"Deuce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Plenippo," said Treenail. "But, Splinter, my man, now since the enemy have occupied the dike in front, how the deuce shall we get back into the river, tell ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... planes. Mine and one belonging to the school, and one that belongs to a fellow from Toronto. It is a peach, and he thinks he can beat me in a race. We are going to try it out some day if we can ever get up without an instructor. They are awful strict here. I will have a deuce of a time if they ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... his eyes, he tried to recall the bright, animated face which had so lately bent anxiously above him. "She tarries long," he said at last, beginning to grow uneasy. "I wonder how far it is; and where the deuce can this old Hagar be, of whom ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... right hand to ride, only it wouldn't carry him. I can't make horses. Harry brought home that brown mare on Tuesday with an overreach that she won't get over this season. What the deuce they do with their horses to knock them about so, I can't understand. I've killed horses in my time, and ridden them to a stand-still, but I never bruised them and battered them about as ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... himself, he had slipped from the easy-going, casual tone into one that was becoming persuasive, apologetic, strenuous. Although the day was not particularly warm, he began to perspire a little; and he repeated the words over to himself, "I understand you." What the deuce did the rector know? He had somehow the air of knowing everything—more than Mr. Plimpton did. And Mr. Plimpton was beginning to have the unusual and most disagreeable feeling of having been weighed in the balance ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... whisper. "He will hear you. Ha!" he continued after a short pause, during which they moved on towards the mess-room, "you begin to find out his amiable military qualities, do you! But tell me, Ronayne, what the deuce has put this Quixotic expedition into your head? What great interest do you take in these fishermen, that you should volunteer to break your shins in the wood, this dark night, for the purpose of seeking them, and that on ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... that the values are all right," he was careful to explain; "it's just that they are all right makes it so trying. If a fellow had a little capital now, he could do wonders. The deuce of a chap like me is that he hasn't any capital unless there's ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... Woolsey declined this; for, as soon as he was gone, Walker, in a tremendous fury, began cursing his wife for dawdling three hours on the road. "Why the deuce, ma'am, didn't you take a cab?" roared he, when he heard she had walked to Bond Street. "Those writs have only been in half an hour, and I might have ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ruffled up his neck feathers, repeating "Rubberneck, I'm cold as the deuce; what's the matter with Hannah; let 'em all ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... "What the deuce do I care for the usual price, you—you—you perfect prodigy of patches? There, for the Lord's sake, go get yourself a decent suit of clothes! Drive on, cabman!" roared Old Hurricane, flinging an eagle upon the sidewalk and rolling off in ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... thus: 'It has been truly said that those whom the gods love die young!' and then on it went, dragging in memories of Chatterton and Shelley and Keats, till I found myself yawning and wondering what the deuce the writer was driving at. Presently, about the end of the second column, I came to the assertion that 'the posthumous poem of "Nourhalma" must be admitted as one of the most glorious productions in the English language.' This woke me up considerably, and I read ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... great a deuce of a hurry to satisfy that curiosity, dear man," Poppy put in. "You must contrive to exercise patience for a little while yet, please; always remembering that it is entirely superfluous to run to catch a train ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... got you and Elizabeth into a deuce of an unpleasant position. I've told you what a fine woman my mother is, and how she'd welcome Elizabeth with open arms, and now I find I was all wrong. My mother isn't a fine woman; she's an ancestor-worshiping, heartless, ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... was! What should I do with a wife I could not kiss? I wonder if Blanche will speak to me again? Maybe all this was a dodge, women have so many; but she looked in earnest. I might have frightened her by being so sudden, but why the deuce should women be frightened at proposals, when they pass their lives in trying to get them? So Mrs. Stunner said. Poor birdie!, what a soft hand she has! Maybe some women are modest: I will ask Hardcash about it. She may not have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on the Elysium road?" The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from me ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... "What the deuce is up with you?" I asked, sharply. And then I remembered the Second Mate. I glanced forrard to where he lounged. His back was still towards us, and he had not seen Tammy. Then I turned ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... the Mansion House, and rain began to fall. The two occupants of the car watched each other surreptitiously, mutually suspicious, like dogs. Scraps of talk were separated by long intervals. Mr. Prohack wondered what the deuce Softly Bishop had done that Angmering should leave him a hundred thousand pounds. He tried to feel grief for the tragic and untimely death of his old friend Angmering, and failed. No doubt the failure ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... fiery tempers, and vastly prefer peaceable people. I do not care to beat for fear of being beaten; a gentle disposition was always my predominant virtue: But my honour tells me that it is absolutely necessary I should avenge such an outrage as this. Let honour say whatever it likes, the deuce take him who listens. Suppose now I should play the hero, and receive for my pains an ugly thrust with a piece of cold steel quite through my stomach; when the news of my death spreads through the whole town, tell me then, my honour, shall you ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... escape than from small-pox; and which attacks every one of us, from the first duke in the Peerage down to Jack Ketch inclusive: which has no respect for rank, virtue, or roguery in man, but sets each in his turn in a fever; which breaks out the deuce knows how or why, and, raging its appointed time, fills each individual of the one sex with a blind fury and longing for some one of the other (who may be pure, gentle, blue-eyed, beautiful, and good; or vile, shrewish, squinting, hunchbacked, and hideous, according to circumstances and ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fighting is detestable chiefly because you cannot see your enemy until you are on top of him. Our centre cantered in extended order up an avenue flanked by dense bush. We were laughing and asking where the deuce the rebels were, when a hail of rifle fire at short range greeted us. Our fellows were out of their saddles in a second, and advanced to the attack through the bush. Meantime, the South African Police extreme left had swept round to the head of the spruit ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... anything that I don't know about till he goes to bed," Fred promised. "But how the deuce did he know that you had ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... amusing to watch the manly coolness with which the announcement was taken. Nothing was heard more energetic than, "Deuce he has!" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... nations through civilization to the establishment of the perfect city of God. An indifferent statesman is a contradiction in terms; and a statesman who is indifferent on principle, a Laisser-faire or Muddle-Through doctrinaire, plays the deuce with us in the long run. Our statesmen must get a religion by hook or crook; and as we are committed to Adult Suffrage it must be a religion capable of vulgarization. The thought first put into words by the Mills when they said 'There is no God; but this is a family secret,' ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... soul has been equal to the occasion, and I have been able to acquit myself in a way not to attract attention to my deficiencies. But now my heart has gone back on me; a pair of eyes have confused my vision, and a little hand has knocked me out on the first round. I am in a deuce of a fix, surely." So ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... the town or in the neighborhood. Shall I meet her again, I wonder? I will stay here a week or a month if—What nonsense! I must have distinguished myself, staring at her like a gawk. When she said she was the Queen of Sheba, I ought instantly to have replied—what in the deuce is it I ought to have replied? How can a man be witty with a ton of sole-leather ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... have each scored three points in a game, or five games in a set; to win the game or set two points or games must then be won consecutively. The earliest instances in English of the use of the slang expression "the deuce," in exclamations and the like, date from the middle of the 17th century. The meaning was similar to that of "plague" or "mischief" in such phrases as "plague on you," "mischief take you" and the like. The use of the word as an euphemism for "the devil" is later. According to the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... the spot, because your map says something like, 'Through the Sunken Valley to Witch's Caldron, four points N. by N. E. to Gallows Hill where the shadow falls at sunrise, fifty fathoms west, fifty paces north as the crow flies, to the Seven Wells'? How the deuce," I demanded, "is any one going to point to ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... it would be a relief to get away from his son-in-law: "If the fellow would only speak!" he exclaimed when he was alone with his wife. "What the deuce he's always ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... at the mercy of our unknown informant," said Burns. "Why the deuce was he so mysterious about it?" He tugged at his gray mustache as ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Trysdale, what the deuce is the matter with you? You look unhappy as if you yourself had been married instead of having acted merely as an accomplice. Look at me, another accessory, come two thousand miles on a garlicky, cockroachy banana steamer all the way from South America to connive at the sacrifice—please ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... little magnifying glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me, very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often. But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it be from? Pooh! it's only somebody asking ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... reached her, lo! the Captain, Gallant Kidd,[4] commands the crew; Passengers their berths are clapt in, Some to grumble, some to spew. "Hey day! call you that a cabin? Why't is hardly three feet square! Not enough to stow Queen Mab in— Who the deuce can harbour there?" "Who, sir? plenty— Nobles twenty Did at once my vessel fill."— "Did they? Jesus, How you squeeze us! Would to God they did so still! Then I'd 'scape the heat and racket Of the good ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... to-day, as it's getting latish. But oh, deuce take their cursed, envenomed tongues!' I muttered, in ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... Henchard more than he had expected. The lugubrious harmony of the spot with his domestic situation was too perfect for him, impatient of effects scenes, and adumbrations. It reduced his heartburning to melancholy, and he exclaimed, "Why the deuce did I come here!" He went on past the cottage in which the old local hangman had lived and died, in times before that calling was monopolized over all England by a single gentleman; and climbed up by a steep back ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... alone; for at last You drove her to give you good reason, Divorced her, and so it's all passed. For you, I mean; she has to bear it— Poor child—the reproach and the shame; I'm your friend—but come, hang it, old fellow, I swear you were somewhat to blame. 'What the deuce do I mean?' Well, I'll tell you, Though it's none of my business. Here! Just light a cigar, and keep quiet— You started wrong, Charley Leclear. You weren't in love when you married— 'Nor she!'—well, I know, but she tried To keep it ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... one night to stop under the window of Bernardone Kurz, a director of a theatre and the leading clown of Vienna. Down rushed Kurz very excitedly. "Who are you?" he shrieked. "Joseph Haydn." "Whose music is it?" "Mine." "The deuce it is! And at your age, too!" "Why, I must begin ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... the deuce is there to stagger under in the circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster? The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that's ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... serious, but inconvenient. Pierre, the cook for the outfit, suddenly decided to leave to-day, and did. He said he thought it was time he got married again, and has gone in quest of a bride, I suppose. The deuce of it is, we're so short-handed. ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... wished a round score of men—in case of natives, buccaneers, or the odious French—and I had the worry of the deuce itself to find so much as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke of fortune brought me the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suddenly exclaimed. "We are having the deuce of a time at the school. Right in our quarters, ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... wish no excuses, and I will add that unless an attempt is made on my life before ten o'clock to- night, you lose your place. The French people must be kept interested in this performance, and how the deuce it is to be done without advertising I don't know. Go, and remember that I shall be at home to assassins on Thursdays of alternate weeks until ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... what the deuce she hopes about," the young merchant said to himself as she closed the door behind her. "Hopes I'll marry her, I suppose. She must be of a very sanguine disposition. A girl like that might be invaluable down at Bedsworth. If we had no other ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... out upon the Arno. What course we took I hardly remember, but we roamed slowly about for an hour, my companion delivering by snatches a sort of moon-touched aesthetic lecture. I listened in puzzled fascination, and wondered who the deuce he was. He confessed with a melancholy but all-respectful ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... and possibly being put out of commission. But an Outsider, a government official, I think, who was on his way to Nome as a passenger with the Mail Team, was pretty sore about it. Said 'it was a deuce of a country where the dogs slept in beds and the men ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... his heels in a preposterous gesture of ecstasy. Then caught her hand, slipped the braided ring over that plain circle of gold which had been on her finger for fifty-four minutes, kissed it—and the palm of her hand—and said, "You never can escape me! Eleanor, your voice played the deuce with me. I rushed home and read every poem in my volume of Blake. Go on; ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... what the deuce are you doing here?" one asked angrily. "Don't you know nobody is allowed to pass through ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... he said. "I guess she'll have her little sick spells, as they all do, and it'll help wonderfully to have someone to call on. There's her teeth now," anxiously, "they'll be coming through in a few months, and then there'll be the deuce ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... given by the Brigade Commander. Who the deuce are you, young man, to dispute it?" thundered ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... to be come a plutocrat and gentleman of landed estate. And also how I, who never did a stroke of work in my life, am overburdened with wealth; whilst the children of the men who made that wealth are slaving as their fathers slaved, or starving, or in the workhouse, or on the streets, or the deuce knows where. What do you think of that, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... players and then turn up the next card for trumps; if the trump turned up is the same suit as the last, the dealer must give another three cards until a different suit turns up trumps. In playing this game the ace is the highest card and the deuce ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... wooer cam down the lang glen, And sair wi' his love he did deave me: I said there was naething I hated like men; The deuce gae wi'm to believe me, believe me, The deuce gae ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... colonel Tamper, and the plighted hnsband of Mdlle. Florival.—G. Colman, sen., The Deuce ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... "And who the deuce is Mr. Hudson?" asked Rowland. But he was absorbed; he lost her immediate reply. The statuette, in bronze, something less than two feet high, represented a naked youth drinking from a gourd. The attitude was perfectly simple. The lad was squarely planted on his ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... nothing to him, had no proper business in his mind. He tried to think of the other women whom he had loved and remembered, or of the more numerous ones still whom he had loved only to forget. Well, he had lived a man's life, and the deuce of it was that women should have come into it at all. He had never wanted sentiment in the abstract, he told himself half angrily; he was bored to death by the deadly routine of what in his own mind he alluded to as "the business of love." It ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... too hard when ye come on deck in the middle watch ye may give her the stunsails; it'll look more ship-shape, and as if we were in a hurry to make the coast and get our cargo aboard, if we happen to be overhauled by anybody in the same line of business, and the deuce of a fear have I now of outsailing any of them that may happen to be in the neighbourhood. Keep a sharp look-out, Mr Pierrepoint, and if anything heaves in sight, either ahead or astern, during your watch, give me a call. I'm going below to ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... of the first water received a sad downfall when we were first asked by a kind friend, what the deuce we came home for? We had a good many becauses ready, but he overturned them altogether; so we had resort to the usual resource of men in such a position: we said, "There was a barrier of ice across Wellington ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... while they're having tea," said the First Lieutenant. "But how the deuce they're going to get ashore the Lord knows. I'll have to hoist in the boats if it gets any worse. Keep an eye on the compass and see we aren't dragging." The Captain came ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... said, with knitted brow, as he perused the document; and, after a pause, "Then what the deuce has become of William? What kind of ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... universally felt that the stoppage was an unusual one, and windows went down with a clatter along the carriages while heads were put out inquiringly. Every kind of voice demanded to be told where they were, and why they were stopping, and what the deuce the Company meant by it—inquiries met by a guard, who walked slowly along the line, with the diplomatic evasiveness which marks the official dislike to admit any ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... said Sir Langham, "and I'm in it every night this voyage, for I've knocked off morphia and opiates—they were playing the deuce with my constitution, and I've strength of mind for anything when I fairly take hold. But it's awful. When d'you suppose ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... he, "King of Dublin, you are in luck. There's the Danes moidhering us to no end. Deuce run to Lusk wid 'em! and if any one can save us from 'em, it is this gentleman with the goat-skin. There is a flail hangin' on the collar-beam, in hell, and neither Dane nor ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... "I wish Arend had let the horse go to the deuce. It was not worth following into a place ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... that voice before," said Holmes staring down the dimly lighted street. "Now, I wonder who the deuce that could have been?" ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... what the deuce will come next,' said Sam to himself, throwing the skull amongst the rest of ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... years his senior! Did she really believe that he, according to her own estimation a man in the prime of life, had no other claims upon existence than to possess a home, in other words to have a housekeeper, who would make him soups, and a nurse who would wrap his rheumatic limbs in cotton wool. Deuce take it, he was by no means such an invalid. He was still sailing erect, before the wind, with swelling canvas and fluttering streamers. He was no hulk of which wreckers might take possession. If he no longer desired to remain on the high seas, at least he could freely ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... out both hands]. The deuce she is! I am most uncommonly glad to see you, ma'am, under this roof. [Aside to Susan] She don't look very prosperous, Susan: if there's anything that money can get for her, I'll see she has it; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... leave, my dearest Royal Highness, I had not previously noticed that there was any screw loose under your turban. Your conduct so far had led me, I trust not misled me, to believe that your head was screwed on quite safe. But what the deuce are you up to now, if you will allow me ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... who the Deuce you are?" said Chaffery, suddenly tilting his head back so as to look through his glasses instead of over them, and laughing genially. "For thoroughgoing Cheek, I'm inclined to think you take the Cake. Are you the Mr. Lewisham to whom this ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... an hung hissen ovver th' cheer back. Awm sure aw connot tell where all this marchin' is likely to lead us to at last, but aw hooap we shall be all reight, for aw do think ther's plenty o' room to mend even yet, but the deuce on it is,' ther's soa monny different notions abaat what is reight wol aw'm flamigaster'd amang it. Some say drink is the besetting sin; another says 'bacca is man's ruination. One says we're all goin' to the devil becoss we goa to church, an' another says we'st niver goa to heaven ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... devil. I don't mind saying it to you, because you understand the kind of devil she'd be. But Lord! I don't care. It's just her way. She's told me to go to the deuce half a dozen times, but she knows I won't till she comes with me. ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... is all a mass of steam." What in the world does that mean? The man has gone out — if not out on to the Barrier, then certainly into it — into snow-ice, and then he comes back and says that it is all a mass of steam. It seems ridiculous — absurd. I send Sherlock Holmes to the deuce, and watch Hassel with increasing excitement; if he takes any more off — I felt I was blushing, and half turned my head, but there he stopped. Then he picked up a towel, and away we went: out through the pent-house door — it was all I could do to follow him — along the snow tunnel ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... his stock company was swallowed up, he is staking his little all on the play to be given this evening, and will be forced—if it does not succeed—to leave this marvellous scenery, these rich stuffs at a hundred francs the yard, unpaid for. His fourth failure is staring him in the face. But, deuce take it! our manager has confidence. Success, like all the monsters that feed on man, loves youth; and this unknown author whose name is entirely new on the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... British army not to be seen on the surface. There had been private dramas in private drawing-rooms. Some of the older men had been "churned up," as they would say, because this sudden war had meant a leave-taking from women, who would be in a deuce of a fix if anything happened to certain captains and certain majors. Love affairs which had been somewhat complicated were simplified too abruptly by a rapid farewell, and a "God bless you, old girl. ... ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... "Why do I whisper? Deuce take it!" cried Dmitri at the top of his voice. "You see what silly tricks nature plays one. I am here in secret, and on the watch. I'll explain later on, but, knowing it's a secret, I began whispering like a fool, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... remain at home cleaning and pounding seed; they are both getting weaker every day; the cold plays the deuce with us, from the small amount of clothing we have: my wardrobe consists of a wide-awake, a merino shirt, a regatta shirt without sleeves, the remains of a pair of flannel trousers, two pairs of socks in rags, and a waistcoat, of which I have managed to keep ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... nothing more except some butter that we hadn't the nerve to tackle single-handed, and some salt and a bottle of ketchup and the toothpicks. We went at the toothpicks again; until Frosty got a splinter stuck between his teeth, and had a deuce of a ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... you a kick or a half-penny, whichever you like. You will find some who have neither husband nor lover. Certain females have a lover and no husband. Ugly women have a husband and no lover. But to meet with a woman who, having one husband and one lover, keeps to the deuce without trying for the trey, there is the miracle, you see, you greenhorns, blockheads, and dolts! Now then, put the true character of this virtuous woman on the tablets of your memory, go your ways, and let me ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... imports for the current half-year, had prevented the drain of gold, had made all that matter right about the glut of the raw material, and had restored all sorts of balances with which the superseded noblemen and gentlemen had played the deuce - and all this, with wheat at so much a quarter, gold at so much an ounce, and the Bank of England discounting good bills at so much per cent.! He might be asked, he observed in a peroration of great power, what were his principles? His principles were what they always ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... "The deuce you can!" said the jockey, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and staring at me through ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... conclusion, "but her father is inclined to be a little old-fogyish, thinks we are too young for any definite engagement, and wants me to be permanently established in some business before we are married, and all that; when I can't see what in the deuce is the difference so long as I have plenty of stuff. So the upshot of it all was that he and his wife took Grace to Europe, and they're not coming back until the holidays, and if, by that time, we have neither of us changed our minds, and I am ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... right, Skipper. We have. I guess we'll just have to grit our teeth and wait—gee—three years, anyway, till I'm twenty-one! That's the deuce of a long time, isn't it? Lord, why wasn't I born five years before you? Then it would be O. K. Loads of girls are ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... atomic structures are so juggled that they are no longer affected by the gun, all the forces of magnetism, which usually are immune to the atomic stream, are rendered liable to disruption by it. We could not destroy Leider's cable, but we could play the deuce with its ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... studied—what were his plans? Had he ever been abroad? No. Strange! The artists nowadays neglected travel. 'But you go! Beg your way, paint your way—but go! Go before the wife and the babies come! Matrimony is the deuce. Don't you agree with me, Philip?' He laid a familiar ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... corner before he turned. Mr. Wynne was idling along, half a block away, without the slightest apparent interest in what was happening behind. Inevitably Mr. Birnes' eyes were drawn to the water-plug across the street. A tag end of white paper gleamed tantalizingly. Now what the deuce did it mean? ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... he cried, "what a fool I am to be sure! I ought to have cut John, not Jack. However, it don't signify. Nobody ever called me John, that I recollect. So I dare say I was christened Jack. Deuce take it! I was very near spelling my name with ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "Deuce take the Witch of Endor and you also. There's a shilling. Go and drink yourself into a more cheery ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... "where the mischief have you been for the last two days, and what have you been doing with yourself? I heard that you got back from Point Levi—though how the deuce you did it I can't imagine—and that you'd gone off on horseback nobody knew where. I've been here fifty times since I saw you last. Tell you what, Macrorie, it wasn't fair to me to give me the slip this ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... "The deuce you are," said he. "No, you're not, boy. If I catch you down there I'll play the game as you've mapped it out for me. I'll grab Jerry's axe or pitchfork and run amuck, blest if I don't. You'll wake up and find ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Flamby's hand more firmly under his arm. "You would have made a deuce of a boy," he said. "I wonder if we should have ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... repeated Tom, puffing unconsciously. "Pickle was a good fellow, but he had the deuce of an eye for a girl. Do you remember—" He stopped short, and saw the man and the photograph looking at each other. Too late, he unhappily remembered that he had meant, and forgotten, to take that photograph out of the room ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... Deuce take the foolish woman with her dreams! Was anything so preposterous ever heard of? I must go and ask the help of ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... people of Baalbek, is food enough for tattle, and cause enough for persecution. Potent are the ruffles of the Church! But why, we can almost hear the anxious Reader asking, if the camels are ready, why the deuce don't they get on and get them gone? But did we not say once that Khalid is slow, even slower than the law itself? Nevertheless, if this were a Novel, an elopement would be in order, but we must repeat, it is not. We are faithful transcribers of the truth as we find ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... am tired to death of it: I have heard nothing this morning but Arenta's wedding. Why the deuce! should my house be turned upside down and inside out for Arenta's wedding? Women have been married before Arenta Van Ariens, and women will be married after her. What is ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... Only, I'm in a deuce of a mess," frankly and directly. "Innocently enough, I've stuck my head into ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... or what does any one else care about society? My motto is, Every one for himself, and the deuce take the hindmost. And that's the ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... "What the deuce made me agree to this trip, I don't know," the American declared. "It was vile. I've been carsick, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... game, and when we had played nine more deuces I communicated the intelligence to Joan. Meanwhile, the other sets had all finished, and the players came up to see why we were still hard at it. At the twenty-fourth deuce the Tournament secretary remarked: "Last game, I suppose? Hurry up, we can't get on." I explained to him that this was only the first game of the set, and that similar prolongations were likely to recur when my partner served in the third game and I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... "Now what the deuce can it mean," he asked, vexedly. "Not only what did the fellow mean who did this, but what did he mean," pointing at the dead man, "by having so many portraits ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... Deuce take it! Was not this passion for similarity enough to madden one? Must everything be tainted by this damned, regular, grinding drill, this parade-march sort of principle? Must things everywhere run smoothly and according to rule, just in order that the authorities ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... "Why the deuce, then, didn't you put your head under the grate, and burn that too? You have burnt the will, that's clear: the will which would have made you the richest woman in Maryland. With those 'records of the past,' which my old ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... had come the thunderbolt. And then, while he was still dazed and furious, his grandfather had tried to convince him that he had done him a deuce of a good turn ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... hundred pounds, I couldn't fancy what the deuce and all he meant by such prattle. I was half afraid he might be having me on, as I have known him do now and again when he fancied he could get me. I fearfully wanted to ask questions. Again I saw the dark, absorbed face of the gipsy ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... 'What the deuce do you want?' I began angrily; then, as he raised his weak, watery eyes to mine, and I saw that his grey hairs were as wet as his boots, I relented. Perhaps he was someone who knew my wife or her people, and wanted to condole with her over the death of her baby. He looked ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... "The deuce they do!" Sebastian cried. However, he had such confidence in Nurse Wade's judgment that he bought a couple of hawks and tried the treatment on them. Both birds took considerable doses, and, after a period of insensibility extending to several hours, woke ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... alludes to the story of the times:—a contemporary wit has recorded this literary injury, by repeating it.[342] And Swift, who once exclaimed to Pope, "The deuce take party!" was himself the greatest sinner of them all. He, once the familiar friend of Steele till party divided them, not only emptied his shaft of quivers against his literary character, but raised the horrid yell of the war-whoop in his inhuman ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... much, for he soon came to himself, and was sure to make them some present or other—some said in proportion to his anger; so that the sexton, who was a bit of a wag (as all sextons are, I think), said that the vicar's saying, "The Devil take you," was worth a shilling any day, whereas "The Deuce" was a shabby sixpenny speech, only fit for ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... deuce he does!—but I want to get at his views in relation to the present state of the Ottoman Empire. Tell him the Houses of Parliament have met, and that there has been a speech from the throne, pledging England to preserve the ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... "The deuce it is!" exclaimed the former. "I thought I owed this unexpected pleasure to your affectionate desire to let me know I had inherited the empty honours ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... de Longueville had for some time been an honored prisoner at the English court, held as a hostage from Louis XII, but de Longueville was a blockhead, who could not keep his little black eyes off our fair ladies, who hated him, long enough to tell the deuce of spades from the ace of hearts. So Brandon was taken from his duties, such as they were, and placed at the card table. This was fortunate at first; for being the best player the king always chose him as his partner, and, as in every other game, the king always won. If he lost there would soon ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... "The deuce you did!" says he. "Just like Warrie to do that, though. But, if I know Miss Prentice at all, she will pay him back for ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... regular customers of the Baker Street to Victoria route, and when they recognized him he became purple with content. A short youth was making notes near a tank in the corner. Mr. Trew, nudging Gertie, went to him and, in a gruff voice, asked what the deuce he was doing there; the youth turned to give ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... small and oblong in shape. Ours is very rotten, and has a big hole burnt in the top as well as a large rent at one end. These we have, however, patched up to our satisfaction and comfort. As we are here for the deuce knows how long, the beloved army red tape and routine is coming into ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... "The deuce, but you're interesting," laughed the young engineer, sniffing at the odors of cooking supper. "I'm as hungry as ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... should have known it anywhere. I think you've caught the likeness most wonderfully!" i.e., "Why the deuce doesn't he tell one whom ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... class of men belonging to these soul-forsaken years: Third-rate canvassers, collectors, journalists and auctioneers. They are never very shabby, they are never very spruce — Going cheerfully and carelessly and smoothly to the deuce. Some are wanderers by profession, 'turning up' and gone as soon, Travelling second-class, or steerage (when it's cheap they go saloon); Free from 'ists' and 'isms', troubled little by belief or doubt — Lazy, purposeless, and useless — knocking ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... yelling down conscription, by millions of units belonging to the civilized nations of such social and racial divergence that the mind is staggered by the conception of them all fighting under one banner. But are we sure they are all fighting for the same thing? If they're not, there will be the deuce to pay all over the terrestrial globe, even with a crushed ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... offering a brown hand to Colin Whitford, who took it reluctantly, with the same wariness a boxer does that of his opponent in the ring. His eyes said plainly, "What the deuce are you doing here, sitting in my favorite chair, smoking one of my imported cigars, wearing my clothes, ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... had an idee," said the half-breed, presently, in a smooth voice that penetrated the mighty vibrations of the falls, "ez how a chap on a log could paddle roun' this yere eddy fer a deuce of a while afore he'd hev to git sucked out ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... repeated. "Deuce take me if I had not forgotten! Excuse me," he continued, "necessity compels me to make ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... I ever saw in my life!" he panted. "But, you young scaramouch! what the deuce d'you mean by stopping ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... her? Well, you've something to live for, gentlemen. I've seen her but three times and I don't seem able to shake off the spell. Her sisters, you know—the married ones—are nothing to look at, and the Grand Duke isn't a beauty by any means. How the deuce she happens to produce such a contrast I can't, for the life of me, understand. Nature does some marvellous things, by George, and she certainly spread herself on the Princess Genevra. You've never seen such hair. 'Gad, it's as near like the kind that Henner painted ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... groan over the wire. "Hang Josie!" says he. "See here, McCabe, I've had a deuce of a time with that case. Must have been something wrong with the address, ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... Oberville? John Oberville? Here? To-day at five o'clock? Let me see—let me look at the list. Are you sure you're not mistaken? Why, she never said a word! Why the deuce didn't you tell me? ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... carefully, and suggests that he has some mischievous weapon of liberty stowed away somewhere. He presses and presses his hands to his skirts and bosom. And now he knew he was not mistaken, for he feels something solid in the bosom of his shirt, which is not his heart, although that thing makes a deuce of a fluttering. Mr. M'Fadden's anxiety increases as he squeezes his hands over its shapes, and watches the changes of Harry's countenance. "Book, ha'h!" he exclaims, drawing the osnaburg tight over the square with his left hand, while, with his right, he suddenly grasps Harry firmly ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... have you been to-day? Things have been all going to the deuce. Why didn't you hinder these boys from sweein' the gate off ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... the—what the deuce!" he protested, impatiently. "Don't interrupt me now! Well, I went on down the street. The members of the Stock Exchange were coming out of 'the house,' and making up little groups on the pavement. They do business inside, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... my supper, dear mother?" said Agricola, gayly. "The deuce! you won't excuse me for keeping the nice little supper waiting that you get ready for me, for fear ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... 'Now, deuce take him that first good prologue writ: He left a kind of rent-charge upon wit, Which, if succeeding poets fail to pay, They forfeit all they're worth, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to try it. It ain't neighborly. Think of the lean years we've known. You can't do it. This war won't last forever—" Mr. Doolittle's voice was tinged with regret—"and it will be time enough to go in for playing the deuce with business when business gets slack again. That's the time for ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... "The deuce you do," Cuthbert exclaimed; "what on earth put such an idea into your head? Why, man, the idea is absurd! If it was a forgery it must have been done by Brander, and what possible motive could he have ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... necessary to my plan, and as conveniently admissible in this place as afterwards;—namely, the account of the manner in which Scott—whom we shall always find, as aforesaid, to be in salient and palpable elements of character, of the World, worldly, as Burns is of the Flesh, fleshly, and Byron of the Deuce, damnable,—spent his Sunday. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... doesn't it—a kind of Nonconformist business? I think she's the very finest. A fellow'd hold himself up, 'd be a deuce of a swell—and, hang it all, I ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... young men; they have been ruined by light wines and French quadrilles. "They've nothing," he says, "of the spirit of the old service. There are none of your six-bottle men left, that were the souls of a mess-dinner, and used to play the very deuce among the women." ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... you she was a kind girl. She's trying to pull old Charlie up a peg or two. He's had the deuce of a facer, ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... are the deuce—" he began; when suddenly the great bell of the Castle started to ring furiously, and a loud shout ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... consummate filial, and he so bloated up with honour. They'll never wed, I'm clear, unless the governor's by to bless 'em; and as to managing that, and the cutting-adrift scheme too, one kills the other. How the deuce to do it? Eh—do I see ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... my dear fellow!" cried I, "can this possibly be you? What the deuce have you been doing with yourself? You look as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... that you are! How the deuce was I to get one? "Opportunity makes the thief." I find myself surprised by the hunt in the middle of the forest; I go and hide in that cursed Gazeau Tower; I see my turtle-doves coming; I overhear a conversation that might make one die of laughing, and ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... "Yes—deuce take it! I have no other alternative." He walked to the fireplace and warmed himself, humming the fag end of a tune in a rich convivial bass voice. "What does your side say?" he went on; "now pray tell me—what does your ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... never saw such rubbish in your life. And then"—he went on, plaintively enough—"I lose the things, you know; put 'em into a drawer, or with a lot of other manuscripts and papers, and I can't lay my hands on 'em when they are sent for, and then, oh, goodness! there's the deuce and all to pay; for I can assure you that no mother thinks more of her first-born baby than a young author thinks of his first play, and if you are not of the same opinion he regards you as the biggest idiot in the world." "Well, but," I ventured to remark—"why ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... "I don't care a deuce of a lot what you say or what you don't say, nor even what you think," he flung at them angrily, with his hand on the knob. "I have my own row to hoe. I'm going to hoe it my own style. And that's all there is to it. If ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... deuce was all this to me, you know? and how awkward I felt, held by the button there, to rejudge Mr. Montenero's acts! I had nothing for it but my snuff-box. But Baldwin's a mere clerk—cannot guess at the feelings of a gentleman. Mr. Montenero, I observed, looked down upon Baldwin ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... he promptly rejoined. "This sea air give; one the very deuce of an appetite; and I confess to feeling ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the dizzy limit," Lawanne observed, when the tea and some excellent sandwiches presently appeared. "He bought another rifle the other day—paid forty-five bones for it. That makes four he has now. And they have to manage like the deuce to keep themselves in grub from one remittance day to the next. He's a study. You seldom run across such a combination of physical perfection and child-like irresponsibility. He was complaining about his limited income the other ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... "What the deuce does she want of me now?" It was with this somewhat ungracious exclamation that he tossed away his cousin Adeline's missive. The gesture might have indicated that he meant to take no notice of her; nevertheless, after a day had elapsed, he presented himself before ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... I think, Rafael? You're young and you're handsome, and you've been abroad. Why don't you make a try for her, if only to prick the bubble of her conceit and show her there are people here, too. They say she's mighty good-looking, and, what the deuce! It wouldn't be so hard. When she finds out ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sort o' horrible, that catches at the breath, To visualize some two score babes most foully done to death; To see their fright, their struggles—to watch their lips turn blue— There ain't no use denyin', it will raise the deuce with you. O yes, God bless the President—he's an awful row to hoe, An' God grant, too, that peace with honor hand in hand may go, But let's not call men "rotters," 'cause, while we are standing pat, They lose their calm serenity, an' ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... does," he chuckled, once more raising the glasses. "You've put on seventeen pounds, too,—besides a special chunk of 120, or thereabouts, which you gained the night of the rescue. That's some record, boy! See here," he asked quickly, "who the deuce are those people, anyway! One has a mighty familiar look!" And I could hardly keep from laughing as ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... 'The deuce you did,' said Vandeloup, in surprise, taking a seat, 'then he was the liveliest dead man I ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Fairfax, suddenly uncomfortable. "Why, he's lost in the wood. He's alone on a desert isle. What the deuce is he doing here?" ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... right in one situation would be wrong in another. Possessing a pair-royal, it is generally advisable to lay out the other cards for crib, unless it belongs to the adversary. Avoid giving him two fives, a deuce and a trois, five and six, seven and eight, five and any other tenth card. When he does not thereby materially injure his hand, the player should for his own crib lay out close cards, in hope of making a sequence; or two of a suit, in expectation ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... to fetch and carry like a dog. Like as not, if the mate sends him after his quadrant, on the way he is met by the captain, who orders him to pick some oakum; and while he is hunting up a bit of rope, a sailor comes along and wants to know what the deuce he's after, and bids him be off to ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... as they went towards the carriage. "How extraordinary!" he said. "She couldn't have it from Peter. He tells nothing. Where the deuce did she get it, and is it so?" Then he said: "Senator Van Brunt Pell," with a roll on all the r's. "That sounds well. I wonder if ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... I am not Methusaleh," I replied; "but if you mean that you are falling in love with Heda, why the deuce don't you say so, instead of wasting my ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... Sea Puss is found, Cat-like, forever chasing round and round. She has no claws, but crouching sly and low She stealthily puts out her undertow. And when an old seadog comes in her way I'll warrant you there is the deuce ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... the world go as it lists. It must go well, for most people are content with it. If I knew history enough, I should prove to you that evil has always come about here below through a few men of genius, but I do not know history, no more than I know anything else. The deuce take me, if I have learnt anything, or if I find myself a pin the worse for not having learnt anything. I was one day at the table of the minister of the King of——, who has brains enough for four, and he showed as plain as one and one make two, that nothing ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... into the room in a hurry. He was not in the best of humors; why the deuce couldn't Fraser manage without dragging him there? He had carte blanche as to ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... lawyer was but just disbarred for some malpractice; and the discovery added excessively to my disquiet. Here was a rascal without money or the means of making it, thrust out of the doors of his own trade, publicly shamed, and doubtless in a deuce of a bad temper with the universe. Here, on the other hand, was a man with a secret; rich, terrified, practically in hiding; who had been willing to pay ten thousand pounds for the bones of the Flying Scud. I slipped insensibly into a mental ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... "What the deuce brought you here, then?" he asked, in a more composed voice, putting his weapon back into his bosom. "Can't a gentleman live quietly without your coming to peep and pry? Have you no business of your own to look after, eh? And my daughter? how came you to know ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... advance no pretension to compete with the claim of that "literary man" who became immortal by dint of one dinner with a bishop, and in right of that last glass poured out for him in sign of amity by "Sylvester Blougram, styled in partibus Episcopus, necnon the deuce knows what." I do not propose to prove my perception of any point in the character of Hamlet "unseized by the Germans yet." I can only determine, as the Church Catechism was long since wont to bid me, ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne |
