly home and [the plaintiff] went to collect his two shillings [the defendant] accused him of having 'taken him down,' stigmatised him as a thief and a robber, and further ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... but it will make you wiser, and wisdom ranks high in heaven: Gabriel, Raphael, Michael,—'tis the second person in that archangelic trinity. Did you ever read Shakspeare? No, of course not; and yet I'll wager you have been hankering after the Bhagavat Ghita, and trying to get a copy of the illustrious Trismegistan Gimander! Don't blush,—you're not the first young man who has made an a—ahem—made a mistake. Fie! Learn men, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... that has been enow," spoke a voice nigh at hand, though the speaker was invisible owing to the thick growth of bushes. "If that sound were caused by aught but a rabbit or wildcat, I wager the hardy traveller has taken to his heels and fled. But I misdoubt me that it was anything human. There be sounds and to spare in the forest at night. It is long since I have been troubled by visitors to this lone spot. The pixies and I have ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... he muttered, bending over the figures. "I wonder if any of my neighbours who harvest the fields average as well at this season. I'll wager they don't. That's pretty fair! Some days I don't make it, and then when a consignment of seeds go or ginseng is wanted the cash comes in right properly. I could waste half of it on a girl and yet save money. But where is the woman who ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... "I wager that the empress and her ladies made some amiable commentary on the emperor's words. Come, tell me, what said ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... made in 1609. Across it was cut a "grand canal" in imitation of that already possessed by the Chateau de Fleury. It was a great rarity as a garden accessory, and was more than a quarter of a league long and forty metres wide. Bassompierre said in his memoirs that Henri IV made him a wager that it could be filled with water in two days. It ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... hate to go back there, I do; seven women,—God bless my soul! and I'll wager my best hat they're all crying like water-spouts, and haven't made my bed yet. I won't sit down in a room that isn't cleaned up, and bless my soul,—where's my snuff box? I'd sit out doors, sooner than be in the room where they're all sniffling, with the curtains pulled down, as if Robert's ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... my boy," said he; "such prime fellows to eat it, too! Billingsgate, Vauxhall, Cinqbars, Buff of the Blues, and half-a-dozen more of the best fellows in town. And what do you think the dinner cost a head? I'll wager you'll ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Cicero Johnson, who had exchanged several hundred subscriptions to his paper for an ever-decreasing pile of Jule's blue chips—"that is the tribute which valor pays to beauty. Their pleasure has only been postponed. Colonel Chinn, you have overlooked that small wager on the ace. Thanks." ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... landscape," said Howard; "in fact, standing there amidst the dark-green trees, with its pinnacles and terraces, it's rather an ornament than otherwise. I suppose there are flowers on those velvety lawns; and the interior, I'll wager my life, matches the exterior. Fortunate youth to possess ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... ridiculous scene!" he remarked. "Look at that fat old squire on that tall hunter! I'll wager dollars to doughnuts that he won't get ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... out of hostilities, and while both were in command of the very frigates now crippled on the sea. The Macedonian had gone into Norfolk with despatches; while Decatur was in that port. Then they had laughed and joked over their wine, and a wager of a beaver hat was said to have been made between them upon the event of the hostile meeting ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... Englishman go and see that field, and he NEVER FORGETS IT. The sight is an event in his life; and, though it has been seen by millions of peaceable GENTS—grocers from Bond Street, meek attorneys from Chancery Lane, and timid tailors from Piccadilly—I will wager that there is not one of them but feels a glow as he looks at the place, and remembers that ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... name men must know out in the world," Strang persisted. "I'll wager I'd recognise it ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... a laugh; "there is nothing like speaking one's mind. I'll wager San Martin prefers the girl to her father. Have you ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... young in years, is nevertheless, in the management of affairs, superior to any man. She has now excelled the others and developed the very features of a beautiful young woman. To say the least, she has ten thousand eyes in her heart, and were they willing to wager their mouths, why ten men gifted with eloquence couldn't even outdo her! But by and bye, when you've seen her, you'll know all about her! There's only this thing, she can't help being rather too severe in her treatment of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Maxwell says, in a letter with which he has honoured me: "Of his extraordinary memory I remember Lord Jeffrey telling me an instance. They had had a difference about a quotation from Paradise Lost, and made a wager about it; the wager being a copy of the hook, which, on reference to the passage, it was found Jeffrey had won. The bet was made just before, and paid immediately after, the Easter vacation. On putting the volume into Jeffrey's ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... from getting away. Oh, I'm in earnest all right. I mean it! Look here! Can't you see how that woman can be a perfect gold mine to me? You know enough about my work to understand that I'm really out here after Indians myself, and she—well, I'll wager a cool thousand there isn't a spot on this whole island that ever dreamed of seeing an Indian that she doesn't know ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... saying," continued the young man, "I am delighted to travel in France and see what I am seeing. One must live under the government of citizens Gohier, Moulins, Roger Ducos, Sieyes and Barras to witness such roguery. I dare wager than when the tale is told, fifty years hence, of the highwayman who rode into a city of thirty thousand inhabitants in broad day, masked and armed with two pistols and a sword at his belt, to return the two hundred louis ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... about the bath. "We were down on the bank, getting the boat ready that is to start for the south to-morrow, when a boat rowed by a girl came up the river. She was dripping with perspiration, and looked as if she had been rowing for a wager. Mr. Selincourt was sitting in the stern, and there was a small boy covered with mud too. The girl bade us take Mr. Selincourt and get him to bed, and said that she would send down ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... enough she "could not get anything out of them." Imagine nine bewildered Moslems suddenly decanted into the reeking clamorous bowels of a fabric obviously built by Shaitan himself, and surrounded by—but our people are people of the Book and not dog-eating Kaffirs, and I will wager a great deal that that little company went ashore in better heart and stomach than when they were passed down ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... that it was going to be a darned good sweater for the boys in the trenches. Mr. Devine offered to bet his head that it wasn't going to be anything at all—at least nothing any one would want round a trench. Mr. Sawtelle ignored the wager and asked me if I knew how to do this here, now, casting off. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... soon got over the shrinking with which he had at first regarded him, and no longer shunned the acquaintance of which he seemed desirous. It was not until this stage that Bruce made any serious attempt to take some steps towards winning his wager. He asked De Vayne to a dessert, and took care that the wines should be of an insidious strength. But the young nobleman's abstemiousness wholly defeated and baffled him, as he rarely took more ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... strangers, in magnitude of wagers, and the gambling fever spread from these important centers to the very alleys of the negro quarters. Poor indeed was the old darkey who could not find two-bits to wager on the race; small, indeed, the piccaninny who was not wise enough in the sophisticated ways of games of chance to lay a copper with a comrade or to join a pool by means of which he and his fellows were enabled to ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... time, and then all that a party had to do was to produce the writing and satisfy the court by inspection that the impression on the wax fitted his opponent's seal. /1/ The oath of the secta could always be successfully met by wager of law, /2/ that is, by a counter oath the part of the defendant, with the same or double the number of fellow-swearers produced by the plaintiff. But a writing proved to be the defendant's could not be contradicted. [262] /1/ For if a man said he was bound, ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... entered Edinburgh College the students were tolerably free from any of those clubs or parties into which some factitious subject—often a whim—divides them. In the prior year the spirit of wager had seized a great number of them with the harpy talons of the demon of gambling, giving rise to consequences prejudicial to their morals, as well as to their studies. A great deal of money among the richer of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... Brown, that very night. Now, you must know, Mr. Brown and his friend, the Captain, condescended to grace the juvenile party:—they sat at an occasional table, in the recess, drinking wine, as if for a wager—trying to dispose of all the surplus decanted yesterday; so, you may suppose, when John appeared with a melancholy face, to impart melancholy news, Mr. Brown was too far gone to comprehend it—that night he could not stand, much more understand; though, somehow, under ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... thou wager? Him thou yet shall lose, If leave to me thou wilt but give, Gently to lead ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... apologize. That young man of yours sets my teeth on edge. I can't abide a predestined parson. I'll wager anything he has been preaching at you." He smiled ironically as he saw the girl flush. "So he did ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... single stove of the dingy hotel of Angel's, telling yarns. Among the stories was one told by a dreary narrator named Ben Coon. It was about a frog that had been trained to jump, but failed to win a wager because the owner of a rival frog had surreptitiously loaded him with shot. The story had been circulated among the camps, but Mark Twain had never heard it until then. The tale and the tiresome fashion of its telling amused him. He made ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Steward. There's nothing marvellous about it. Just a plain case of steal. Followed you on board? That dog never came over the side. He came through a port-hole, and he never came through by himself. That nigger of yours, I'll wager, had a hand in the helping. But let's have done with beating about the bush. Give me the dog, and I'll say no more ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London |
