"Ace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was made, and up was lugged the redoubtable ace of hearts from under one of Jack's feet, who had hoped, by covering it, to escape detection. Detected, however, he was, and, as they all knew him well, the laughter was loud accordingly, and none of them laughed louder ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... came within an ace of looking almost respectable in new blue serge ("Small Gent's"—off the peg), Jimmy arrived at Paddington Station with a quarter of an hour to spare. Lord Dreever appeared ten minutes later, accompanied by a man of about Jimmy's age. He was tall and thin, with cold ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... during the sermon, but sometimes they do. The choir is furnished with the numbers of the hymns that are to be sung, by the minister, and they put a bookmark in the book at the proper place. One morning they all got up to sing, when the soprano turned pale, as an ace of spades dropped out of her hymn book, the alto nearly fainted when the queen of hearts dropped at her feet, and the rest of the pack was distributed around in the other books. They laid it onto the tenor, but he swore, while the minister ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... ace of covering Daubrecq with his revolver and putting a bullet into him which would cut short any explanation. But he reflected that he himself would then be none the wiser and that it was better to trust to events in the hope of making the most ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... the three strung, one below the other, from the end of the fore-yard-arm, were shattered by three successive bullets in almost the same number of seconds. Pistol practice succeeded that of the rifle, and the ace of hearts at 15 paces was a mark ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... to it wi' th' rope all ready, but just as he was going to slip it over its leg it seemed to stand on its head, feint wi' its left an' get an upper-cut wi' its right under Ratty's chin. A shadow passed across th' fa-ace o' the moon, which I judged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... lesson until, in almost the last week of the nineteenth century, the three successive defeats of Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Colenso aroused it to a knowledge of the fact that we had been within an ace of losing South Africa. Many, indeed, would question whether even now the lesson had been thoroughly learnt. But, however this may be, it is certain that throughout the nineteenth century the Home Government wished to treat both the natives and the Dutch in South Africa on ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... have said, If I were Robert Purvis, with a good bank account, and could live in my own house, ride in my own carriage, and have my children well fed and clothed, I should not care if we were all as black as the ace of spades. But he had never tried the humiliation of color, and could not understand its peculiar aggravations, as he did those of poverty. It is impossible for one class to appreciate the wrongs of another. The ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... 1/1000, or (generally) 1/m. The denominator represents the number of times that an event happens, and the numerator the number of times that it coincides with another event. In throwing a die, the probability of ace turning up is expressed by putting the number of throws for the denominator and the number of times that ace is thrown for the numerator; and we may assume that the more trials we make the nearer will the resulting ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... have been, we have only to turn away from the mission counties to the foothills of the Sierras, where the mining-camps of the Anglo-Saxon bear such names as Fiddletown, Red Dog, Dutch Flat, Murder Gulch, Ace of Spades, or Murderer's Bar; these changing later, by euphemistic vulgarity, into Ruby City, Magnolia Vale, Largentville, Idlewild, and the like. Or, if not these, our Anglo-Saxon practically gives us, not Our Lady of the Solitude, nor the City ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... carelessly, as he proceeded to deal the cards for Casino. "There, you have an ace and little Casino right before you. Go ahead, ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... sprang up as mortal mariner rarely encountered even off such a coast—a violent north-easterly hurricane—still known in Algiers as "Charles's gale"—such as few vessels cared to ride off a lee shore. The immense flotilla in the bay was within an ace of total destruction. Anchors and cables were powerless to hold the crowded, jostling ships. One after the other they broke loose, and keeled over to the tempest till their decks were drowned in the seas. Planks gaped; broadside to broadside ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... too well to believe that he would have any love left to give the woman who had despoiled him of all a man values—broken his faith, destroyed the ideals that had once been his. Moreover, she had seen clear down into his soul that day at Berrier Cove, when Ann had come within an ace of death, and she knew that on the ruins of the old love ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... in Chevalier Creek, Surville was overtaken by a frightful tempest, which brought him within an ace of destruction, but his sailors had such confidence in his nautical ability that they felt no anxiety, and obeyed his orders with a sang froid of which, unfortunately, the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... cards. For with them she was pleased enough, but only delighting to bite at them, and flip them about with her paws, and never considering for a moment whether they were diamonds or clubs, or hearts, or spades or whether the card was an ace or not. So it was evident that she had forgotten the ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... you against my wish," she said in a firm voice, "but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... breaking in]. Man alive, why didn't you play your Ace of Spades? If you had brought out that Ace you'd have a trump- -then you'd beat this with a trump ... and then ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... plateau resembled the ace of clubs. The center and side wings were high and well wooded with heavy pines; the middle wing was longest, sloped west, had no pine, but a dense growth of cedar. Numerous ridges and canyons cut up this central wing. Middle Canyon, the longest and deepest, bisected the plateau, headed near ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... lordship," he went on, scanning the judge still harder. "I do mind his vurry voice. It was 'im, no doubt about it. I've zeed a zight o' people, since I zeed 'im that day, but I do mind his voice, and I do mind his 'ands, and I do mind his ve-ace the zame as if it wur yesterday. Now I come to look, blessed ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... issue was disastrous. Above her right temple, just at the roots of the hair, a scar was discoverable; it was the memento of an occasion on which her husband aimed a blow at her with a mantelpiece ornament, and came within an ace of murder. Intimates of the household said that the provocation was great—that Mrs. Lessingham's gift of sarcasm had that morning displayed itself much too brilliantly. Still, the missile was an extreme ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... just old lightnin' on chuck-a-luck. Now the way I bet is this: I lay down, say on the ace, an' it don't come up; I just double my bet on the ace, an' keep on doublin' every time it loses, until at last it comes up an' then I win a bushel o' money, and mebbe bust the bank. You see the thing's got ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... was represented by a medium which even Montesquieu would not set down as a certain mark of civilization. The horse-shoe of Loggun (Denham and Clapperton), the Fan fleam, the "small piece of iron like an ace of spades on the upper Nile" (Baker), and the iron money of the brachycephalic Nyam-nyams described and drawn by Schwein furth (i. 279), here becomes a triangle or demi-square of bast-cloth, about 5 inches of max. length, fringed, coloured ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... probably have rolled over the narrow ledge on which he stood, and gone bounding down, down the mountain side, to her death. But he did catch her, and broke the fall, so that she landed lightly beside him, and within an ace of being on ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... the reader with Bob's experiences during the next few hours. In the letter he wrote to me about them, he gave but few details. Nevertheless, he told me enough to make me realise that for hours he was within an ace ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... round, then: here are dyce, and ile begin to ye. Have at your head, Sir John! dewce ace[206]; a doggs-head![207] The devill turnd this ace up. Farwell, velvet gowne! Thou hast mist the luckiest hand to scratch ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Winnie have a gardener, and that gardener is black—as black as the Ace of Spades or the King of Ashantee. He dwells in a corner of the Rakata Cottage, but is addicted to spending much of his spare time in the Krakatoa one. He is as strong and powerful as ever, but limps slightly on his ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... What between the shouts of the runners and the clatter of the chaises men, women and children made haste to clear a track, snatching their little ones back and then staring at us as we swept past. Indeed, the teams put their best feet foremost for local effect, and more than once came within an ace of running over some urchin who either would not or could not get out of the way. Fortunately no casualties occurred. For it would have been ignominious to have been arrested by the police during our first ten minutes in the town, not ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... turned up the Ace of Hearts was to stay. You could have heard a pin drop after that. I have never before felt what I felt then. If I had to return and leave Semyonov here! They say that the attack may develop in this direction at any moment. If Semyonov were to be here and I not.... And yet what was it ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... carrier suddenly came charging out of the brush to his left. While Ed dealt with that one, the Harn played its ace in the hole. The two special units it had been developing to deal with Ed were not quite done yet, but they were done enough to work for the few minutes the Harn needed them. Ed heard a coughing grunt behind him and spun around to see something new crawling out of the flame and smoke ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... measure the peril that menaced him. So, surveying the number of cards that remained in stock, he guarded carefully three aces of trumps which might help him to avert disaster. But, playing the only ace that would allow him to score again, Paul Landry announced coldly, laying on the table four queens of spades and ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... cruise there were a few adventures more directly touching the "Rattlesnake." Twice the landing parties, including Huxley, were within an ace of coming to blows with the islanders of the Louisiades, and on one occasion a portly member of the gun-room, being cut off by these black gentry, only saved his life by parting with all his clothes as presents to them, and keeping ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... of a card-player who trumps his opponent's ace, he placed on the pouch a pipe. And, to make the matter, if possible, worse, the pipe was not a new pipe. It was caked within and coloured without, a pipe that had seen long service. The only mitigating circumstance that could possibly have been urged in favour ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... spot, and Chia Huan was so exasperated that putting out his hand, he speedily made a snatch at the dice, and eventually was about to lay hold of the money, arguing that it was six spot. But Ying Erh expostulated, "It was distinctly an ace," she said. And as Pao-ch'ai noticed how distressed Chia Huan was, she forthwith cast a glance at Ying Erh and observed: "The older you get, the less manners you have! Is it likely that gentlemen will cheat you? and don't you yet put down ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Lyons included the Lyons electric light and gas plant. On this side trip we met an entire regiment of Algerian soldiers, black as the traditional ace of spades, but fine specimens of manhood. Their uniforms were almost identical with the uniform worn by our soldiers in the Civil War. They wore light blue overcoats, such as Governor Tod furnished the first company ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... hoping perhaps, if they promenaded the street, to have the joy of seeing a light in the radiant being's window. The pretty girls of the household vanished with murmured excuses, leaving us at the mercy of the boy, who sighed grievously, dropped a sugar bowl, and spilled coffee within an ace of the ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "and he gave me some tips. One of them was to shout at your scout for at least a week to show that you are not an infant, another was not to row, and the last was not to play cards all day and night. My brother's an odd kind of chap, the sort of man who doesn't know the ace of spades by sight, but it's as easy to shout as it is not to row. Your ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... all around before that wretched affair was explained. Gleason came within an ace of court-martial, but escaped it by saying that he knew of "Burnham's" threats against the life of Lieutenant Baker, and that he went to the ranch in search of the latter and to get him out of danger. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... him dealing from the wrong end of the pack," he said. "I understand they suspected him from the first—seems our surgeon recognized him—and to-night they had outsiders watching him. The outsiders claim they saw him slip himself an ace from the bottom of the pack. It's a pity! ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... 'ware, all's right and fair, Barred balls I bar when goaded; The deuce an ace is out of place! The deuce a die is loaded! Then make your game, Your color name; Success attend the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Slave of the Bed.... "Dat fat feller" had one of the prisoners perform his corvee for him. "Dat fat feller" bought enough at the canteen twice every day to stock a transatlantic liner for seven voyages, and never ace with the prisoners. I will mention him again apropos the Mecca of respectability, the Great White Throne of purity, Three rings Three—alias Count Bragard, to whom I have long since introduced ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... school before I got through with it. Hal told his mother and she took it to the school board. I was a pretty tough little rascal in those days I guess and no doubt needed some lickings myself occasionally. But I remember I almost lost my nerve when I got back to school that day and came within an ace of stuffing the rose in my pocket instead of throwing it on your desk. I never dreamed the rose would be anything to you. It was only my way of paying tribute to you. You seemed to me something like a rose yourself, just dropped down out of heaven you know, you were so little and pink ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... doant ye," said the honest fellow, and was within an ace of blubbering for sympathy. "We ain't a lot o' babies, to see our squire kidnaped. If you would lend Abel Moss there and me a couple o' nags, we'll catch ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... been trying to tell him—that love and happiness were not for him. He was consecrate to great causes: His Will, entangled with that of others, grew feeble, fruitless. Women were truly enfants du diable. He had been within an ace of abandoning his historical mission. Now he would arise, strong, sublime: a mighty weapon forged by the gods, and tempered ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... and dreary position for men whose ordinary lives ran through the lighted places of the world. The wind swept sadly over the dark fields. The mud clung to the squelching, dragging boots; now Mr. Fishwick was within an ace of the ditch on one side, now on the other, and now he brought up heavily against one of his companions. At length the servant gave him an arm, and thus linked together they reached the crest of the hill, and after taking a moment to ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... is true, by an oversight. She could never have noticed that the piece of paper wrapped round the crescent was peculiar in any way, or she would not have left it on the table among the others. She turned it off well when Evelyn recognized it, and made the most of her time. She was within an ace of success, but fate was against her. And Carr lost no time, either, for that matter; for I have since found out that the telegram she sent was to Birmingham, where he was no doubt hiding, bidding him meet her in London earlier ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... Deacon Tubman, I don't know but that you are right!" answered the parson. "Sixty? I don't know as I am sixty." And he began to rub his own hands, and came within an ace of executing a wink at the ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... Coldstream country in a bitter temper, for the job was far beneath his professional dignity as he looked at it, and he knew that in the meantime others would get better work to which he considered himself entitled. Indeed, he had come within an ace of resigning, and had insisted, as a condition, on a definite promise of something very good in the ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... her head a little. She was within an ace of handing over to Karl Steinmetz the rod of power held over her by the Frenchman. There was something in Steinmetz that appealed to her and softened her, something that reached a tender part of her heart through the coating of vanity, through ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... cut, and he dealt me an ace, king, queen, jack, ten and deuce of spades. He shuffled again and dealt ...
— Goodbye, Dead Man! • Tom W. Harris
... seven at the latest," I said to myself, holding my breath and starting in terror at every noise. Once a great noisy bee was within an ace of waking her, but I caught him with inspired dexterity, and he buzzed ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... sooner or later. I was within an ace of death two months ago. The gallows wouldn't have been worse ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... the horse-thief in voice softened by the vapors of his steaming dinner, "that friend of yours with the whiskers all over him is ace-high over here in this end of the dump! And say, friend, they could keep me here for life if they'd send purty girls like that one down here to see me once in a while. You're in right, friend; you certainly air ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... let me know as much a'ready. There be two captains to their crew; one's the smoke-dried old sinner as brought yer in; the other a big nayger, as black as the ace o' spades. You saw the swab? He's inside the tent here. He's my master. The two came nigh quarrelling about which should have me, and settled it by some sort o' a game they played wi' balls of kaymal's dung. The black won me; an' that's why I'm kep by his tent. Mother av Moses! Only to think ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... Colony. It was the superbly grandiose expression, and all the more insidiously seductive in that it was so grandiose, of a principle which all thinking men now know, or ought to know, is the negation of Empire, which lost us America, which came within an ace of losing us Canada, which might well have lost us South Africa, and which has in very fact lost us, though not yet irrevocably, the "affection," to use Burke's word, of Ireland. We may call local patriotism "narrow and insulated," if we please, but we ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... place. Every great picture brings a high price. Every great book has a large sale. That is what greatness in art means." Her own brand of talk was not in conflict with what she would have called her then creed. She never said a thing was very black. She never said it was as black as the ace of spades. She always said it was as black as the proverbial ace of spades. Once I ventured to insinuate that perhaps it would be more nobly new to say "as black as the proverbial ace of proverbial spades," but the suggestion ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... After he was made overseer he was paid. That was a honor for being good all his life. When freedom come on he had ten thousand dollars. He was pure African, black as ace of spades. He give papa and the other four boys five hundred dollars a piece to start them farms. Papa died when he was sixty-five and grandma was about a hundred. Mama was seventy-five when she died. Grandpa ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... but somebody finally called, and I turned over my ace in the hole. "Aces and sevens, gamblers," I grinned, ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... of the highest rated authors of science-fiction adventure now writing. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, a book collector, and s-f fan, Ace Books have had the pleasure of presenting her best ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... Sam. That proves how you stand with me. A one! Ace high! First! Nobody can ever take your place with me. Don't be a boob coming and going, Sam; you're one now not to see things and you'll be another one spelled backward if you don't help yourself to your ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... the poor took counsel. Undoubtedly he would get certain results, some of which were very unpleasant to contemplate, but behind it all he felt something yet to come, some counter-proposal involving peace. For no man starts out by laying his cards on the table unless he has an ace in the hole—or unless he is running a bluff. And he knew, and Wunpost knew, that the thing which irked him most was that sure-fire Prospector's Contract. There Eells had the high card and if he played his hand well he might tame this impassioned young orator. His lawyer was not ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... We see that the rule has been that everywhere the lower forms of life precede the higher. In the plant world flowerless plants precede the flowering ones. The coal we burn to-day is mainly the remains of the wonderful growth of the flowerless vegetation of the Paleozoic Ace. When flowering plants appear, it is the lower forms of them ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... for at the end of the game he gave up all his winnings, and they were equally divided. Gain, as may readily be supposed, was not his object; but he always expected that fortune would grant him an ace or a ten at the right moment with the same confidence with which he looked for fine weather on the day of battle. If he were disappointed he wished nobody ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... shall not have last word as you think,—all the 'risk' shall not be mine, neither; how can I, in the event, throw ambs-ace (is not that the old word?) and not peril your stakes too, when once we have common stock and are partners? When I see the unicorn and grieve proportionately, do you mean to say you are not going to grieve too, for my sake? And if so—why, you clearly run exactly the same risk,—must,—unless ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... smiled Madison, "my pulse is quite normal now, thank you. Listen. This is where we call the first showdown on cold hands—and the dealer slips himself an ace." He drew a key from his pocket and put it in Pale Face Harry's hand. "That's the key of the small trunk in my room at the hotel—front room, right hand side of the hall. There's a check-book in the tray—and I'll give you twenty minutes to get back here with it. You'll find me somewhere around ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... another bit of magnetized iron in the ship. The government had been very shy of providing instruments of any kind for Confederate cruisers. Poor Ethan had traded off two compasses only the day before for whalebone spears and skin breeches, neither of which knew the north star from the ace of spades. And this thing proved of more importance than you will think; it really made me feel that the stuff in the books and the sermons about the mariners' needle was not ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... all, what did it matter? They had the ace in their hands now. There was no horse on the plains could run with Blazing Star; and, training with him, in the best of care, was the Red Rover, only a little less swift than the Star, now that careful methods had brought him his full-grown strength and speed. Microscopic studies were ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... stary, pop eyes, a high colored beak that might be used as a danger signal, and a black, shoebrush beard, trimmed close except for a little spike under the chin, that gives the lower part of his face a look like the ace of spades. His mornin' costume is a faded blue jumper, brown checked pants, and an old pair of rubber soled shoes that Swifty had ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... as ace of trumps, you should take your wife with you. Now for the excuse: I would sit down and write such a letter as you alone can write to The Times. You should set forth how you have been insulted by the Marquis of Queensberry, and how you went naturally ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... not; for the speaker was as black as the ace of spades,—being a sturdy specimen, the knave of clubs would perhaps be a fitter representative,—but the dark freeman looked at the white slave with the pitiful, yet puzzled expression I have so often seen on the faces of our wisest men, when this tangled question ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... frigate, which, by a combination of circumstances, is now lying in Cork Harbour,—fortunate for us, but which might have proved disastrous to her gallant officers and crew, for she was dismasted in a gale, and was within an ace of being driven on shore. But a miss is as good as a mile; and when under jury-masts she scraped clear of the rocks, and got into port in safety. Here my letter, after wandering about for many a day, found him, and he has lost no time in replying to it. One of his ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... as he cut for deal, and he thrilled when he found the deal was his. He shuffled and dealt, and Uri cut him the Jack of Spades. They laid down their hands. Uri's was bare of trumps, while he held ace, deuce. The outside seemed very near to him as they stepped off the ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... and the deal fell to Uncle Billy. He turned up Jack of clubs. He also turned a little redder as he took up his cards, looked at them, and glanced hastily at his partner. "It's no use playing," he said. "Look here!" He laid down his cards on the table. They were the ace, king and queen of clubs, and Jack of spades,—or left bower,—which, with the turned-up Jack of clubs,—or right ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... once set about imitating both, studying with great industry and energy. All his spare hours were devoted to drawing, modelling, and self-improvement, and he often carried his labours far into the night. Before his apprenticeship was out—at the ace of twenty-one—he paid over to his master the whole wealth which he was able to muster—a sum of 50l.—to cancel his indentures, determined to devote himself to the career of an artist. He then made the best of his way to London, and with characteristic good sense, sought employment as an assistant ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... fon' of it," responded the Creole. "I was making seve'al i'onies ad those fwen' of mine juz now. We was 'unning a 'ace. An' thass anotheh thing I am fon' of. I would 'ather 'un a 'ace than to wuck faw a livin'. Ha! ha! ha! I should thing so! Anybody would, in fact. But thass the way with me—always making some i'onies." He stopped with a ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... gains, for he lowers the whole affair to the level of a flirtation, and destroys any belief the girl may have had in him. He also forces her to do the same thing, in self-defence. Flirtation is the only game in which it is advisable and popular to trump one's partner's ace. ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... movement had certainly been fostered, and probably originated, by wealthy German employers in Petrograd, Moscow and other industrial centres. They had hoped to frustrate the mobilization order, retard Russia's entry into the field, and possibly bring about civil strife. And they were within an ace of succeeding. On the very eve of hostilities reports reached Berlin and Vienna that the revolution was already beginning. But the declaration of war against Germany purified the air, absorbed the redundant energies of the people, and fused all classes ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... through in the opposite direction. Lord De Roos, long suspected of cheating at cards, would never have been convicted but for the resolution of an adversary, who, pinning his hand to the table with a fork, said to him blandly, "My Lord, if the ace of spades is not under your Lordship's hand, why, then, I beg your pardon!" It seems to us that a timely treatment of Governor Letcher in the same energetic way would have saved the disasters of Harper's Ferry and Norfolk,—for ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... playing at Vingt-et-un. It is true they are somewhat soiled and worn, as your worship sees; but for him who knows how to handle them, they possess a marvellous virtue, which is, that you never cut them but you find an ace at the bottom; if your worship then is acquainted with the game, you will see what an advantage it is to know for certain that you have an ace to begin with, since you may count it either for one or eleven; and so you may be pretty sure that when the stakes are laid at twenty-one, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... quarter of an hour Hester was as black as the ace of spades—neck, hands, and arms, as well as face—her fair hair was effectually covered and concealed by a cotton kerchief, and then her dress was changed for the characteristic ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... nest that the Reverend Orme built by the sweat of his brow to harbor his little family, which, at the beginning of this history, consisted of himself; Ann Leighton, his wife; and Mammy, black as the ace of spades without, ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... was in the habit of entertaining visiting lecturers, many a golfer had foozled his drive owing to sudden loud outbursts of applause coinciding with his down-swing. And not long before this story opens a sliced ball, whizzing in at the open window, had come within an ace of incapacitating Raymond Parsloe Devine, the rising young novelist (who rose at that moment a clear foot and a half) from any further exercise of his art. Two inches, indeed, to the right and Raymond must inevitably ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... talents rich and rare, Lies at this spot at finish of his race. Alike to him if it is here or there: The one spot that he cared for was the ace. ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... she saw him sitting with two other men: one of them, Dick Nichols, looking very much at home; the other a distinguished, saturnine man with an English air to him, in spite of being burnt as black as the ace of spades. She was aware that Sarle saw her, and had a trembling fear that he might join her. It was almost a relief when Bellew came in towards the end of the meal, for she knew he would prove an effective barrier. He looked hot and weary, and explained that he had been obliged to go back down ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... reduced them again to a submission. Against these did the king of Assyria send an army, and in a hostile manner overrun all Phoenicia, but soon made peace with them all, and returned back; but Sidon, and Ace, and Palsetyrus revolted; and many other cities there were which delivered themselves up to the king of Assyria. Accordingly, when the Tyrians would not submit to him, the king returned, and fell upon them again, while the Phoenicians had furnished him with ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Royal, it seems to me, upon reflection, to be rather a quixotic undertaking to go in pursuit of them. You know it's a difficult job to catch a slave after he gets to the North, if he's as black as the ace of spades; and all Yankeedom would be up in arms at any attempt to seize such white ladies. Of course, I could obtain them in no other way than by courting them and ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... a bank. I've no more idea what it is you're tryin' to run off with than I know what an ace is goin' to do when there's a joker in the pack," remarked Sibley; "but I thought I'd tell you that Bradley and his lot are watchin' you gettin' ready to run." Then he hastily told what ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of manliness is the characteristic of sea-faring men. This often gives an appearance of want of feeling, and even of cruelty. From this, if a man comes within an ace of breaking his neck and escapes, it is made a joke of; and no notice must be taken of a bruise or a cut; and any expression of pity, or any show of attention, would look sisterly, and unbecoming a man who has to face the rough and tumble of such a life. From this cause, too, the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... surfaces had six different numbers. While he beamed into the veiled eyes of the old Mexican he was figuring upon the various combinations possible and the likelihood, the theory of chances, of a six or an ace upon the second throw. From the jump the game fascinated him; it is to be questioned, however, if ever before a man knew just the sort of fascination which enthralled him. No matter who won or lost, when the rolling cubes behaved ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... found a little wayside station. Therefore I turned the car into a small wood, and destroying my genuine license and hiding the genuine number-plate, I took the next train to Winchester, and thence by express to Waterloo after a very wild and adventurous night. That I had been within an ace of capture was ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... clevernesses; his premature man-of-the-worldness, on which he had prided himself on his travels, 'shrank like a thing ashamed' before this real sorrow. Pride, wounded honour, pity and respect tussled together daily in his heart; and now he was within an ace of throwing himself upon his father's mercy, and now of slipping forth at night and coming back no more to Naseby House. He suffered from the sight of his father, nay, even from the neighbourhood of this familiar valley, where ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had them coopered," finished he. "Well, just as I was going to grab the kitty he played the ace of spades, produced an old document ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... King always boasted that honesty was the best policy and that he was invariably willing to put his cards on the table. The Millionaire had once professed himself likely to be satisfied if the Iron King would only remove the fifth ace from his sleeve, and a certain coolness between the two men resulted. In general, however, he had the reputation ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... problem that she meant to solve. If her first husband was at the bottom of it, no matter how indirectly, and if she had been married for the dead man's sake, to give his widow a home, then Rachel felt that the last affront had been put upon her, and she would leave this man as she had been within an ace of leaving his friend. So ran the wild and unreasonable tenor of her thoughts. He had not married her for her own sake; it was not she herself who had appealed to him, after all. Curiosity might consume ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... stands before us, at once so earthly and yet more spectral than her sisters; for time has marred her features, injured her skin, dotted her chin with hail-specks, vulgarized her mouth, injured her nose, making it look like the ace of clubs, and put the stamp of death on ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... full moon 'mid stars * Disappeadng and darkening Earth's bright face. 'Tis my only fear that his heart is harmed, * Brent by Love-fires lacking of mercy and grace: By Allah, albeit man's soul thou rule * Among stranger folk thou art but an ace!" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... glorious excitement, those pell-mell onslaughts and hand-to-hand struggles. Twice we were within an ace of being driven from our stronghold, when General Harris and his staff leapt recklessly upon the ramparts and hurled the besiegers heels ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... infinite. What wilt thou do? Thou hast created to thyself a world of needless miseries. I call them needless, because thou hadst more than enough before. Thou hast set thyself against God in a way of contending; thou standest upon thy points and pantables:15 Thou wilt not bate God an ace, of what thy righteousness is worth, and wilt also make it worth what thyself shalt list. Thou wilt be thine own judge, as to the worth of thy righteousness; thou wilt neither hear what verdict the word has ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... home, but Rodwell stopped to tell her we had come as he went down with the cart, and she exclaimed, "Pray day come for me go see Miss Hayiut." In the morning she came early into my chamber, bright and eager. I knew Robert was black as the ace of spades, but they both of them did look blacker than anything I ever saw before, but it was ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... by the handle and putting the eye to the aperture, provided or not with a lens, we see a series of dominoes extending along the rule, from the double ace, which occupies the extremity most distant from the eye, to the double six, which is very near the eye (Fig. 2). The numbers from two to twelve, simply, are indicated, but this original means of representing them has been chosen in order to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... I'm in the game. She's an ace-high trump just the same. Wonder if she would have any use for a maverick rancher from the alkali country? I got a pretty good outfit ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... sides upwards. He had another knack of leaving an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity for an amateur. He could, when occasion seemed to make it profitable, discard with a fair air of unconsciousness. An ace dropped out of sight a hand or two earlier, was followed by a valueless card dropped openly. The ace was taken to supply its place with a perfect smiling effrontery. But Mr. Barter's favourite trick came out when he had a weak ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... they cut cards. One of the Bergen County boys drew the black ace. "What do I know about being a ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... as he surveyed his victim, "because a man looks sad at the opening of a jack-pot, it doesn't necessarily follow that he's only got ace-high." ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... get to the shop." Then he thought—"What an opportunity I'm losing. Have I any right to turn tail because he plays his game from the outset with trumps? No, I've a small trump somewhere about me to lay on this trick. It isn't an ace, but it'll show I'm not chicane." And smiling, though not with his usual cheerfulness, Sweetwater added, "Is the coffee all made? I might take a drop of that. But you mustn't ask me to eat—I ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the Turkish side have suggested that the naval operations were within an ace of succeeding, and that they only had to be pressed a little further to achieve their object. An examination of the books by Mr. Morgenthau and others does not bear this out. The Turks imagined that our fleet had been beaten off by gun-fire on the 18th, and they appear to ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... his race, and the majority of mankind for that matter, he was intensely superstitious. Three times in succession he cut and dealt the cards, and three times the ace of hearts, the luckiest card in the pack, turned face upwards on ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... Mowbray, as he looked after him, "a d—d cool fellow, this brother-in-law of mine, that is to be—takes a shot at his father's son with as little remorse as at a blackcock—what would he do with me, were we to quarrel?—Well, I can snuff a candle, and strike out the ace of hearts; and so, should things go wrong, he has no Jack Raw to deal with, but ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... thar's my answer, And here stays Banty Tim: He trumped Death's ace for me that day, And I'm not goin' back on him! You may rezoloot till the cows come home, But ef one of you tetches the boy, He'll wrastle his hash to-night in hell, Or my ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... pictures moving inside the emblems on their faces. The clubs in my hand ran into higher figures than the spades; these came next in number, and diamonds next. I had no picture-cards of diamonds, but I had the Ace. And this was so bright I could not look at it. Except the two queens of Clubs and Hearts I think I had no picture-cards in my hand, and very few red cards of any kind. There were high figures in the spades. It was the personage behind my chair who dealt the ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... that, growing recklessly in the thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... had expected perhaps ten Companies, not three against 97, give or take a few out on other jobs. It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make. It gave us a day and a half. We would ...
— Dead World • Jack Douglas
... was making for Christmas. Claire played very well and, at five cents a point, he had to watch the game. On a specially big hand she piqued and repiqued. "That," she declared, "will pay you for caputting me." The jargon of their preoccupation, "A point of six; yes, to the ace; paid; and a quatorze, kings," was the only sound until Fanny rose, decidedly. "I am going to bed." She hesitated at the door. "I hope you'll be comfortable, Claire: I had some club soda and rye put ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... remember the pasting you got By the boys down in Callaghan’s store, When Tim Hooligan found a fifth ace in his hand, And you ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... of an idealized aviator was given by Lieutenant Lufbery, of the Lafayette Escadrille, who came to the United States to assist in training the new corps of American flying men. Lufbery himself was a most successful air fighter—an "ace" several times over. Though French by lineage, he was an American citizen and had been a soldier in the United States Army. In October of 1917 his record was thirteen Boches brought down within the allied lines. In the allied ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... can tell you frankly, Father, is displeased," von Wedel said to Rasputin reprovingly. "Only by an ace has the whole of our arrangements with your Empress, and with yourself as our agent, been suppressed from Downing Street. And that by steps taken by our friend here, Monsieur Azef. But we are not yet safe. I tell you quite frankly that though you are a good servant of ours, ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux |
