"Devilment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Patrollers" and their horses would fall in sometimes breaking the leg of the horse, arm or leg of the rider; some slaves took advantage of the protection their masters would give them with the overseer or other plantation owners, would do their devilment and "fly" to their masters who did not allow a man from another plantation to bother his slaves. I have known pregnant women to go ten miles to help do some devilment. My mother was a very strong woman ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Robert, "to be made to live on herrings' heads and cold potatoes. It makes my blood boil just to think that he was going to have that lovely looking young girl whipped for his devilment. He ought to be ashamed to hold up his head among ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... clearer, after I have told it all out straight. I must tell you this, though, at the beginning—up to the present moment, I have been utterly and completely 'stumped.' I have tumbled upon one of the most peculiar cases of 'haunting'—or devilment of some sort—that I have come ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... "I've Irish blood in me, old chappie," said he, "and that means a natural taste for amateur conspiracy and general devilment. But don't let's stay jawing here any longer. We're both due for a good jaunt ashore, and there's a bran-new tick here to guarantee us every mortal thing (bar one) which we want. And for that one, which is almost always a ready-money commodity, ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... our last scrimmage, and they must fit some one over that. It's only natural. He was rash, or Starlight would never have dropped him that day. Not if he'd been sober either. We'd been drinking all night at that Willow Tree shanty. Bad grog, too! When a man's half drunk he's fit for any devilment that comes before him. Drink! How do you think a chap that's taken to the bush—regularly turned out, I mean, with a price on his head, and a fire burning in his heart night and day—can stand his life if he don't drink? When he thinks of what he might have been, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... larnin. Ah larnt enough to keep out of devilment and ah knowed how to cook. Now these fools aroun here don' know nothin. They never did see Linktum or Horace Greeley. Ah wishes it wuz work time agin but ah caint ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Lord ain' goin' to fergive me fer all ther devilment I done when I was l'il. You know, Miss Ma'y Ellen, hit take a life er prayer to wipe out ouah transgresshuns. Now, how kin I pray, not to say pray, out yer, in this yer lan'? They ain't a chu'ch in a hunderd mile o' yer, so fer's I kin tell, an' they shoh'ly ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... down hill, Bigot! but, par Dieu! I would not have believed that New France contained two women of such mettle as the one to contrive, the other to execute, a masterpiece of devilment like that!" ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... such devilment becomes more instructive when it has to be discovered through woman witnesses. As a rule, there is no justification for the assumption that people are inclined to excuse whatever they find themselves guilty of. On the contrary, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... "the maniacs who cause all this are not here, but at the place you mentioned just now—at home. These fine fellows are their unhappy tools, who, with untold depths of enthusiasm and kindliness in their nature, and a good deal of devilment too, are compelled, willing or not willing, to fight for what is ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... he was real cold, he jocularly remarked that he wished he was in hell, so that he could warm up. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged. He recanted; he even wrote that he believed the whole business; and that he just said it for pure devilment. It made no difference. They hung him, and his bruised and bleeding corpse was denied to his own mother, who came and besought them to let her take her boy home. That was Scotch Presbyterianism. If the devil had been let loose ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... stylish, an' hold up her dress like that, jest as though she was steppin' over a hot griddle. Purty soon it's dizzle-dazzle an' flippity-floppity an' splendiferous and sewperb, an' the first thing ye know ye ain't knee-high to a grasshopper. Sam he comes back an' tells Ed all about the latest devilment. You hear of it; then, mebbe, ye begin to limber up an' think ye'll try it yerself. An' some morning ye'll wake up an' find yer moral character has scooted. You fellers that go t' meetin' here an' talk about resistin' temptation—if you ever git t' goin' it down there ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... fate had cast him. To sleep with such a slovenly man as the doctor shocked James, who was a bit of a dandy. The doctor seemed perfectly contented with the arrangement; and as he bade Murphy "good night," a lurking devilment hung about his huge mouth. All the men staggered off, or were supported, to their various beds, but one—and he could not stir from the floor, where he lay hugging the leg of the table. To every effort to disturb him he replied with an imploring grunt, to "let him alone," and he hugged the leg ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... "Devilment of some sort, perhaps," he replied. "Since you have all given me a bad name, I dont see why I should make any secret of ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Testament contains the first revelations of God; the New Testament, the last revelations. Our Christian Brother "forgets" to remind the visitor that the difference of opinion regarding these two Testaments of God has caused more sorrow, bloodshed, harm, devilment, misery, and devastation than any other single item in the life and history of the ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... he said. "We will do what we can where Brocky is. But that isn't all of the devilment to-night. Galloway got Florrie away somehow; she was the one riding with him toward the crossroads. It's up to you to ride on and ride like the devil and tell John Engle. . ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... a few of the explosives of mingled fun and devilment that proceeded from a group of ragged urchins, who were busily employed in pelting with hard mud, sods and other missiles, an old and decrepit woman, whose gray hair and infirmities ought to have been her protection, but whose reputation ...
— Ellen Duncan; And The Proctor's Daughter - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... candy soothes and sugar-coated promises entice when the rod should quell and blister. Meanwhile the refractory urchin, with no fear to stimulate his sluggish conscience, chuckles, rejoices and is glad, and bethinks himself of some uninvented methods of devilment. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... motors close above confused his calculations. Why were the Entente airmen flying so low? Might they not be up to more devilment with regard to Appincourte? The ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... "Chip!" flashes out of sight. Be right still now. Don't move. Here he comes again, and his wife with him. They fly down, he all eager and alert to wait upon her, she whining and scolding. She doesn't think it's much of a place for worms. And there's that boy yonder. He's up to some devilment or other, she just knows. She oughtn't to have come away and left those eggs. They'll get cold now, she just knows they will. Anything might happen to them when she 's away, and then he 'll be to blame, for he coaxed her. He knows she told ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... over-fed, and that whilst the plunder of the great ship was new to them he need fear no trouble from his crew. He gave himself up, therefore, to the wine and the riot, shouting and roaring with his boon companions. All three were flushed and mad, ripe for any devilment, when the thought of the woman crossed the pirate's evil mind. He yelled to the negro steward that he should bring ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... so. But same time, while she no notion o' gitt'n' him cotch, she believe she dess djuty-bound to head-off his devilment. 'Tis dess like I heah' Mr. Goshen say to Miss Hahpeh, 'Dis ain't ow own ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... we need of a sheriff, if we get down to the bottom of this devilment? We have got to put it down, and that's all there is to it, as you know very well. There's no two ways about it. These disturbances, most of them due to politics, have upset our whole country. Now, it is for us to set it right again. We've got to cut politics out, and get ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... "we'd put in to water at a place south of the line—Palm Tree Island we whalemen call it, because of the tree at the break of the lagoon. One of my men brought it aboard, found it in a shanty built of sugarcanes which the men bust up for devilment." ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... gotten into his life. That same will-power, that same stubbornness, touched by the power of Christ becomes the rock-ribbed steadfastness that has enabled men to put through great achievements for God. I see a boy who can invent much devilment and get himself and others into an almost incredible amount of trouble and sorrow. It might be the judgment of some that "killing is the only thing good for him," but touched by the spirit of Jesus, that boy becomes ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... where sacks of flour, tea and sugar candy were sold, as well as whisky and emigration tickets. I also remembered my father's opinion of Gorman, old Dan Gorman, the father of the man beside me. He was "one of the worst blackguards in the county, mixed up with every kind of League and devilment." Those were the days when the land agitation was at its height and Irish gentlemen—they were fighting for their existence as a class—felt rather strongly about ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... a short half-mile ahead of us, her deck alive with men, and manifestly ready for some desperate devilment. On her after rail, too, stood that man, tall and erect, his feet steadied by the cavil of the main boom, a spy-glass to his eye, and looking at the rocky lion now close aboard him, still with a cigar in his mouth; and we thought we could even see the thin puffs of smoke ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... (Gestures towards Jim. Dave shakes his head and starts to deny the charge but Simms hurries on.) Wait a minute now! Wait till I git thru. Didn't y'all used to run around everywhere playin' and singing andeverything till you got so full of envy and malce and devilment till y'al broke up? Now, Brother Mayor, make him tell ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... daughters, fathers unruly sons, and everybody their enemies generally, with the Circassian, who, however, unlike the "bogie" of the English household, is a real material presence, popularly understood to be ready for any devilment a person may hire ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleamings on the trees and fields. It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... of deserting as you would,' said he. 'No; he's either fallen into a mischief among the villagers—and yet that isn't likely, for he'd blarney himself out of the Pit; or else he is engaged on urgent private affairs—some stupendous devilment that we shall hear of at mess after it has been the round of the barrack-rooms. The worst of it is that I shall have to give him twenty-eight days' confinement at least for being absent without leave, just when I most want him to lick the new batch of recruits ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... ready ter sta't fer Belleview, dere wuz my clo's layin' on de flo', all muddy an' crumple' up, des lack somebody had wo' 'em in a fight! Somebody e'se had wo' my clo's,—er e'se dere'd be'n some witchcraf, er some sort er devilment gwine on dat I can't make out, ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the Indians were almost all young bucks out for a frolic, but quite ready, officers say, for any kind of devilment. They rode around the post three or four times at breakneck speed, each circle being larger, and taking them farther away. At last they all started for the hills and gradually disappeared—all but one, a sentinel, who could be seen until dark sitting his pony on the highest hill. I ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... my Joe—always full of his devilment, and up to every kind of mischief, but he was just as unselfish and kind as he could be—and laws bless me, to think I went and whipped him for taking that cream, never once recollecting that I throwed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... there's any joke about a bunch of bronchos," she said. "They like to kill just for pure devilment, and when they can make it without risk, their choice of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... came all right—ready to see the crazy Americans' newest devilment—and all set for the feast they knew I'd give! The chief came, with the bunch who act as a staff for him, and I lined them up right in front of the machine in the center of a crowd of two hundred wild men—all about as scared by ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... never did. But your dog is not as ither dogs—'There's none like him—none,' I've heard ye say so yersel, mony a time. An' I'm wi' ye. There's none like him—for devilment." His voice began to quiver and his face to blaze. "It's his cursed cunning that's deceived ivery one but me—whelp o' Satan that he is!" He shouldered up to his tall adversary. "If not him, wha else had done ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... finger-tips together, and looked at me over his glasses. Many a man knows that attitude and that look, and so many a man has been as uncomfortable as I began to be, and has felt as keen a sense of impending trouble. I began immediately searching my memory for some especial brand of devilment that I'd been sampling, but there was nothing doing. I had been losing some at poker lately, and I'd been away to the bad out at Ingleside; still, I looked him innocently in the eye and wondered what ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... sealskin, hair-side inward) were glistening with moisture of melted snow, and his face was red from the rasp of raw wind. He looked as if he had slept in his clothes—which was, undoubtedly, the case. He glared straight at the skipper with a dancing flame of devilment ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... his foot, and it plunged in. But scarcely had it taken two steps and reached the depth of its knees, when, from the intenser cold, or from coming sharply against a submerged stone, or from indignation at the fiddler's prod, or from the occult cause known as pure devilment, it shied up its back legs, and tossed down its tousled head, and pitched the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... and in his worldly matters prospered so much, there was so little sign of devilment in the accomplishment of his wishes, and the increase of his prosperity, that Simon, at the end of six years, began to doubt whether he had made any such bargain at all, as that which we have described at the commencement of this history. He had grown, as we said, very pious ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Boyhood Sports; More Devilment; the Rock Battles; I Hunt Rabbits in My Shirt Tail; My First Experience in Rough Riding; a Question of Breaking the Horse ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... hope for, it was a considerably strong one; she was, then, not so icily cold! How he wished there were some more ridiculous customs in his family! How he wished he might order the servants out of the room, and begin to make love to her all alone. And just out of the devilment which was now in his blood he took the greatest pleasure in "playing the game," and while the solemn footmen's watchful eyes were upon them, he let himself go and was charming to her; and then, each instant they were alone he made himself freeze again, so that she ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... beginnin' it was Jim Barrett's plan, and it had jest enough risk and devilment in it to suit a harum-scarum young feller like me; so we got five of the boys who had good horses, lumped together all of our money, and rode out to ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... persuaded a man belonging to another vessel to go with him and bring them back. They had a tough job, but at midnight of the second day they succeeded in getting them to retrace their way to the ship, the plan being to get aboard when nobody was about. Munroe was a typical sailor, full of devilment, especially when he had had a few glasses of grog. The two "plants" trudged their way conversing with great animation of what they had seen and done and what they intended to do. Ralph was ready to acquiesce in all his officer said as to ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... escape from a wild scrape I beat the sheriff in Colorado into Utah. Then I went home to England in 1908 and took over the title of the estate, and I made the occasion simply one drunken spree. I was out for all the devilment I could get into. I hated the Church. I hated religion. I hated anything good. When I went down to the old church which is in the grounds of the estate, they said to me, 'What will you do about the minister?' I said, 'I would ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman
... Thenard all over," said Duthil. "He is the high priest of modernism. He and all the rest of the neurologists have divided up devilment into provinces, and labelled each province with names all ending in enia or itis. Berselius is a Primitive, it seems; this Balkan prince is—I don't know what they call him—sure to be something Latin, which does not interfere ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... on when you're ready for it. Better leave them night-gowns an' corsets an' such like here. You ain't goin' to find no use for 'em out there amongst the prickly pears an' sage brush. Law me! I don't envy you your trip none! I'd jest like to know what for devilment that Tex Benton's up to. Anyways, you don't need to be afraid of him—like Purdy. But men is men, an' you got to ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... part towards their human neighbours, helping the weak or ill-used, and generally busying themselves with acts of kindness; these were called "brownies." The fairies proper were a merry race, full of devilment, and malicious, tricky, and troublesome, and the cause of much annoyance and fear among the people. Besides these supernatural beings—brownies, fairies, &c.—there existed a belief in persons who were possessed ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... by native depredators. A squatter, far from being allowed to take the law into his own hands, even when he catches the blacks in the act of slaying his cattle—not only for food but as often as not for mere devilment—has to ride into Hall's Creek and report to the police, and so gives time for the offenders to disappear. The troopers, when they do make a capture of the culprits, bring them in on chains, to the police quarters. By the Warden, through a tame boy as interpreter, they are tried, ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... have charge of the Happy Family for long without attaining that state of mental insulation which renders a shock scientifically impossible. The Old Man wrote a check, twisted his mouth into a whimsical knot and inquired mildly: "What's the brand of devilment this time, and how long's it going to take yuh?" With a perceptible emphasis on the ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... on alternate days. Horses are ridiculous creatures. They will eat all sorts of things, even wood, mud, and pieces of coal, as if from sheer cussedness. It can't be because they are hungry, as they get plenty to eat in the way of oats, hay, dry clover, etc. Sometimes, as if from devilment, they will roll in the mud a few minutes after they have been nicely groomed. Some of our regiments have a lot of mules, which are given to fearful brayings—a sound which is a cross between a horse's whinny, a donkey's hee-haw and an elephant's trumpeting. Mules bite and kick ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... Furlong had acted under the influence of terror when poor Augusta, shoved into his bedroom through the devilment of that rascally imp, Ratty, and found there, through the evil destiny of Andy, was flung into his arms by her enraged father, and accepted as his wife. The immediate hurry of the election had delayed ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... a whisper. "I've the same feeling myself. It forebodes, trouble, this silence, to my way of thinking. The Huns are probably hatching up some devilment." ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... moved their glasses; as each, on his inquisitive face, wore the grim, wickedish, half-smile, with which an old stager recalls, in the prowess of his juniors, the pleasant devilment of his ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... with peculiar dispositions. Gentlemen, I was once as lively and happy a little boy as ever did chores on a farm. See me now! This is the result of mixin' women and politics. If I should tell you all the kinds of particular and general devilment (to run 'em alphabetically, as I did to keep track of 'em) that Ann Eliza Scraggs, and Bridget Scraggs, and Belle Scraggs, and Fanny Scraggs, and Honoria and Helen Scraggs, and Isabelle Scraggs, and so on up to zed, raised with me, it would go through any ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... her say, 'Well, you let em beat you' and started cryin'. I cried too and mama said, 'What you cryin' for?' I said, 'Miss Judy's cryin'.' Mama said, 'You fool, you is free!' I didn't know what freedom was, but I know the soldiers did a lot of devilment. Had guards but they just ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... her hands of his interests). Oh, very well. Tell the story yourself, in your own clever way. I only proposed to tell the exact truth. You call that devilment. So it is, I daresay, from a lawyer's point ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... and made a bow general to the company, and a lower one for the benefit of my Lord Brocton, who sat next to the hearth in pride of place and comfort. Some years older than I, but not yet thirty, handsome as a god carved by Phidias, but with drink and devilment already marking him out for a damned soul, he sat there, the idol of that lord-worshipping company. The only vacant chair was on his left. It was Jack's place, earned by his father's guineas, which had remained vacant during ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... truly possessed no real knowledge regarding the man, and was not merely pretending innocence. "I had never heard him called Hawley before, and, therefore, failed to recognize him under that respectable name. But I knew his voice the moment he entered the cabin, and realized that some devilment was afoot. Every town along this frontier has his record, and I've met him maybe a dozen times in the past three years. He is known as 'Black Bart'; is a gambler by profession, a desperado by reputation, and a cur by nature. Just ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... wink. It's they children overhead: they 'm up to some devilment, I know, because Matthew Henry isn't snoring. He always snores when he's asleep, and it shakes the house. I'll ha' gone to see, only I was afeard to disturb 'ee. I'll war'n' they 'm up to some may-games on ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... itself into a problem for Washington to solve," said De Soto darkly. "Nothing local about it, take my word for it. These men were up to some international devilment. I'm not saying that Germany is at the back of it, but, by Jove, I don't put anything beyond the beggars. They are the cleverest, most resourceful people in the world, damn 'em. You wait and see if I'm not right. There'll ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... and a return to slumber without their masks, or, alternatively, to make them wear their masks continously for prolonged hours of expectation, thus subjecting them to much discomfort, depriving them of sleep, lowering their morale, and making them likelier victims for fresh forms of devilment in the morning. War is a filthy thing, and must be stamped out ruthlessly. The facts of gas will have helped to drive this simple conviction into many a thick, egotistical, unsensitive head. But, as ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... ago, or even of John Smith and Pocahontas, as very ancient, but a pedigree of only five hundred years wouldn't entitle a family to enter good society over here. But though only five hundred years in power, this recent dynasty succeeded in doing about as much devilment and as little good as many dynasties much older in years. One of the missionaries explained to me yesterday that it was only when the King got very mad that he would order heads cut off without reason—but then the Koreans are very lazy and his inactivity at other periods ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... I wuz surprised to see no one make a motion at him, but he sunk all the same. "We never waste effort," sed Satan to me; "he carries enough natural cussedness about him, all the time, to sink him, without pilin any devilment on his shoulders wich is ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... was a white preacher. De colored would go to church de same as de whites. He give de colored instructions on obeying Masters. He say, "while your Master is going f'om pillar to post, looking after your intrusts, you is always doing some devilment." I 'spect dat was jest about ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... killing the King of Prussia. As the German officer was so anxious to ascertain what the popular feeling in Paris might be, and whether it favoured further resistance, it occurred to me, in a spirit of devilment as it were, to present him with the aforesaid journals, for which he expressed his heartfelt thanks, and then ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... go much on my judgment—especially now; but I've been here longer than you and"—he lowered his voice slightly and dragged his chair nearer Courtland—"I don't like the looks of things here. There's some devilment plotting among those rascals. They're only awaiting an opportunity; a single flash would be enough to set them in a blaze, even if the fire wasn't lit and smouldering already like a spark in a bale ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... 'piscopalium preacher, an' one time that Vil Holland an' him come ridin' 'long, an' they stopped in fer dinner, an' that Vil Holland, he's allus up to some kind o' devilment er 'nother, he says: 'Ma Watts, why don't yo' hev the kids all babitized?' I hadn't never thought much 'bout hit, but thar wus the preacher, an' he seemed to think mighty proud of hit, an' hit didn't cost nothin', so I tol' him ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... Hoity-toity! and my lady's too grand to cut out your dresses and help to sew them? And what does she do? I venture to say she's fit to teach nothing but devilment—not that she has taught you much, my dear—yet at least. I'll see her, my dear; where is she? Come, let us visit Madame. I should so like to ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... by the sound] Hold you noise! will you? Shove his neckerchief into his mouth if he don't stop. [To the woman] Dont you mind him, maam: he's mad with drink and devilment. I suppose theres no fake about ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... 'Shilly-shally with the wee girls, ha, ha, ha!' at me when I was a wee lad because I was always running after the young girls and sweethearting with them. He never ran after any himself: he was always looking for birds' nests or tormenting people with his tricks. He was a daft wee fellow for devilment, was your Uncle William, and yet he's sobered down remarkably. Sometimes, I think he got more romance out of his tormenting and nesting than I got out of my courting, though love's a grand thing, John, when you can get it. I was always falling in love, but sure what was the good? I never could ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... death. That's Tim himself, that's been doing all the devilment about here. He is the worst ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... on guard at each door, while the other four went through the house; they could hear them yelling and shouting to one another, pulling the furniture about, and every now and then firing off a shot in simple devilment, as if to show their prisoners that they had made sure of their prey and feared no interruption. The baby cried on, and the sunshine stole gradually up the wall; up and up it crept to the ceiling, and the clock ticked noisily on the mantelshelf—but ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt |
