"Betting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Some lively betting took place during our meal. The Model Man was gloomy, and doubted the ability of his eleven to make the necessary score on such a wicket; but the Doctor appeared extremely sanguine, and the Fourth Officer actually guaranteed half the runs ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... swell affair, with gentlemen to ride, and Royalty to look on—a race of races! London's agog with it, all the clubs discuss it, coffee houses ring with it, inns and taverns clamor with it—soul and honor, betting—everywhere. The odds slightly favor Sir Mortimer Carnaby's 'Clasher'; but Viscount Devenham's 'Moonraker' is well up. Then there's Captain Slingsby's 'Rascal,' Mr. Tressider's 'Pilot,' Lord Jerningham's 'Clinker,' and five or six ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... can't run the layout with you away. If I'm a woman I'll be treated that way. There's nothing in the North to scare me, not even your bluff, any more than Lorson Harris. But tell it all. We'll stand even then. Anyway it's not good betting blind, and I don't feel ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... Virgilianae^; rouge et noir [Fr.], hazard, ante, chuck-a-luck, crack-loo [U.S.], craps, faro, roulette, pitch and toss, chuck, farthing, cup tossing, heads or tails cross and pile, poker-dice; wager; bet, betting; gambling; the turf. gaming house, gambling house, betting house; bucket shop; gambling joint; totalizator, totalizer; hell; betting ring; dice, dice box. [person who takes chances] gambler, gamester; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... after he had given a whistle to emphasize his astonishment. "And yet, after all, I oughtn't to be much surprised, because I happen to know he's always reading the sporting page of the city paper his mother takes; and I've heard him even talking about horse races and betting. But, however in the wide world did you get on to him; and does Aunt Alicia know ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... A betting pool was also started by scientists at Los Alamos on the possible yield of the Trinity test. Yields from 45,000 tons of TNT to zero were selected by the various bettors. The Nobel Prize-winning (1938) physicist Enrico Fermi was willing to bet anyone that the test would ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum
... allowances had been impounded for the Derby lottery. That great event in the English year, the Derby, was celebrated at Rugby in those days by many lotteries. It was not an improving custom, I own, gentle reader, and led to making books, and betting, and other objectionable results; but when our great Houses of Palaver think it right to stop the nation's business on that day and many of the members bet heavily themselves, can you blame us boys for following the example ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... that it lies in part in a personal hazard accounts for the growth of betting at games. The effort to gain adds to the interest, i. e., excitement. That it adds tension as well and may result in fatigue and further boredom is not reckoned with by the bettor or gambler. To ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... disease as to mistake them for the prime causes. "It is a fact apparent to every thoughtful man that the larger portion of the misery that constitutes our Social Question arises from idleness, gluttony, drink, waste, indulgence, profligacy, betting, and dissipation." These words of Mr. Arnold White express the common view of those philanthropists who do not understand what is meant by "the industrial system," and of the bulk of the comfortable classes when ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... god of construction who reigned at St. Marys demanded still further offerings. This was why Wimperley had persuaded Birch, one of the keenest and most cold blooded financial men in the city, to come on the board. Birch, he reckoned, would be the necessary balance-wheel, and it was safe betting that he would not yield to the mesmeric influence of the man in St. Marys. Now Stoughton and Riggs and Birch had met him in the Consolidated office, and through a pale, gray haze of cigar smoke Wimperley spoke that ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... "I object. I don't think there'll be any betting as far as my players are concerned. Keep your money in your ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... all other forms of law Death in life; death without its privileges Every one is a moon, and has a dark side Exercise, for such as like that kind of work Explain the inexplicable Faith is believing what you know ain't so Forbids betting on a sure thing Forgotten fact is news when it comes again Get your formalities right—never mind about the moralities Give thanks that Christmas comes but once a year Good protections against temptations; but the surest is cowardice Goody-goody puerilities ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger
... reason why we ought to have such an extension of the franchise as has been given to us. The reason for our having the franchise, as I want presently to show, lies somewhere else than in our personal good qualities, and does not in the least lie in any high betting chance that a delegate is a better man than a duke, or that a Sheffield grinder is a better man than any one of the firm ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... for the play, so I expect even the beggar to perform to me as to one of "the press." If I give to beggars, it is purely from the gambling spirit. What are the odds against the man being a scamp? If they are short, or if the betting is level, I incline to the side of mercy. The money is of so much more consequence to him than to me, if the beggar is genuine, that the speculation is well warranted. I know how wrong it is from the point of view of the Charity Organization Society, but I am a man, not a bureau of beneficence. ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... hosts of other would-be friends of the people—by Tom Mann, Ben Tillett, and Vernon Hartshorn, does it really seem after all a matter of grave national importance that George Cadbury—a professional non-better—in educating these people should allow them to keep on in his paper, having a betting column? ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... is about it. It's like a betting-post at Newmarket. How loud the people talk! What's the news? Queen Anne dead, or is there another French Revolution, or a fixed duty on corn? Reader, Mr. Puffington's hounds have had a run, and the Flat Hat men are ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... return unobserved. When, therefore, supper is brought in, Mr. Axworthy sends for the lad on whom he has learnt to depend, and shows much disappointment at his absence. Where is he? Is he engaged with low companions in the haunts of vice, that are the declivity towards crime? Is he gaming, or betting, or drinking? No. He has obeyed the summons of his country; he is a zealous volunteer, and is eagerly using a weapon presented to him by a highly respected gentleman of large fortune in a neighbouring ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this manner Mr. Favor felt sure that he had changed his mind in regard to having his life written up, and before going to supper, in the absence of Uncle Kit, Mr. Favor asked me about it. I told him he had not. Whereupon he proposed betting me a new hat that those parties would write up his, Kit Carson's, life. I said; "Not by his consent." "Yes," said he, ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... his card, performed one of those prestidigital feats by which he made his living. And when this was accomplished—with the aid of a device known as a "hold-out"—his moist, plump fingers clutched a full house—jacks on kings. The betting went briskly to the ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... 'It's even betting whether they would ever bother their heads about them,' said the Bart. 'But show us the way inside the gates, and we'll soon clear the ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... their feelings, and farewell to their prudence! The understanding operates as a motive to action only in the silence of the passions. I have heard people of a sanguine temperament reproached with betting according to their wishes, instead of their opinion who should win; and I have seen those who reproached them do the very same thing the instant their own vanity or prejudices are concerned. The most mechanical people, once thrown off their balance, are the most extravagant and fantastical. ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Army does its bit, While they in turn peruse Death's honour-roll (should time permit) After the Betting News. ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... months earlier; another wager was laid that a member of infamous character would be the first baronet hung; and when a man dropped dead at the door of the club and was carried into the building, the members promptly began betting whether he was dead or not, and protested against the bleeding of the body on the plea that it would affect the fairness of the wagers. Well might Young write in one of his ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... "That's heavy betting, but it won't settle anything. There is Peaks; suppose we ask him," suggested Ibbotson, as the old ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... with finished politeness. "My friend and I," he said, "were discussing the probabilities of my killing him in the morning. He seems to think that he has some small chance for his life, but I have assured him that any real betting man would not wager a grain of sand that he would see the ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... We have each got a brace of double-barrelled pistols in our girdles, in addition to these old single-barrelled Indian ones that we carry for show, and our swords are leaning against the tree behind us, so we can get hold of them in a moment. I know, of course, that the betting is all in favour of these people being peaceful traders, but I don't want to leave anything to chance, and there is nothing like being ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... There's a spindle beacon in Saint Pierre harbor, white-painted slats on a white-painted rock sticking out of the water, and there was a French packet lying to the other side. We had to go between. I knew they were betting a hundred to one we'd hit one or ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... agreeably, but only about business; and he philosophized the race as so tiresome often because it seemed so often without philosophy. He made desperate attempts at times to interest himself in the pool-selling in the smoking-room where the betting on the ship's wonderful ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... like himself, called Uncle Jim and Uncle Joe. There were present, too, some clerks, and a gown- and surplice-maker's assistant; two ladies who sported moral characters of various depths of shade, according to their company, nicknamed "Bower o' Bliss" and "Freckles"; some horsey men "in the know" of betting circles; a travelling actor from the theatre, and two devil-may-care young men who proved to be gownless undergraduates; they had slipped in by stealth to meet a man about bull-pups, and stayed to drink and smoke short pipes with the racing gents aforesaid, looking ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... notoriety. I'll make you a sporting offer. There are over five million inhabitants in this London of ours. If you go out into the streets and ask the first five hundred you meet whether they know me, I don't mind betting you—what shall I say? a new hat—that you won't find half a dozen who've ever even heard of my existence. Why not go out and see ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... owner and bookmaker, matching his wits against secret combinations and operating upon the wheedled capital of the credulous. He was sometimes called a tout, but this he resented bitterly, explaining the difference between a tout and a hustler. "A tout will have six suckers betting on six different horses in the same race. Five of 'em have to lose. A tout is guessing all the time, but a hustler is likely to know something. One horse a race is my motto—sometimes only one horse ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... seven other girls who aspired to the same proud position, who were asserted by their own particular friends to have won it; just as there are generally four or five horses which claim to be first favourites; but the betting was all in favour ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... tone at the race, and gentility was conspicuous by its absence; but I did not find it so outrageously low as I had been led to expect. I confess that I was not encouraged to attempt to increase my little hoard of silver by betting, and the certainty that if I lost I could not lunch made me timid. But the good are never alone in this world, and I found friends whom I dreamed not of. Leaving the crowd, I sought the gypsy vans, and by one of these was old ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... sale in shop-windows and to appear constantly in cheap pictorials, and of these Lady Beaulyon was a notorious example, to say nothing of the graver sins against morality and principle for which she was renowned. He had no sympathy with sporting or betting men—and he knew by repute that Lord Charlemont and Bludlip Courtenay were of this class. Then again, deep down in his own soul, he resented the fact that Maryllia Vancourt entertained this sort of people as her guests. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... evenly divided hand, while as it stands he has the adversaries limited to a score of 2 points for each odd trick, yet booked for a loss of 50 if they fail to make seven tricks; 100, if they do not make six. In other words, they are betting 25 to 1 on an even proposition. Such a position is much too advantageous to ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... myself by watching the proceedings of the betting-ring, where there is a good deal more honesty than in many places dignified by the name ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... when I was considerably younger and consequently reckoned that I knew about all there was to know, not only all the main points, but all the foot-notes, I didn't allow anybody else to know anything. And I used to lose more or less money betting that this and that wasn't so. Then up would come the fellow with the cyclopedy and his facts and his figgers. At last I was so sure of one thing that I bet a thousand on it, and a fellow hit me ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... had gone through had made a deep impression. It has been ever so with me. Drinking, gaming, betting, and worse, never awakened my conscience or set me reflecting, until some sudden, unlooked-for thing took place, in which sentiment or affection was concerned. Then I would set to work to balance my books and determine my course. At such times it was the dear mother who ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... to provide something like characters seems to be altogether forgotten. A run (or several runs) with the hounds, a steeplechase and its preparations and accidents, one at least of the great races and the training and betting preliminary to them—these form the real and almost the sole staple of story; so that a tolerably intelligent office-boy could make them up out of a number or two of the Field, a sufficient list of proper names, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... of shows, games, and sports which the country could afford or devise were immensely popular, the most so, and the roughest, in the South. Horse-racing, cock-fighting, shooting matches, at all which betting was high, were there fashionable, as well as most brutal man-fights, in which ears were bitten off and eyes gouged out. President Thomas Jefferson was exceedingly fond of menageries and circuses, his diary abounding in such entries as: "pd for seeing a lion ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... are the underwriters; but that is not our business. You see, FitzHenry, in all commerce there are a certain number of fools for the wise men to outwit. In marine insurance there are a large number. All insurance is nothing but a bet, and betting is a matter of intelligence. We bring more intelligence to bear upon it than the ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... invigorated. The men of pleasure of this period have, as they have always had, an ample provision of amusement—not always the most useful, it is true—yet we are glad to see that the out-of-door excitements begin to distance the excitements of the gaming-table. Betting on the turf is not carried to the ruinous extent here that it is in England, while the polo, the base-ball, the boating, and the "riding to hounds "—open to ridicule as it is, in some ways of looking at it—are all healthful. The spring season has its little ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... circles the chief interest centered on the race to London. The papers showed the positions of the various armies each morning in their Runners and Betting columns; six to four on the Germans was freely offered, but found ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... imagine, to know what was going on in the world and what England was thinking about it all. I ran alongside a fishing-boat, therefore, and ordered them to give up their papers. Unfortunately they had none, except a rag of an evening paper, which was full of nothing but betting news. In a second attempt I came alongside a small yachting party from Eastbourne, who were frightened to death at our sudden appearance out of the depths. From them we were lucky enough to get the London ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and pulling;" but Offutt had gone so far that it became necessary to yield. The match was held on the ground near the grocery. Clary's Grove and New Salem turned out generally to witness the bout, and betting on the result ran high, the community as a whole staking their jack-knives, tobacco plugs, and "treats" on Armstrong. The two men had scarcely taken hold of each other before it was evident that the Clary's Grove champion had met a match. The two men wrestled ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... dragged slowly on. A few wan-faced men worked, many lounged in the narrow streets, playing games of chance, betting on the outcome of the war, quarreling, complaining, boasting. Now they talked vauntingly, telling tales of the Englishman's prowess and the Indian's cowardice. Again, they told dismal stories of Indian cruelty and massacre, and shook their ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... walked with his grandfather he was in the habit of skipping along on the stone pavement in front of the three stores and the hotel of the town and betting that he could avoid the cracks. But upon this day he walked soberly, with his hand gripping two of his grandfather's fingers. Sometimes he kicked abstractedly at dandelions that curved over the walk. Any one could see ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... I looked so smart! I was so terrified of losing his affection by getting dowdy, don't you see? Besides, he doesn't take the slightest notice what I wear, he never knows what I've got on! Always betting or absorbed in the Racing Intelligence; it's ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... drunkenness by the owners of a fleet in whose employ he had been for some years. Where he got the money from to purchase a trawler was a mystery to most people, although it was discovered later that a betting-man ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Caroline. I was only joking. There's a little beast of a bookkeeper down at the office who is forever talking of his 'nice flat in the Bronx.' It's a standing guy, you know. So far as I can see, these are pretty snug quarters. And attractively arranged, too. Your taste, Caroline, I'm betting." ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... heavier. Used to sit in my office afterwards and dream about the glittering lakes and the stiff white pines; saw them crowding round the lonely camps, when I ought to have been studying the market reports. Well, I couldn't concentrate on buying and selling things. Betting on the market and getting after other people's money seemed a pretty mean business." He paused and added with a twinkle: "That's how I felt then, and I don't know that I've changed ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... over to the table. The players deserted the other games, and the dancing-floor was forsaken, so that all stood at last, fivescore and more, in a compact and silent group, around the poker-table. The high betting had begun before the draw, and still the high betting went on, with the draw not in sight. Kearns had dealt, and French Louis had opened the pot with one marker—in his case one hundred dollars. Campbell had ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Devizes with whom the police about that town, and at Chippenham, Bath, and Wells, were well acquainted; that the other, Acorn, was a young man who had been respectable, as a partner in a livery stable at Birmingham, but who had taken to betting, and had for a year past been living by evil courses, having previously undergone two years of imprisonment with hard labour. It was proved that they had been seen in the neighbourhood both before and after the murder; that boots found in the cottage at Pycroft Common fitted ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... charming and affable. They resolved upon weekly balls at the city tavern. There were club dinners and gay suppers at the Indian Queen, and Ferry tavern, that often degenerated into orgies. For the ruder sort there were cockpits, where the betting ran high, and no end of dice and card-playing. There was among many of the lower classes an insolent revolt against an established order of things that had not brought them prosperity, and tradesmen had felt the pinch of hard times severely. The influx of British ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... you wild cat," answered a man's raucous voice. "She's my wife, which is somethin' that your sort knows nothin' about. Come on, you Mabel. You think that outlaw can keep me from takin' home my wife, you're betting wrong." ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... no excitement. It is my very blood. Yet, think not my words are false as dicers' oaths," and waved his right hand with a lordly gesture, I thought, "An old actor, for certain." So long as his senses remained he talked shrewdly about betting, and his remarks were free from the mingled superstition and rascality which make ordinary racing talk so odious; but when he began to drink rapidly he soon became violent, and finished by carrying on like a madman. ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... the Young Guardsman imagines himself to be an adept in the mysteries of the turf. With a light heart and a heavy betting-book he faces the hoary sinners who lay the odds. Nor is it until he has lost more money than his father can well afford that he discovers that the raw inexperience even of a Young Guardsman is unequally matched against the cool head, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... a Sargolian feast to be a success, the Terrans gathered from overheard remarks, at least one duel must be staged sometime during the festivities. And those not actively engaged did a lot of brisk betting ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... "Are they good-humored and kind—able to bear the troubles they meet with? Are they industrious, frugal, temperate, religious, chaste? Have they had the prudence to insure against sickness and death?" Or, on the other hand, are they addicted to drinking, smoking, betting, keeping late hours, frequenting casinos, etc.? Your mother and other prudent friends will assist you to find this out. Those who do not come up to the proper standard, however agreeable they may be as acquaintance, certainly cannot make good husbands. In ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... reputed to have lost $8,000, an amount so considerable for him as to weigh upon his mind to the manifest detriment of his public functions. But sometimes the gentlemen resident in the capital met for purposes less innocent than Saturday evening cotillons, or even than extravagant betting at the card-table, and stirred the dulness of society by a duel. Mr. Adams tells of one affair of this sort, fought between ex-Senator Mason, of Virginia, and his cousin, wherein the weapons used were muskets, and the distance was only six paces. (p. 104) Mason ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... Bob," replied young Flannery, for aside from the matter of betting on horse racing and speculating, he ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... betting unfairly—on a sure thing—as he had seen his friend do what he asserted, all but the drinking flourish. Lincoln was averse to the wagering at all, but to help his friend to the hat, he consented to the feat. He passed through it, lifting the cask between his two hands and holding the spigot-hole ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... not know the origin of WELCHER, a betting cheat, but it is worthy of remark that in old Gipsy a Walshdo or Welsher meant a Frenchman (from the German Walsch) or any foreigner of ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... now thinks better Of his rash vow his gift to "demonstrate," Receiving a "precipitated letter" Warning him not to be—precipitate. Many a Betting Man who'd hedge or tack Must wish he had Mahatmas at ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... it himself, and on his return found Cadel sitting on one side of Death's Alley, and Dard with his head bound up on the other. They had got a bottle which each put up in turn wherever he fancied the next round shot would strike, and they were betting their afternoon rations which would get the Prussians to hit the ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... were gathered to witness the contest; As loud is the drums were their words and they roared like the roar of the Ha-ha. For some for Tamdka contend, and some for the fair, bearded stranger, And the betting runs high to the end, with the skins of the bison and beaver. A wife of tall Wazi-kut —the mother of boastful Tamdka— Brought her handsomest robe from the tee, with a vaunting and loud proclamation: She would stake her ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... pockets—one for the ten-dollar notes and above, the other for the fives, and under. Slick Bradley is the most independent man in the world; he jokes familiarly with his customers, and besides their bill of fare, he knows how to get more of their money by betting, for betting is the great passion of Slick; he will bet any thing, upon every thing: contradict him in what he says, and down come the two pocket-books under your nose. 'I know better,' he will say, 'don't I? What will you bet—five, ten, fifty, hundred? Tush! you dare ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... personage whose god is himself, who would seduce his friend's wife or sister, or strip him of his last farthing at a gaming table, and then shoot him through the head, by way of making amends; or who scrupulously discharges all gambling and betting debts; utterly neglecting those of the poor tradesman, or industrious mechanic, but the "justum et tenacem propositi virum," of the Roman satirist, the man of strict integrity, and immoveable principles. Frederic had long since formed a determination, that as soon as he could clear ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... well-dressed man, of smooth, easy manners, and entered. I found there several parties paired off, and engaged at different games; but, like the rest of the bystanders, I felt myself most strongly attracted towards the two who were betting highest. One of these was an elderly man, of a tall stature, in a plain dress; the other was a short man, in very costly apparel, and some years younger. For a long time the scales of victory seemed balanced between them; but ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... day. They were with me at breakfast time when Lady Carwitchet, tripping in smiling, made a last attempt to induce me to accompany her and keep her "bad, bad boy" from getting among "those horrid betting men." ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... which was the only public room set apart for the use of the guests, was the resort of a party of drunken roisterers, who were playing poker in the corner, and betting on the game. At the elbow of each player was set a glass of whisky, and the end of each game was marked by a fresh ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... life interesting quite apart from the cultus of horseflesh and other mystic rites of costly observance, which the eight hundred pounds left him after buying his practice would certainly not have gone far in paying for. He was at a starting-point which makes many a man's career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swims and makes his point or else ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to herself, "we've got 'Tubby' to the point where she doesn't need a stepmother; it's quite unnecessary that she should have one at all, least of all Frau Marianne. I believe in giving every one their due—but I wouldn't risk a penny on betting that her heart is even as big as an old hen's that you make soup out of. I really don't see any reason why we should provide her with a sinecure ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... through the State of Arkansas and stopped at many places, horse-racing and gambling. My business was to drive a wagon in which they carried their gambling apparatus, clothing, &c. I had also to black boots and attend to horses. We stopped at Fayettville, where they almost lost me, betting ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... now in a fortnight's time, would settle the football question. It was generally expected that they would try Dune in that match and judge him finally then on his play. There was a good deal of betting on the matter, and those who remembered his earlier games said that nothing could ever make Dune a reliable player and that it was a reliable player ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... approach, or so much as glanced up, the attention of the crowd riveted upon the players. There were four holding cards—the Judge, Kirby, Carver, and McAfee; but I judged at a glance that the latter two were merely in the game as a pretense, the betting having already gone far beyond the limit of their resources. Without a thought as to the cards they held, my eyes sought the faces of the two chief players, and then visioned the stakes displayed on the table before them. McAfee and Carter were clearly enough out of it, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... was known to have won and lost large sums at Monte Carlo, and she was a regular follower of the fashionable races in Paris. She had also been seen at the Olympia billiard academy, near the Grand Hotel, where Martinez and other experts played regularly before eager audiences, among whom betting on the games was the great attraction. The detective found two bet markers who remembered distinctly that, on several occasions, a handsome woman, answering to the description of Mrs. Wilmott, had wagered five or ten louis on Martinez and had ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... knowing the cause, we say it is the effect of chance. Yet the morality of a thing cannot depend on our knowledge or ignorance of its cause. Not knowing why a particular side of an unloaded die turns up, cannot make the act of throwing it, or of betting on it, immoral. If we consider games of chance immoral, then every pursuit of human industry is immoral, for there is not a single one that is not subject to chance; not one wherein you do not risk a loss for the chance of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... not going to leave your bones on this island. If you did, you know, you and Bill Halliwell might ha'nt around together—think how cozy! (Here Aunt Jane gave a convulsive shudder.) As to my being married, if you were betting just now on anybody's chances they would have to be Captain ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... "It was the betting-book of Thwaite's, and it dated back almost to the time of the conquest of Quebec. Great men dead and gone long ago—near a hundred and fifty years ago-had put down their bets in the book, for Thwaite's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... with pouring rain, and a conviction that landing before morning would not bring us to London any sooner than doing so early to-morrow, and so we secretly hoped all the time that we were neither on nor over the bar. Betting, as usual, began on the subject, and the excitement was still at its height when official information was brought to us that we neither had attempted nor meant to attempt to cross the bar till five ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... Father Letheby has scored again. There were heavy bets of fifteen to one in half-gallons of porter, laid by desperate gamblers, that Father Letheby would make Mrs. Darcy wash her face. It was supposed to be a wild plunge in a hopeless speculation. I am told now, that the betting has gone up at the forge, and is now fifty to one that, before a month, she'll have a lace cap and "sthramers" like the ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... entered as Harry, but instead of being the innocent little schoolboy of Letitia's fond imagination, Harry appears in loud peg-top trousers (peg-top trousers were very fashionable in 1860), with a big cigar in his mouth, and his hat worn jauntily on one side. His talk is all of racing, betting, and fighting. Letty is struck dumb with astonishment at first, but the awful change, which two years have effected, gradually dawns on her. She implores him to turn from his idle, foolish ways. Master Harry sinks on his knees by her side, but just as his sister is about to rejoice and kiss ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... occupied. The two birds pitted against each other were carefully weighed, and the result was announced to the audience. They were then passed in review, held in the hands of their respective owners, and betting at once commenced as to which would win the victory. In the mean time the two birds seemed quietly awaiting their time, and by the knowing way in which both surveyed the surroundings and the assembled people, they really appeared as if they ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... it was, most of the town was up and excited. Betting had been high as to whether the sheriff would get the prisoner safe into the jail, and even the winners seemed disappointed that he had accomplished this feat, although they praised his skilful management. But the sheriff knew ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... I own, a racing man; I never loved a horse that ran, And betting is a vice I ban; Still, to the sporting caravan— Or good, or bad, or saints, or sinners— I bear no malice; nor would take A leaf from any books they make; Why then, should they, for mercy's sake, Pursue me till my senses ache ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various
... preparations have become a part of their social life—of their amusement—their gayeties. This very night at the ball—here—in the house of my own relatives—what was their talk? What were the jests they laughed at? Sumter! War! Ladies were betting bonbons that the United States would not dare to fire a shot in return, and pinning ribbons on the breasts of their "heroes." There was a signal rocket from one of the forts, and the young men who ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... time with dreary games in the yard, sometimes wrestling, but more often gambling with the dice, that one or two happened to possess, for the dinners that were provided for the wealthier, sometimes even betting on what the sentences would be, and who would be hanged, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... 'I don't mind betting,' he said, 'that he's got something wrong with him. Either he drinks, or has an impossible wife, or he likes low company, or— ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... has, I fear, divined the truth. They have been betting largely against his success for the last week, both in Canopus ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... inflicted severe punishment on his adversary and resolutely refused to give in; although his opponent on this important occasion was an imported dog, brought into the county by Barney's enemies, who hoped to fill their pockets by betting against the local champion. But Barney, who is a medium-sized, ferocious-looking bull terrier, "scooped"the crowd backing the imported dog, to the extent of their "pile," by "walking all round" ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... an interest in is horses." Captain Maitland was very far from being a literary swell or claiming any such title. The books he really liked, the only books he read when he had a free choice, were sporting stories with a strong racing and betting interest But in camp in the wilderness no sporting stories were obtainable. The one novel which remained to the mess dealt with the sex problem, a subject originally profoundly uninteresting to Maitland, ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... supplies from the surrounding country as well as many small articles of native or foreign manufacture. This car line also passes the Maypajo, the largest cockpit in the world, where at regular intervals the best fighting cocks are pitted against each other and the betting is as spirited as on American race tracks in the old days. On the return trip by these cars one passes by the San Juan bridge, which marked the opening of the insurrection; the old Malacanan Palace, now the residence ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... the subject. 'And I didn't say it was a lady-journalist, either. The truth is,' this liar proceeded with an effrontery which might have been born of incessant practice, but was not, 'I meant it as a surprise for you. I've been interviewed this afternoon, for a lady's paper. And I wouldn't mind betting—I wouldn't mind betting,' he repeated, 'that she's come ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... spent almost all her time at Crome, cultivating a rather ill-defined malady. For consolation she dallied with New Thought and the Occult. Her passion for racing still possessed her, and Henry, who was a kind-hearted fellow at bottom, allowed her forty pounds a month betting money. Most of Priscilla's days were spent in casting the horoscopes of horses, and she invested her money scientifically, as the stars dictated. She betted on football too, and had a large notebook in which she registered the horoscopes ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... liberally when he lost. He slipped behind the counter and took off his blouse and hat, which I put on. Then we made up a bundle with some cabbage heads and a few carrots, and out I came. I didn't think there could be anything wrong in the whole affair—just the tomfoolery of a man who has got the betting mania and in whose pocket money is just burning a hole. And I have won my bet," concluded Jean Victor, still unabashed, "and I want to go back and get my money. If you don't believe me, come with me to my CABARET. You will find the citizen Rateau there, for sure; and I know that ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... "I'm betting," he grunted, "that there's different sorts of the wave-type those guys want us to broadcast. Like there's a spectrum of visible light. If we were color-blind and yellow'd bust things, they'd transmit in red that we could see, and they'd tell us to broadcast ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... tables, around which they sat playing cards under the eye of a policeman. They were "educational" cards, with pictures of Europe and Asia and Africa and America on, but it required only half a minute's observation to tell us that they were gambling—betting on which educational card would turn up next. What the city had provided was a course in scientific gambling with the policeman to see that it was done right. And over at Market and Monroe streets, where they have an acre or more of splendid asphalted floor—such a ball room!—and a matchless ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... started out by ourselves that very morning, everyone laughing and betting on our number of fish as we left camp. I wore the short skirt, but Mrs. Ord had her skirts pinned so high I felt that a tuck or two should be taken in mine, to save her from embarrassment. The fishing is excellent here and each one had every confidence in her own ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... point where it was growing rapidly of its own momentum and, as there was nothing to which he looked forward, nothing he particularly wanted to do, he set himself the task of making it cross the half million mark, much as a man plays solitaire, to occupy his mind, betting against himself, to ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... crowd thinned; until Irish, by betting safely and sticking to a caution that must have cost him a good deal in the way of self-restraint, had sixty dollars' worth of chips piled ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... the spring of '50—I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn't finished when he first came to the camp; but any way, he was the curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him—any way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... betrayed into eloquence. "What!" he cried, "you, who are so bright and keen and knowing in everything else, are you really so blinded by egotism and credulity as to believe that you can invent any method of betting at rouge et noir that has not been tried before you were born? Do you remember the first word ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... and racing, and gambling, and betting, and pigeon-shooting,' put in the Democrat thoughtfully. ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... shave off curly bits from his plug, while the laughter turned against the engineer. Carcajou, like a good many other places, commonly favored the top-dog when it came to betting. The answering grin in Pat's face was a rather sour one. If any other man had spoken to him thus there might have been a lively fight, but no one in Carcajou, and a good many miles around it, cared to engage ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... throwing up his head, and flinging his cigarette into the empty fireplace. "I saw you go into the conservatory. You found her there, and—him. It is beginning to be the chief topic of conversation amongst his friends just now. The betting is already pretty free." ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... "Oh, yes, you know well enough—the brother who spends his time racing and betting. You are a fool, Helen; he doesn't want you; and if he did, he couldn't afford to ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... over in the corner at a round table where counters were piled. Their eyes were close upon their cards, and one seemed to be dealing a card at a time to each, with pauses and betting between. Steve was there and the Virginian; the others were ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... is the kind of conversation that is coming through from the next cellars: "I've got you beat—that's forty-seven." "Wait a minute"—a sound of tearing cloth—"but look at this lot, mother and young." "With my forty and these you'll have to find some more." They were betting on the number they could find. I peel off my shirt myself and burn them off with a candle. I glory in the little pop they make when the heat gets to them. All the insect powder in the world has been tried out on ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... township and found 'em At drinking and gaming and play; If sorrows they had, why they drowned 'em, And betting was soon under way. Their horses were good 'uns and fit 'uns, There was plenty of cash in the town; They backed their own horses like Britons, And, Lord! how WE ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... said, after a moment's cogitation, while he absently turned a cluster of beech-nuts in his hands, "I'll try it, for keeps, you may bet,—if you were a betting character. There's lots of good things going in these mountains; that is, if a fellow had the ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... while to venture out a little beyond the regular circle of subjects and—see what happens. If a man can draw one thing, it has been said, he can draw anything. At the most he can but fail, and there are several matters in the world worse than failure. Betting on a certainty, for instance, or playing with nicked cards is immoral, and secures expulsion from clubs. Keeping deliberately to one set line of work because you know you can do it and are certain to get money by so doing is, on the other hand, counted a ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... having gone to that place with some friends, met Mr. Elmsdale on the race-course. Expressing astonishment at meeting him there, Mr. Elmsdale stated he had run down to look after a client of his who he feared was going wrong. He said he did not much care to do business with a betting man. In the course of subsequent conversation, however, he told the witness he had some ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... mighty close attention to what I was dealt the next hand, and turned down a drink to make sure I was cold sober. Unfortunately, I got all screwed up over what one of the other gamblers had. It had been a bunch of spinach when I'd been betting my pair against it, but it was one good-looking straight when he flipped ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... cheating! The laws would annul such a bequest. Society has an original, inherent right to defend itself from all evil—and that gaming is an evil, whether played with cards, lotteries, dice, stocks, or betting, not even Mr. Freeman could ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... to keep, as I have—and a devilish expensive appendage the affectionate jade is—perhaps you might feel a little more Christian sympathy for me than you do. If you had the expense of my yacht—my large stud at Melton Mowbry and Doncaster, and the yearly deficits in my betting book, besides the never ending train of jockies, grooms, feeders, trainers, et hoc genus omne—to meet, it is probable, old boy, you would not feel so boundless an interest, as you say you do, in the peace and welfare of another man's tenantry, and all this at that other man's expense. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... German nobleman, Hans v. H——, wrote from London that he was 5 feet 10 tall, of an old noble family, and employed in the diplomatic service. He made the confession that his fortune had been greatly reduced through unsuccessful betting at the horse races, and hence found himself obliged to be on the lookout for a rich bride, so as to be able to cover his deficit. He was, furthermore, ready to undertake a trip ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... been enough to stay the greediest stomach; but St. Mesmin was not content. Treating the knave, the word once passed, as so much dirt, he transferred his attack to St. Germain, and called on him to return the money he had won by betting on Barradas. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... tremendous dew falls. At the 'ordinary,' fresh greetings between those who now meet for the first time after long separation. The entries and bets are made for the morrow's races, although not much betting takes place as a rule; but the lotteries on the different races are rapidly filled, the dice circulate cheerily, and amid laughing, joking, smoking, noise, and excitement, there is a good deal of mild speculation. The 'horsey' ones ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... set up public gaming tables, from the profits of which he drew a comfortable livelihood. He then explained difference the between the sitters and the bettors; characterised the first as old rooks, and the last as bubbles; and advised me to try my fortune at the silver table, by betting a crown at a time. Before I would venture anything, I considered the company more particularly, and there appeared such a group of villanous faces, that I was struck with horror and astonishment at ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... seemed to think he was the only one who had ever seen a dead man before. I wouldn't mind betting I've seen as many stiffs as he has, although ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... actress not a member of his own company. I remember one particularly acrid discussion between him and my father in regard to Julia Marlowe, who was then making her first bow to the public. Daly contended that in a few years the lady would be absolutely unheard of and backed his opinion by betting a dinner for those present with my father that his judgment would prove correct. However, he was very kind to Richard and myself and frequently allowed us to play about behind the scenes, which was a privilege I imagine he granted to very few of his friends' ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... "I remember him in his younger days; and a pretty high boy he was. He didn't stop at a glass of ale and a game of dominoes; not he! I've seen him as drunk as a lord many a time; and many a time at a horse-race, or cock-fight, betting with the bravest. I was only a boy, though a pretty old boy; but I can tell ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... invaluable Hiram, who arranged this interview for us through Bias, has made himself a brother to all the betting masters. I understand you have arranged it so that whether Glaucon wins or loses you ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... friendly, leave Chinik, for I shall then be more alone than ever. If this tiresome ice in the bay would only move out so the boats could get in, we should have others, but there is no telling when that will be. Many are now betting on the breaking up of the ice, and all hope it will be ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... betting man; Porter's an owner, and a good judge," objected Danby; "and he's got a good boy up, too, McKay," he added, slowly focusing his field glasses on the ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser |
