"Whist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all sorts, from the conversazioni of the rigid proprietarians, where people sit down to a kind of hopeless whist, at a soldo the point, and say nothing, to the conversazioni of the demi- monde where they say any thing. There are persons in Venice, as well as everywhere else, of new-fashioned modes of thinking, and these strive to give a greater life and ease to their assemblies, by attracting ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... shade was sweet, which led them to unite and visit, as unexpectedly as they were welcome, some neighbor, where without ceremony the evening was spent in rural and innocent amusement—a dance, a game of whist or euchre—until weary with these; and on the arrival of the hour for rest they left, and galloped home in the soft moonlight, respectively flushed with health-giving exercise, and only sufficiently fatigued to be ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... about to spake the same. Do yees tarry here while I takes a look around. Whist! now, and kaap so still that ye'll hear me brathe all the way there ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... him working mildly at the Bar, After a touch at two or three professions, From easy affluence extremely far, A brief or two on Circuit—"soup" at Sessions; A pound or two from whist and backing horses, And, say three ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... soul he made his way through that crowd of his fellow-creatures whose contact was defilement. He would have lost them all rather than a song of Hester's—and yet that he would on occasion have lost for a good rubber of whist with ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... heart's bird!' The screams and hootings rose again: They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred Their noisy plumage; small but plain The lonely hidden singer made A well of grief within the glade. 'Whist, silly fool, be off,' they shout, 'Or we'll come pluck ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... puss, then, was it ill? Puss, puss. Henry, the horrid beast is going to fly at me! Whist, whist, cat." ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... 'Whist! whist! She scorns me, and the King scarce lent a lug to my father's gude offer, so that he can scarce keep the peace with their pride and upsettingness. But I love her, Davie, the mere sight of her is sunshine, and wha kens but in the stour of ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are much the wiser). I had never been at her house before. My he-coz Thompson the butcher is dead, or dying. I dined with my printer, and walked home, and went to sit with Lady Clarges. I found four of them at whist; Lady Godolphin(3) was one. I sat by her, and talked of her cards, etc., but she would not give me one look, nor say a word to me. She refused some time ago to be acquainted with me. You know she is Lord Marlborough's eldest daughter. She is a fool for her pains, and I'll pull her ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... those starch mild coil haste froze larch tile foil taste force lark slide soil paste porch stark glide toil bunch broth prism spent boy hunch cloth sixth fence coy lunch froth stint hence hoy punch moth smith pence joy plump botch whist thence toy ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... the kybosh on that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all the rocks was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair have to follow the rocks about to see where they're going next. Down she went in twenty fathoms before you could have dealt for whist, with fifty thousand pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said, in one form ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... only game of cards that ever pleased me. Once it was the great evening charm of the whole nation. Now, when cards are played at all, it has given place to whist, which, in my younger days, was considered a dry, solemn, studious game, played in moody silence, only interrupted by an occasional outbreak of dogmatism and ill-humour. Quadrille is not so absorbing ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... about! And then dear Mama went, and I stepped into her place with P'pa. He wasn't exactly an invalid, but he did like to be fussed over, to have his meals cooked by my own hands, even if we were in a hotel. And whist—dear me, how I used to dread those three rubbers every evening! I was only a young woman then, and I suppose I was attractive to other men, but I never forgot Mr. Totter. And Cousin George," she turned to him submissively, "when ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... "Whist! do yez hear!" shouted Finnegan; and the conflict had ceased ere the yellow river could reflect the sun from the ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... it friend turned foe? Only the frogs and the gray owl know, For the white moon shrouded her face in a mist At the spurt of a pistol, red and bright— At the sound of a shriek that stabbed the night— And the little reeds were frightened and whist; But always the eddies whimper and choke, And the frogs would tell if they could, for they croak: "Deep, deep! Death-deep! Deep, deep! Death-deep!" And the dark tide slides and glisters and glides Snakelike over ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... have some inveterate old whist-players who are always to be found in the card-room. One of them formerly practiced, I believe, in the Scotch courts. It has just occurred to me that the chance is ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... fearing that her guests were in danger of "moping," Lady Hurstmonceux proposed a game of whist, saying playfully that it was very seldom she was so fortunate as to have the right number of evening ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... spent an hour or two in the sitting-room with the Squire and his wife and Lucina. Sometimes he and the Squire talked politics and town affairs while Lucina and her mother sewed. Sometimes the four played whist, or bezique, for in those days Jerome was learning to take a hand at cards, but he had always Mrs. Merritt for his partner, and the Squire Lucina. Indeed, Lucina would have considered herself highly false and treacherous had she manifested an inclination to be the partner of any other than her ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... "Whist!" says the long man; "would ye be led astray by physiognomy? Me nose will do what it can within bounds. Let us have these glasses filled again, for 'tis good to keep idiosyncrasies well moistened, they being subject to deterioration ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... are four small palaces in the style of Italian architecture. They are inhabited by the royal family; and the old king, Christian, may be seen sometimes, of an evening, walking across to play a game of whist with the dowager-queen. Infantry and cavalry officers, gossipping in groups, and flashing in the sun's rays, their light-blue uniform embroidered elaborately with silver lace, remind you of the Court's vicinity; and the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... appointed to present the Petition to the Councilmen? That's what I was! For Six Years I have been a Member of the League of American Wheelmen and now I am a Candidate for Director of our new four-hole Golf Club. Also I play Whist on the Train with a Man who once lived in the same House ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... regard to his personal appearance in a manly way, though in no respect foppish. He is now, and always has been, an excellent athlete, a good rifle shot, and a first-class horseman; not given at any time to indoor pastimes over much, though fond of a quiet game of whist. He was born in Natal, of Dutch parents, and married to Miss Emmett, a relative of Robert Emmett, the Irish Revolutionist. Young Botha was educated at Greytown, and though a good, sound commercial ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... England frequently learned to speak French. It was essentially an education for secular ends, and prepared not only for active participation in the feuds and warfare of the time, but also for the Seven Perfections of the Middle Ages: (1) Riding, (2) Swimming, (3) Archery, (4) Fencing, (5) Hunting, (6) Whist or Chess, and (7) Rhyming. It also represents the first type of schooling in the Middle Ages designed to prepare for life here, rather than hereafter. For the nobility it was a discipline, just as the Seven Liberal ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... as usual! No, I could not be so crude as to speak outright, but I might finesse, as you whist-players say. Accomplish the same end, only with greater delicacy. After all, a distinction without ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... yellow sands And then take hands: Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd (The wild waves whist), Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... uncle on one side, and Major Delrose, the Rose Cottage people, Mrs. Meltonbury, Peter Tedril, Hatherton, etc., on the other; Madame well knows how to mix up the brandy cocktail and poker of midnight, with sober 9 o'clock whist and old port, but the scales are weightier on one side. But behold the naturalist, waiting at the door with prayer book in hand, ready ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... Goodrich and his wife were entertaining the whist club, of which they were enthusiastic members, for it was the regular weekly meeting; and though the weather was so rough not a few of the devoted lovers ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... wonder-whist, How from the atmosphere a mist, So it seemed, slow uprist; And, looking from those elfin swarms, I was 'ware How the air Was all populous with forms Of the Hours, floating down, Like Nereids through a watery town. Some, with languors of waved ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... unto these yellow sands, 375 And then take hands: Courtsied when you have and kiss'd The wild waves whist: Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burthen ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... Balzac frequently spent his evenings playing whist or Boston with her. Through voluntary inattention or foolish plays, she allowed him to win money which he used to buy books. Throughout his life he loved these games in memory of her. She encouraged him in his writings, and when L'Heritiere de Birague was sold for eight hundred francs, he ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... "Ah, hold your whist, my son! Mebbee 'tis but some bird of the country— bad end to it!—or belike the man we're after, that has spied us, and is putting a game ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the next day, after dinner, over the red cloth of the tables, beneath the swinging lamps and the racks of tumblers, decanters and wine-glasses, we sat down to whist, Mrs. Peck, among others, taking a hand in the game. She played very badly and talked too much, and when the rubber was over assuaged her discomfiture (though not mine—we had been partners) with a Welsh rabbit and a tumbler of something hot. ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... the neck, which was dry in the morning and wet at night. These tragic tales abounded in Madame de T.'s salon, and by dint of cursing Marat, they applauded Trestaillon. Some deputies of the undiscoverable variety played their whist there; M. Thibord du Chalard, M. Lemarchant de Gomicourt, and the celebrated scoffer of the right, M. Cornet-Dincourt. The bailiff de Ferrette, with his short breeches and his thin legs, sometimes traversed this salon ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... piercing distinctness, have been exchanged, the belated revellers from some club or whist-party or an evening at the theatre in town terminate their sweet sorrow at parting by going their several ways to their different homes, where, no doubt, on retiring to rest they sink at once into blameless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... the splashings of the naughty feet, and the wicked tumbles into the soap-suds every time the mischievous little body was rinsed, and Mrs. O'Malligan's "Whist, be aisy," and "It's a tormentin' darlint ye are," they heard nothing of the knocks at the door or the calls, nor knew that Miss Bonkowski, in street dress and hat, had entered, until she stood beside them with an armful ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... actively but noiselessly; no creaking of shoes, which is an abomination; watching the lights from time to time, so as to keep up their brilliancy. But even if the attendant likes a game of cribbage or whist himself, he must not interfere in his master or mistress's game, nor even seem to take an interest in it. We once knew a lady who had a footman, and both were fond of a game of cribbage,—John in the kitchen, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... you've got to carry me!" he told them. "If you think this is a pleasant little game of parlor whist and that you can quit and go home whenever you want, you're plumb wrong. Look here, Watkins, you remarked five minutes ago that you wouldn't stand for it. Now let me tell you a few. You're going to stand for it and keep on standin's for it. You're going to continue ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... though, there ain't one in ten members that knows much more about yachtin' than I do. Navigatin' porch rockers, orderin' all hands up for fancy drinks, and conductin' bridge whist regattas was their chief sea-goin' accomplishments; and when it come to makin' myself useful, who was it, I'd like to know, that chucked the boozy steward off the float when he had two of the house committee treed ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... lonely," she said. "There's the excitement of work, of mingling with crowds, of going when and where one pleases. A woman is hemmed in by a thousand petty must-nots. She can't go out after dark; she can't play whist or billiards, or sit at a table in the open and drink and smoke and spin yarns. Woman's lot is wondering and waiting at home. When I marry I suppose that I shall learn the truth ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... whist-players at the end of the library had pushed back their chairs, and men were strolling back ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... blinds. When at the window, he felt as though about to fall out—probably vertigo. He soon returned to an apparently normal condition, and went about his business as usual. A week after, he had a much more serious attack, which he describes as follows: "I had been playing whist during the evening (several hours), when suddenly, without premonition, I felt as though a champagne cork popped against the top of my head, inside. Accompanying this was an indefinable sensation about the heart as though the blood all rushed thence down to the feet. I did not lose ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... tale must tell To all who are not blind. Ah! Poodle Byng appears in view,{40} Who gives at whist a point or two To dowagers in years. And see where ev'ry body notes The star of fashion, Romeo Coates{41} The amateur appears: But where! ah! where, say, shall I tell Are the brass cocks and cockle shell? Ill hazard, rouge et ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... pleasant thing that there are books, like other enjoyments, for all ages. You would not have a boy prefer whist to fives, nor tobacco to toffee, nor Tolstoi to Charles Lever. The ancients reckoned Tyrtaecus a fine poet, not that he was particularly melodious or reflective, but that he gave men heart to fight for their country. Charles Lever has done as much. In his biography, by Mr. Fitzpatrick, ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... party were various lesser luminaries, each of whom, it must be confessed, might well, under ordinary circumstances, have formed the centre of a circle himself; legal luminaries, social luminaries, political luminaries, each playing ten-pins and whist, each riding, each showing in all small gallantries, and adding by their presence to the ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Mum budget. 'Mum budget', meaning 'hush', was originally the name of a children's game which required silence, cf. Merry Wives of Windsor, V, iv: 'I ... cried mum and she cried budget.' cf. also the term 'Whist'. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... man who sits down to whist may have a run of ill-luck before he gets a decent hand; but the good cards are sure to come if he only sits long enough. Every man has his chance, depend upon it, Phil, if he knows how to watch for it; but there are so many men who get ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... to the study of Greek and Latin, nor did he catch from him the habit of probing a subject to the bottom, and ascending from the questions of the moment to universal principles. Henry Clay probed nothing to the bottom, except, perhaps, the game of whist; and though his instincts and tendencies were high and noble, he had no grasp of general truths. Under Wythe, he became a staunch Republican of the Jeffersonian school. Under Wythe, who emancipated his slaves before his death, and set apart a portion of his ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... remained to finish the holiday, admitting nothing. He scarcely ever left her alone, but followed her like a shadow, he was like a doom upon her, a continual 'thou shalt,' 'thou shalt not.' Sometimes it was he who seemed strongest, whist she was almost gone, creeping near the earth like a spent wind; sometimes it was the reverse. But always it was this eternal see-saw, one destroyed that the other might exist, one ratified because ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... length until, from accepting occasional invitations to dine, the doctor came to stay, quite as a matter of course, although he still made a feeble pretence of rising to go away, before yielding to their suggestion of dinner and a game of whist later on in the evening. At length, even this form was abandoned, and it grew to be an established fact that, whenever the doctor dropped in for an afternoon call, an extra plate and chair should be ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... Iron Mountain Railroad. I anticipated a rather solitary trip; but, fortunately, I met General Baird, whom I knew, and some other army officers, who had been down on the Mexican border to settle some troubles in the "free zone." We amused ourselves on the long journey with whist and woman suffrage discussions. We noticed a dyspeptic-looking clergyman, evidently of a bilious temperament, eying us very steadily and disapprovingly the first day, and in a quiet way we warned each other that, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... me. I framed the old man—I told you he was in Sing Sing now—took my working capital and came out here to the Coast. That money had to make me rich for life, respected, comfortable. I figured that my game was as safe as dummy whist." ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... of shipwrecked penury. I am reminded of Thackeray's "Jack Spiggot." "And what are your pursuits, Jack? says I. 'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go down there once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist.'" Mrs. Gaskell's picture of "Cranford" is said to have been drawn from a village in Cheshire, but Bath must have a great deal in common with its "elegant economies." Do not make the mistake, however, of supposing that this splendid watering-place, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... life in our office must have been before Miss Larrabee came to us to edit a society page for the paper! To be sure we had known in a vague way that there were lines of social cleavage in the town; that there were whist clubs, and dancing clubs and women's clubs, and in a general way that the women who composed these clubs made up our best society, and that those benighted souls beyond the pale of these clubs were out of the caste. We knew that certain persons whose names were always ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... return, about twelve o'clock, he found me still up, waiting for him. He saw I felt badly. Not an unpleasant word passed between us, and nothing was said about it afterwards, that I recollect. Again his brother sent a similar message—"one wanting in a game of whist." He promptly replied, (very good-humoredly), "tell your master I am a married man now, and cannot come. He will have to look out for some one else to fill that chair." And if my husband ever spent half a dozen evenings from me in his life—except when attending ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... Almack's.—Here are the Duke of Roxb[urgh], Vernon, James, and Sir W. Draper at Whist; Boothby, Richard, and R. Fletcher at Quinze. I dined to-day at the Duke of Argyle's(117) at a quarter before four. He and the Duchess went to Richmond at six. The maccaroni dinner was at Mannin's. My eyes are still very painful to me at night, and I do not know what I shall ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... on Saturday. There was a very large party— Mr. and Mrs. Burrell, Lord Alvanley, Berkeley Craven, Cooke, Arthur Upton, Armstrong, Foley, Lord Lauderdale, Lake, Page, Lord Yarmouth. We played at whist till four in the morning. On Sunday we amused ourselves with eating fruit in the garden, and shooting at a mark with pistols, and playing with the monkeys. I bathed in the cold bath in the grotto, which is as clear as crystal and as cold as ice. Oatlands is the worst ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... by day, makes of labour a pleasure and of leisure a delight. It is no small satisfaction in our work-a-day life to live amidst beauty, to be sure that every time the eyes are raised from the labour of writing or sewing—or of bridge whist, if you like—they encounter something worthy and lovely. In the big living-room of the home, when the hours come in which the family gathers, on a rainy morning, or on any afternoon when the shadows grow grim outside and the afternoon tea-tray is brought ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... of Whist stated and explained, and its Practice illustrated on an Original System, by Means of Hands played completely through. By Cavendish. New York. D. Appleton & ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... Robert Peter, had a house on that corner. His house was a simple frame one, and back of it he had rabbit warrens and pigeon houses. He used to go often in the evenings the short distance to his uncle Robert's house for a game of whist, of which the old gentleman ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... was expected to pass her life, the manner in which she was supposed (she faced now the common interpretation of her conduct this evening) already to have elected to pass it, she felt as a speculator feels towards Consols, as a gambler towards threepenny whist. It seemed as though nothing could be good which did not also hold within it the potency of being very bad, as though certainty damned and chance alone had lures to offer. She would have liked to take life in her hand—however precious a thing, what use is it if you hoard it?—and ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... with a novel. But an old member bursts into the room, spies a new fellow, and puts him through the usual catechism. He ends with, "How much tin have you got?" You answer "twenty pounds," or whatever the sum may be, for perhaps you had contemplated playing whist. "Very well, fork it out; you must give a dinner, all new fellows must, and you are not going to begin by being a stingy beast?" Thus addressed, as your friend is a big bald man, who looks mischievous, you do "fork out" all your ready ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... he was himself rather a good hand at a part song—just as Sheila had innocently taught him to believe that he was a brilliant whist-player when he had mastered the art of returning his partner's lead—but fortunately at this moment he was engaged with a long pipe and a big tumbler of hot whisky and water. Ingram was similarly employed, lying back in a cane-bottomed easy-chair, and placidly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... any pirates attacked you, and were caught, you'd have the satisfaction of having them strung up by King Tom, like those chaps yonder," said Raby. "By the bye, Duff, did you ever observe King Tom's Rubber of Whist?" ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... known game with cards. It requires close attention and silence. Some people learn to play whist in fifteen minutes, but their partners generally wear a worried look. There are other people who never learn to play the game, but, unfortunately for humanity, they never fully realize this fact. Their partners soon discover it, however, but politeness forbids them making the discovery ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... Mack's house all that evening. I might have gone off again at once—it did not interest me to stay sitting there—but had I not come because all my thoughts were drawing me that way? And how could I go again at once? We played whist and drank toddy after supper; I sat with my back turned to the rest of the room, and my head bent down; behind me Edwarda went in and out. The Doctor ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... whist! my mother heard me tread, And ask'd, Who's there? I would not answer her; She call'd, A light! and up she's gone to seek me: There when she finds me not, she'll hither come; Therefore dispatch, let it be quickly done. Francis, my love's lease ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... have looked at it as at most things, broadly. He was not blind to the fact that his money might be a "factor", but, as he said to himself, his millions were a part of him—they represented, like whist-counters, so much pluck and mother-wit. He liked the general appreciation of them: he knew very well that people saw him in them and them in him. Miss Raglan attracted him from the moment of meeting. She was the first woman of her class ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of it to this person in preference to every other—the person is gone whom it would have peculiarly suited. It won't do for another. Every departure destroys a class of sympathies. There's Capt. Burney gone!—what fun has whist now? what matters it what you lead, if you can no longer fancy him looking over you? One never hears any thing, but the image of the particular person occurs with whom alone almost you would care to share the intelligence. Thus one distributes oneself about—and now for so many parts of me ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... dined with anybody; at the club with Wise; worked all morning - a terrible dead pull; a month only produced the imperfect embryos of two chapters; lunched in the boarding-house, played on my pipe; went out and did some of my messages; dined at a French restaurant, and returned to play draughts, whist, or Van John with my family. This makes a cheery life after Samoa; but it isn't what you call burning the candle at both ends, is it? (It appears to me not one word of this letter will be legible by the time I am ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... getting that very testimony. Why, Judge Caldwell and Colonel Ingram belong to the same lodge and the same club. They live in the same neighborhood—one I can't afford. And their wives are always in and out of each other's houses. They're always having whist parties and such things back ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... man like this? John Perkins, who had come down as one of Scully's aides-de-camp, in a fit of generous enthusiasm, leaped on a whist-table, flung up a pocket-handkerchief, and ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the local paper, I had observed that her progressive whist-club was to be entertained at Mrs. ——-'s lovely residence that afternoon. It was now 11 A.M. I must telephone, for I knew that I should not be received except by previous appointment. Soon I ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... to consciousness this morning on a lop-sided bedstead facing nowhere, in a room holding nothing but sour dust, was more terrible than the being afraid to go to bed last night. To keep ourselves up we played whist (double dummy) until neither of us could bear to speak to the other any more. We had previously supped on a tough old nightmare ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... she thought 'She keeps me up, and Jerrie will live with us, and Mrs. Crawford; that makes four, just enough for a nice game of whist in long winter evenings, when it is so cold outside but warm and bright within—always bright for Harold, whose life has been so full of care and toil. Poor boy! how I pitied his great warm hand when it was holding mine so lovingly, and how I could have kissed every seam and scar upon it. But ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... beds. It was the birthday of Queen Victoria, and as our landlord was able to put his hand upon two bottles of champagne, we drank, along with Sir Frederick Bruce and Mr. Wade, her Majesty's health. Afterwards we played a rubber at whist (for we had found some cards). Surely, never before was whist played in ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... partner, danced a cake-walk, accompanied by the blare of their new brass band. Mandolines were soon in vogue and most rooms could boast of several. As we were mostly beginners the resulting noise is best left to the imagination. Whist drives, bridge tournaments, etc., helped to pass the time, and a good many of us improved the shining hour by learning French, Russian or German in exchange for lessons ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... lights die in the west; and in the summer darkness about nine she tripped by his side when he took the letters to post. The wheat stacks were thatching, and in the rickyard, in the carpenter's shop, and in the whist of the woods they talked of love and marriage. They lay together in the warm valleys, listening to the tinkling of the sheep-bell, and one evening, putting his pipe aside, William threw his arm round her, whispering that she ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... remedy for 'em. Florence Nightingale could mother and help cure an army, and why hain't men willin' to let wimmen help cure a sick legislation, kinder mother it, and encourage it to do better? She might much better be doin' that, than playin' bridge-whist, or rastlin' with hobble skirts, and it wouldn't ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... card-table had been arranged, and Leberecht had rolled his master to it, taking his place behind his chair. The hour of whist the general impatiently awaited the entire day, and it was regularly observed. Even in the contract with his adopted son it had been expressly mentioned as a duty, that he should not only secure to them yearly income, but also devote an hour ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... little music and singing at one end of the drawing-room, to which people listened or not, as they pleased; a friendly whist-table established at the other end, at which four elderly, grey-whiskered, and bald-headed country gentlemen played gravely for an hour or so; and a good deal of desultory strolling out through the open windows to the terrace for the contemplation ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... or more to have been spent in what is called common-room after dinner. Later in the evening some few retired to Williams's rooms, and I have little doubt that whist was played and tobacco smoked. During a lull in these operations Williams picked up the mezzotint from the table without looking at it, and handed it to a person mildly interested in art, telling him where it had ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... friend Belton," Conward was saying. Dave was about to correct him when Conward managed to whisper, "Whist! Your stage name. ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... Whist, whist woman, I was only discoorsin'. Mind the tay and I'll mind the rest. There. There. I agree to your tarms, John Graeme. I'll do it, though it's lavin' ...
— The Turn of the Road - A Play in Two Scenes and an Epilogue • Rutherford Mayne
... deg. 45' south, long. 29 deg. 48' west. This was on the 16th January and for seven "solid" weeks from then we were out of sight of land. This time was redeemed from monotony by tournaments of chess and whist, which filled up the evenings. There were frequent small quarrels, with reconciliations more or less sincere, which also afforded distraction. After one the captain let off a rocket, also one of Holmes's patent "flare-ups." This ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... supper with the vicar. We did not sit long at table. Uncle George, Mrs. Rayner, and Mr. Dobb sat down immediately after to a rubber of whist with Aunt Caroline; grandmamma fell asleep. I turned the lamp-shade towards her face, and my pretty Constance covered her well with a shawl; then, taking my dear one by the waist, I walked with her to where Gabriel ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... general caretaker and best beloved, hunched herself up on her pillows until she was sitting reasonably straight, and clapped her hands. "Whist!" she called, softly. "Whist there, all o' ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... "B-b-b-b-eautifully cool." He was a staunch believer in the claims of the "Princess Olive." She used to stay with him, and he always addressed her as "Your Royal Highness." Then, there was Dr Belman. He was playing whist one evening with a maiden lady for partner. She trumped his best card, and, at the end of the hand, he asked her the reason why. "Oh, Dr Belman" (smilingly), "I judged it judicious." "Judicious! JUDICIOUS!! JUDICIOUS!!! You old fool!" She never again ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... corps were present, one of whom was the amiable and well-known Marshal Saldanha, who, a few years ago, played so prominent a part in the affairs of Portugal. The usual resources of whist and the tea-buffet changed the conversational circle, and at midnight there was a general movement to the Kleine Redouten Saal, where the Armen Ball had attracted so crowded an assemblage, that more than one archduchess had her share of elbowing. Strauss ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... Mr. Travers would return from town, and at seven they dined, sitting long at table; and afterwards, if there were friends, there would be a rubber of whist. It was a quiet almost sleepy existence, and Fan began to look forward with a little impatience to the end of her fortnight, when she would be able to return to her friend. For Mary's last words had been, "I shall not leave London without you." But she first wished to hear the "strange story" Mr. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... "Talleyrand was playing whist in the salon of Madame de Luynes," said a personage who had been listening attentively to de Marsay's narrative. "It was about three o'clock in the morning, when he pulled out his watch, looked at it, stopped the game, and asked his three companions abruptly and without any preface whether ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... his marriage was always used; and the dining-room with its side-boards laden with gold and silver trophies of the race-course and attendants in scarlet, blue and gold, was a brilliant sight. Dinner did not usually last more than an hour and then the guests adjourned to the drawing-room for whist. In 1896 and 1900 the toast of the Derby winner, which had so often been proposed by the Royal host, had to be given to some one else—greatly to the enthusiasm of ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... cup of happiness was completely filled. She had danced, during that hour, four times with Johnny; every one must be talking. Lady St. Leath must be furious (she did not know that Boadicea had been playing whist with old Colonel Wotherston and Sir Henry Byles for the last ever ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... anticipative answer is ready. It is not necessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the whale's belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the Right Whale's mouth would accommodate a couple of whist tables, and comfortably seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right Whale is toothless. Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... or two in approaching Kate. "Whist, man!" he whispered. "Tell the old geezer I'll be going to chapel reglar early tides and late shifts, and Sunday-school constant. And, whist! tell him I'm larning myself to play ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... with you, Ned, that Lewis is hatching up something and is keeping mighty whist about it. I sounded Mr. Bartholomew on the idea ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... only seven trains," she continued. "Now you," counting on her fingers, "are one, and I am two and Mr. and Mrs. Haines next door, who belong to my whist club, are four; and Ella Haines is five; and I just saw Mr. What's-his-name go in to call on Ella—and he'll be six; and that horrid man on the next block who is in your lodge will ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... of his stick and made a brief convulsive show of laughter, which had much the same genuineness as an old whist-player's chuckle over a bad hand. Still looking at the fire, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... acceptable as a sportswoman and a good sort. By the time that Arthur Payne arrived the days were drawing in, and she saw very little of them, except in the evenings, after dinner, when she and Considine would join them in a game of snooker in the billiard-room, or take a hand of whist, old-fashioned whist, in ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... with a distinct edge. Miss Filbert exhausted all the means. She attempted to hold a meeting forward of the smoking cabin, standing for elevation on one of the ship's quoit buckets to preach, but with this the captain was reluctantly compelled to interfere on behalf of the whist-players inside. In the evening, after dinner, she established herself in a sheltered corner and sang. Her recovered voice lifted itself with infinite pathetic sweetness in songs about the poverty of the world and the riches of heaven; the notes mingled with the churning of the screw, and fell ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... grandmother was a Scotch woman: Is she not a Tartar too? Pray whistle for her, and let's see her dance; come—whist, grannee! ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... now possessed about seven or eight thousand francs a year, a pretty house on the slope of the hill, a plump little wife, and robust health. For ten years he had had nothing to do but take care of his wife and his garden, marry his daughter, play whist in the evenings, keep the run of all the gossip in the neighborhood, meddle with the elections, squabble with the large proprietors, and order good dinners; or else trot along the embankment to find out what ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... doubles his fist, Mr. Burns, in his grate, has no fuel; Mr. Playfair won't catch me at hazard or whist, Mr. Coward was wing'd in a duel. Mr. Wise is a dunce, Mr. King is a whig, Mr. Coffin's uncommonly sprightly, And huge Mr. Little broke down in a gig, While driving ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... soirees of the 'upper ten' assembled at three o'clock in the afternoon, and went away at six, so that daughter Maritchie might have the pewter plates and delf teapot cleaned and cupboarded in time for evening prayer at seven. Knitting and spinning held the places of whist and flirting in these 'degenerate days;' and utility was as plainly stamped on all their pleasures as the maker's name ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... down to whist in Anna Pavlovna's drawing-room, and as I am not wanted there—and as I am interested in your seance—I have put in an appearance here. But will there be ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... generally supplied with a circulation of a pinch of snuff. By means of this cultivation she became a wonderful proficient in the polite graces of the age; she, with great facility, comprehended the scheme of whist, though cribbage was her favourite game, with which she had amused herself in her vacant hours, from her first entrance into the profession of hopping; and brag soon grew familiar ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... her edication been, to mak' her different frae other women? If a woman can nurse her bairns, mak' their claes, and manage her hoose, what mair need she do? If she can playa tune on the spinnet, and dance a reel, and play a rubber at whist—nae doot these are accomplishments, but they're soon learnt. Edication! pooh!—I'll be bound Leddy Jully Anie wull mak' as gude a figure by-and-by as the best ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... old people you could amuse in some way,—possibly with whist? Or rather lonely people (aunts sometimes), to whom you could write regularly; people like to be remembered, especially by the young! As long as you are young your kindnesses are very much valued, and if you choose to be selfish instead, it is forgiven you, but, as you are in ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... Mrs. Brandeis had the farmer women coming to her for their threshing dishes and kitchenware, and the West End Culture Club for their whist prizes. She seemed to realize that the days of the general store were numbered, and she set about making hers a novelty store. There was something terrible about the earnestness with which she stuck to business. She was not more than ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... had Charles Connoldy Mershone been in earnest before. After his first interview with Louise Merrick he became in deadly earnest. His second meeting with her was at Marie Delmar's bridge whist party, where they had opportunity for an extended conversation. Arthur was present this evening, but by some chance Mershone drew Louise for his partner at cards, and being a skillful player he carried her in progression from table to table, leaving poor Arthur far behind and indulging in merry ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... "Whist," sez I, "and I let him have a taste of an Irish stick," an' wid that I let drive an' lost me balance an' came tumblin' to the ground, nearly breaking me neck wid the fall. Whin I came to me sinsis I had a very sore head ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... understood, always went to bed after an hour's whist with his daughter; and the silent Mr. Fairford gave his evenings to bridge at his club. The party, therefore, consisted only of Undine and Ralph, with Mrs. Fairford and her attendant friend. Undine vaguely ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... revolve untunefully enough through the figures of a singing quadrille. A magazine club supplies you with everything, from the Quarterly to the Sunday at Home. Grand tournaments are organised at chess, draughts, billiards, and whist. Once and again wandering artists drop into our mountain valley, coming you know not whence, going you cannot imagine whither, and belonging to every degree in the hierarchy of musical art, from the recognised ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... innocuous Bridge whist until Cecile's yawns could no longer be disguised; and finally Gray rose in disgust when she ignored the heart-convention and led him an ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... few. By the rest of the population, including his soldiers, he was beloved, respected, not a little envied. For a bachelor he mingled with zest in the small social amusements of Garland Town, the capital of the Islands. He shone at picnics and water-parties. He played a fair hand at whist. His manner towards ladies was deferential; towards men, dignified without a trace of patronage or self-conceit. All voted him a good fellow. At first, indeed—for he practised small economies, and his linen, though clean, was frayed—they suspected him of stinginess, until by accident ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... "you can be a good daughter to her, and that's not far behind. Whist now, till I tell you the story of the Little Cakeen, and you'll see that 'tis a good thing entirely to behave yourselves and grow up fine and respectable, like the lad in the tale. ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... party. It was generally Bessie and I against Clara and George, but the widow had no objection to whist and was occasionally induced to take a hand, while Mr. Desmond was quite fond of the game and was a consummate player. When we young people made up the set, Mr. Desmond would converse with the widow, for though reticent where politeness did not call upon him ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... author of those wild theories which startled the wise and shocked the prudent in the calm, gentlemanly person who rarely said anything above the most gentle commonplace, and took interest in little beyond the whist-table." ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the playing of whist, domino, or poker are often given by bachelors at their apartments or residences. In apartments this class of entertainment is only for men. Women should not go to bachelors' apartments except for luncheon, ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... side, which exposed him to sundry mischances; this was his covetousness, which on some occasions became too hard for his discretion. At this period of time it was, by the circumstances of his situation, inflamed to a degree of rapacity. He was now prevailed upon to take a hand at whist or piquet, and even to wield the hazard-box; though he had hitherto declared himself an irreconcilable enemy to all sorts of play; and so uncommon was his success and dexterity at these exercises, as to surprise his acquaintance, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... it. She has inherited the fine old superstition that art's pardonable only so long as it's bad—so long as it's done at odd hours, for a little distraction, like a game of tennis or of whist. The only thing that can justify it, the effort to carry it as far as one can (which you can't do without time and singleness of purpose), she regards as just the dangerous, the criminal element. It's the oddest ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... the other is by cheating. Both are much too simple to require any literary explanation. If you are in for the high jump, either jump higher than any one else, or manage somehow to pretend that you have done so. If you want to succeed at whist, either be a good whist-player, or play with marked cards. You may want a book about jumping; you may want a book about whist; you may want a book about cheating at whist. But you cannot want a book about Success. Especially you cannot want a book about Success ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... peaceful was the night Wherin the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kist Whispering new joys to the mild ocean— Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... into each other's Apartment without intimation. Every one has hitherto been so careful in his Behaviour, that there has but one Offender in ten Days Time been sent into the Infirmary, and that was for throwing away his Cards at Whist. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and plunged into a furious round of dissipations, of which gambling now formed the chief. Dawn after dawn saw him leaving the green tables of either the "Nobility" or the Yacht clubs; and, as if to applaud his defection, fate decreed that Ivan could not lose. Baccarat, roulette, piquet, even whist,—Ivan won at them all, till one drawer in his escritoire was stuffed full ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... directed him to address them as follows: "M. le Vicomte de Saint Remy. Lucenay cannot do without him," said D'Harville to himself. "M. de Monville—one of his traveling companions. Lord Douglas—his faithful partner at whist. Baron de Sezannes—the friend of his ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... much to be pitied. He had still an estate which, with due care, could pay off its incumbrances; and he had gathered some valuable knowledge. He knew women better than most men, and he knew whist profoundly. Above all, he had acquired what Voltaire justly calls "le grand art de plaire;" he had studied this art, as many women study it, and few men. Why, he even watched the countenance, and smoothed the rising bristles of those he wished to please, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Dowager Strafford," writes Horace Walpole (Sept. 1745), "has already written cards for my Lady Nithesdale, my Lady Tullebardine, the Duchess of Perth and Berwick, and twenty more revived peeresses, to invite them to play at whist, Monday three months: for your part, you will divert yourself with their old taffetys, and tarnished slippers, and their awkwardness the first day they go to Court in clean linen."[415] "I shall wonderfully dislike," observes the same writer, "being a loyal sufferer ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... delighted with the ladies, listened with enthusiasm to Imogene's singing, and were allowed to smoke. They were evidently gentlemen, and indeed Mr. Rodney casually mentioned to Endymion that one of the most frequent guests might some day even be a peer of the realm. Sometimes there was a rubber of whist, and, if wanted, Mrs. Rodney took a hand in it; Endymion sitting apart and conversing with her sister, who amused him by her lively observations, indicating even flashes of culture; but always addressed him without the slightest pretence ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... an hour only,—that is to say, five and forty minutes less than the king is visible at his balls. He was never seen at the theatres, at concerts, or in any place of public resort. Occasionally, but seldom, he played at whist, and then care was taken to select partners worthy of him—sometimes they were ambassadors, sometimes archbishops, or sometimes a prince, or a president, or some dowager duchess. Such was the man whose carriage had just now stopped before the Count of Monte Cristo's door. The valet de chambre ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "Whist!" said Mary Antony. "Speak not so loud. Now listen, Mary Mark. Saw you the great Lord Bishop yesterday, a-walking with Mary Antony? Ha, ha! Yea, verily! 'Worthy Mother,' his lordship called me. 'Worthy ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... suppose I didn't see how it was managed that you and THAT Miss Prettyman were always partners at whist? ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... dinners and the meeting of friends we can all approve without reserve. I recall, once upon a time, four old gentlemen who met every week for whist. Three of them were of marked eccentricity. One of them, when the game was at its pitch, reached down to the rungs of his chair and hitched it first to one side and then to the other, mussing up the rugs. The second had the infirmity of nodding his ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... occasion be as trenchant as any French sally. For example, we have the definition of gratitude as given by Sir Robert Walpole—"A lively sense of future favors." The Marquis of Salisbury once scored a clumsy partner at whist by his answer to someone who asked how the game progressed: "I'm doing as well as could be expected, considering that I have three adversaries." So the retort of Lamb, when Coleridge said to him: "Charles, did you ever hear me lecture?". * * * "I never heard you do anything else." And again, Lamb ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... eyes, and they went straight to Jack's heart. He was not an inveterate gambler, though he had lost and won large sums at Monte Carlo and Baden Baden, when the tables were open there, and, like most Englishmen, he never played whist that something was not staked; it gave zest to the game, which to him would be very insipid without it: but Bessie's eyes could have made him face the cannon's mouth, if need be, and he said to ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... tardy appearance, the day after the Fresh Air Fund concert. A dozen little tables littered with cards were pushed together in one corner, and the tinkling of china and the hum of conversation betrayed the fact that whist had given place to a more congenial method of passing the time. Modern womanhood plays whist almost without ceasing; but it should be noted that she frowns over the whist and reserves her smiles for her ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... beginning, but we will not dwell over it at great length, as we might do if we loved her. She was the only child of old Admiral Greystock, who in the latter years of his life was much perplexed by the possession of a daughter. The admiral was a man who liked whist, wine,—and wickedness in general we may perhaps say, and whose ambition it was to live every day of his life up to the end of it. People say that he succeeded, and that the whist, wine, and wickedness were there, at the side even of his dying bed. He had no particular fortune, and yet ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... arises, more sober and more serious. The archdeacon is engaged against two prebendaries, a pursy full-blown rector assisting him, in all the perils and all the enjoyments of short whist. With solemn energy do they watch the shuffled pack, and, all-expectant, eye the coming trump. With what anxious nicety do they arrange their cards, jealous of each other's eyes! Why is that lean doctor so slow,—cadaverous man with hollow jaw and sunken eye, ill beseeming the ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... duty, and feeling a little too secure, and too much at home on these prairies, retired to a small grove of willows to amuse themselves with a social game of cards called "old sledge," which is as popular among these trampers of the prairies as whist or ecarte among the polite circles of the cities. From the midst of their sport they were suddenly roused by a discharge of firearms and a shrill war-whoop. Starting on their feet, and snatching up their rifles, they beheld in dismay their horses and mules already in ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... parlor Lottie hovered near Mr. Hemstead. Unlike Micawber, she was not one to wait, but purposed that something SHOULD "turn up." The two other young ladies, and Harcourt and De Forrest, sat down to a game of whist. In pursuance of instructions from Lottie, De Forrest was not to be over-attentive, though it was evident that he would give more thought to her than to his game. Her demure mischief amused him vastly, and, knowing what she was, the novelty ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... is excessively fatiguing to the listeners. A witty man is an agreeable acquaintance, but a tiresome friend. "The wit of the company, next to the butt of the company," says Mrs. Montagu, "is the meanest person in it. The great duty of conversation is to follow suit, as you do at whist: if the eldest hand plays the deuce of diamonds, let not his next neighbour dash down the king of hearts, because his hand is full of honours. I do not love to see a man of wit win all ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... Morton's request, assumed general direction, and betrayed an astonishing familiarity with the requirements. Under his direction they grouped themselves about the table as for whist, Viola at the north end, with Clarke directly opposite, and Kate and Mrs. Lambert on either side and quite near him. The two inquisitors then took seats—Morton at the psychic's right, Weissmann ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... would be the same! So I had to get up, stifle my cries of agony from the crick, get my revolver, and creep out stealthily to the boys' house. And there were two of them sitting up, keeping watch of their own accord like good boys, and whiling the time over a game of Sweepi (Cascino—the whist of our islanders)—and one of them was our champion idiot, Misifolo, and I suppose he was holding bad cards, and losing all the time—and these noises were his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
