"Presto" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is difficult to repress an emotion of regret in looking at his laborious yet useless life. With great talents, with indefatigable industry, he deluged Europe with paintings that no one cares for, and passed into history simply as Luca Fa Presto,—Luke Work-Fast. ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... this guise; the Sioux, watching; the desert, waiting; death hovering—a sudden death, a violent death, the end of that which had barely begun; an end suspended in sight like the Dionysian sword, with the single hair already frayed by the greedy shears of the Fate. A snap, at our own signal; then presto, change! ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... a private compartment, so that when the time came for the escape to be accomplished he could remove the electric bulbs from the roof of his compartment, open the door, and, when the two came abreast, the assassin could do the same on the other train, and presto! the dead man would be alone. But what to use to overcome the danger of ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... "Batti, batti! I presto ravioli hollandaise," cried one of the disputing waiters at his back—or to Bruce Carmyle's prejudiced hearing ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... something pathetic in this last cadence, and the two boys leaned back and listened to the presto of the Chopin B flat minor Sonata, which Wilkins ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Italian word, meaning "cheerful,'' as in Milton's poem), a term in music to indicate quick or lively time, coming between andante and presto; it is frequently modified by the addition of qualifying words. It is also used of a separate piece of music, or of a movement in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... second reading of it, I give you my word, man to man, I dreaded to turn every page, because it brought the end nearer. If it had been granted to me to have one wish fulfilled that fine winter night, I should have said with humility: "Beneficent Power, string it out by nine more volumes, presto me here a fresh box of cigars, and the account of your kindness, and my ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... went the lights; a heavy hand was placed upon Mr. Mole's head, and hey, presto! his wig was seen dancing about at the ceiling, glittering with a ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... vitamque serenam!) Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas? Quis pariter coelos omneis convertere? et omneis Ignibus aetheriis terras suffire feraceis? Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore presto? Nubibus ut tenebras faciat, coelique serena Concutiat sonitu? tum fulmina mittat, et aedeis Saepe ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... and grows. Again and again its skin splits, and a rather different zoea appears. This happens about once a week, until, hey presto! the spiked zoea is now rather like a Crab. The spikes are gone, and now it has tiny claws, and two eyes at the end of stalks. Yet it still owns a tail. At last this is tucked up under its body, and lo! ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... lie with a latchet; though 'twere Aelian, that long-bow man, that told you so, never believe him, for he lies as fast as a dog can trot. 'Twas in this very island that Pliny, his brother tell-truth, had seen some elephants dance on the rope with bells, and whip over the tables, presto, begone, while people were at feasts, without so much as touching the toping ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... He would take down half a rabbit in two or three fierce gulps, skin, bones, and flesh; and I have known him, when very hungry, to eat a whole one at a meal, which would only take a couple of minutes for him to discuss. It was simply a matter of Hey Presto! and his meal was consumed. If a man could eat in the same proportion, half a sheep would make a meal, while a goose or turkey would only be a snack. Thank goodness, our appetites are less keen, or a fat bullock ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... perpetual skirmish. Earth was shaken like a sieve, buried in snow, bombarded with hail. It rained cats and dogs (if you will pardon my familiarity), and every shower was a waterspout. Why, in Deucalion's time, hey presto, everything was swamped, mankind went under, and just one little ark was saved, stranding on the top of Lycoreus and preserving a remnant of human seed for ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... You send in an order: "The kind of girl that I like is a Methodist without bangs." And some nice girl begins to look up Methodist tenets and buys invisible hairpins and side combs. Or you say, "Give me an athletic girl." And, presto! some girl who would much rather read buys a wheel, and learns golf, and lets out the waists to her gowns, and revels in tan and freckles. We do what you men want us to. And, then, when you complain about our lack ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... admiring the clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine. In a twinkling the three shingles of thought are transformed into fishes of thought in a stream into which the hermit and the philosopher gently and reverently wade, without scaring or disturbing them. Then, presto! the fish become a force, like the pressure of a tornado that nearly wrecks his cabin! Surely this is tipsy rhetoric, and the work that can stand much of it, as "Walden" does, has a plus vitality that is ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... that it was not true that Trampy, that ungrateful cur, whom he, Pa, had picked out of the gutter, was going to steal his Lily! That damned Jim Crow! Pa, in his fury, bought a revolver to scatter the footy rotter's brains with, but Trampy received the tip from Tom and vanished, hey, presto, leaving no trace, allowing no sign of himself to crop up anywhere. Pa's rage ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... harkye, Pisistratus—look at him, brother, simple as he stands there, I think he is born with a silver spoon in his mouth—harkye, now to the mysteries of speculation. Your father shall quietly buy the land, and then, presto! we will issue a prospectus and start a company. Associations can wait five years for a return. Every year, meanwhile, increases the value of the shares. Your father takes, we say, fifty shares at L50 each, paying only an instalment of L2 a share. He sells 35 shares at cent per cent. He keeps ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... or a soul that a person has stashed about him somewhere—something that he can send out to take control of another human being. But I, personally, prefer the telepathic projection theory. All you have to do is squirt your thoughts across space and spray them all over the other fellow's brain. Presto-bingo, he does pretty much what you ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... il maggiore Saylor, il quale ripete il sentimento suo e dei suoi colleghi concorde con quello dei populo italiano. Wilson-esclama-ha lasciato il cervello in America; se non avvera in lui un rinsavimento dovra presto fare un triste ritorno pensando agli ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... somewhere—something that he can send out to take control of another human being. But I, personally, prefer the telepathic projection theory. All you have to do is squirt your thoughts across space and spray them all over the fellow's brain. Presto-bingo, he does pretty much what ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a walk about Savannah, which city has many splendid live-oaks in its parks and squares, involved me in a sudden shower, when, presto! the weeping willow of the North was reincarnated before my eyes, for the falling rain turned the dingy moss pendants of the live-oak to the whitish green that makes the willow such a delightful color-note in early spring. I have been ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... and explore my entire body, running here and there and everywhere about me, sometimes tickling me with their sharp little claws until I, too, was forced into making a tour of discovery, in order to bring them once more to the light. But let a stranger enter the room, and, presto! they were gone in the twinkling of an eye. I left home on one occasion and was gone for two months. When I came to my room and sat down at my desk, I looked about for my little pets, and could not see them. I had come to the conclusion ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... circumstance among correspondents with whom stationery was scarce and greenbacks were not over-plenty. One sultry day in June, the Commandant builded a fire, and gave these letters a warming; and lo! presto! the white spaces broke out into dark lines breathing thoughts blacker than the fluid that wrote them. Corporal Snooks whispered to his wife, away down in Texas, "The forthe of July is comin', Sukey, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... my success is certain; I think you'll say so when I draw the curtain, And, presto! place before your wond'ring eyes A race of beings that must 'cite surprise; The strangest compound truth and contradiction Owe to dame Nature, or the pen of Action; Where wit and folly, pride and modest ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... to be understood, especially when one thinks and lives gangasrotogati [Footnote: Like the river Ganges: presto.] among those only who think and live otherwise—namely, kurmagati [Footnote: Like the tortoise: lento.], or at best "froglike," mandeikagati [Footnote: Like the frog: staccato.] (I do everything to be "difficultly understood" myself!)—and one should be heartily grateful for the good ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... "Hi, presto!" muttered Punch. "That's what the conjuror said," he continued to himself, "and it means, ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... the Place de la Pucelle, and examine the carving on the houses, and on the Hotel Bourgtheroude, before the great Parisian conjuror waves his wand once more. But, hey presto! down they come, in a street hard by—even whilst we write, a great panel totters to the ground—heraldic shields, with a border of flowers and pomegranates, carved in oak; clusters of grapes and diaper patterns of rich design, emblems of old nobility—all in ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... has stood so unabashed in front of these awful forms. One almost envies him the truly childlike faith with which he waves his hand to these Alps, and says, "Be ye removed, and east into the sea"; but the feeling is exchanged for another, when he seems to rub his eyes, and exclaim, "Presto, they are gone sure enough!" while you still feel that you stand far within the ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a modest substance in the funds. A score of years are blown away. He is young Leopold. There, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old house in Clanbrassil street to the high school, his booksatchel on him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... was more watchful than he suspected. Hardly was the Winchester raised when, presto! the warrior disappeared. He had flung himself far on the other side of his pony, and was capable of maintaining that situation while making ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... here awhile. (To audience, pointing to Palaestrio.) Look yonder, please, how he stands with serried brow in anxious contemplation. His fingers smite his breast; I trow, he fain would summon forth his heart. Presto, change! His left hand he rests upon his left thigh. With the fingers of his right he reckons out his scheme. Ha! He whacks his ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... le cose cosi ben disposte, che durara poca fattica in ottener quel tanto si desidera per Sua Beatitudine, anzi havera piu presto da ringratiar quella Maesta Christianissima di cosi buona et sant' opera, ha fatto far, che da durare molta fatica in persuaderli l' unione con la Santa Chiesa Romana (Cusano to the Emperor, Rome, Sept. 6). Sereno (Comment. della guerra di Cipro, p. 329) understands the mission ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... said, 'must remain in hiding behind the tree. You will hear me knock, accost the ruffians and hold them in conversation. The moment you hear me exclaim loudly, "Hey, Presto! Pots and Pans", you will dart out and engage the villains at fisticuffs. ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... and above the new wood ceiling there was a long loft for a storeroom, lighted by skylights in the roof. That loft above the rafters, thought the provident Wilson, will come in braw and handy for storing things, so it will. And there, hey presto! the transformation was achieved, and Wilson's Emporium stood before you. It was crammed with merchandise. On the white flapping slant of a couple of awnings, one over each window, you might read in black letters, "JAMES WILSON: EMPORIUM." The letters of "James Wilson" ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... said he'd done it well, And presto! his head began to swell; Bigger and bigger the poor thing grew— A wonder it didn't split in two. In size a balloon could scarcely match it; He needed a fishing-pole to scratch it;—- But six and a half was ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... the vivacity of his mind was such, that he could not study above ten minutes at a time. "La testa mi rompa. My head is like to break," said he. "I can never write my lively ideas with my own hand. In writing, they escape from my mind. I call the Abbe Guelfucci, Allons presto, pigliate li pensieri. Come quickly, take my thoughts; and he ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... gone! I've released the spring—the pellet has been discharged—it has struck against the roof of the glass box—it has been broken by the contact,—and, hey presto! the cat lies dead,—and that in face of its nine lives. You perceive how still it is,—how still! Let's hope that, now, it's really happy. The cat which I choose to believe is Paul Lessingham's has received its quietus; in the morning I'll send it back to ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Joe, working separately, but with a common end in view. Oh, it was rich—but you must know the foc'sle mind to understand how rich we thought it was. It was nothing subtle, nothing above our heads. Newman made us laugh, at the mate's expense, and—presto!—impending tragedy was ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... a surprising interest in statistics—the populations of cities, crops, politics, and every other form of European what-not—and kept Storri answering questions like a school-boy. Thereafter, Storri was no sooner in the Harley house when, presto! from over the way our pythoness sweeps in. Bess was there before the servant had taken Storri's hat. This disturbing fortune depressed him; he attributed it to ill luck, never once observing that the instant he appeared, Dorothy's black ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the chance. Bad manners? Better than that. You are of the military profession, sir, I see. I am a soldier, fresh from Monte Video. Italian, it is evident, under an Italian chief there. A clerk on a stool, and hey presto plunged into the war a month after, shouldering a gun and marching. Fifteen battles in eighteen months; and Death a lady at a balcony we kiss hands to on the march below. Not a bit more terrible! Ah, but your pardon, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... But you, too, friend, do your part now, and write, As he desires. All that is needed now Is but the pretext, but the outer form. As soon as those two words are in his hands, Presto, the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Hey, presto! the whole room showed greenish, and there was a curtain of leaves over the window! Another bean had grown in the night, and Jack was up it like a lamp-lighter ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... reality only a harsh horn accompanied by a concertina or some other stupid instrument jangling vile music. The young boys and girls were all a common, stupid lot, and the odour of the stock yards permeated the room. But when the mystical music begins again, and the dance starts, presto! change, and I am again floating in rhythmic space and the faces and dim lights have changed ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... Thirty-five short years, and presto! the newborn art of telephony is fullgrown. Three million telephones are now scattered abroad in foreign countries, and seven millions are massed here, in the land of ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... petulance. I sulked and sobbed, and he fondled and soothed until I began to brighten. He seized the propitious moment, placed three hats upon the carpet, and a shilling under each; the shillings, he told me, were England, France, and Spain. 'Hey, presto, cockolorum!' cried the doctor, and, lo! on uncovering the shillings, they were all found congregated under one. I was no politician at the time, and therefore might not have wondered at the sudden revolution ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... get to Weymouth. Mr. Barclay, if you have any letters for your friends there, I shall be happy to carry them. Only let them be given to my woman in time," added her ladyship, rising; "and now I must go and say vivace! presto! prestissimo! to her preparations. Well, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... wish to congratulate him on the best story he has ever written! "The Flying City" was the same thing all over again. The world in danger and suddenly our magnificent hero comes along, takes a hand, and presto the danger is all over. Of course, he has to meet the beautiful girl and fall in love with her, and at the end of the story marry her! Remember, history repeats itself. Have you ever heard of the world being ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... laughed. "I simply open a closet door, sweep everything off the hooks and toss them into a trunk. Then I get Felice to jump on the lid with me, and—presto! the trick is done, Madame!" and she laughed and shrugged her shoulders in pretty little ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... fair lady promised to pay him ten thousand a year, in quarterly installments of $2,500, if he would consent to be her idle rich husband. This he did until Mrs. Dow II. found out that hubby was indulging in clandestine meetings with Mrs. Dow I., and presto, change! the allowance suddenly ceased. After a few months of separation from his bank roll, having become accustomed to an easily earned income, Mr. Dow sued his bank, Mrs. Dow II., for the blue envelope of two quarters of the allowance, ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... But presto! what denouement grand Of cookery sublime! 'Twas done as by the second hand, The drumsticks ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old man's ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept kicking at it. But what was still more curious, Flask—you know how curious all dreams are—through all this rage that I was in, I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an insult, that kick from ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... whole overture to Wilhelm Tell. We must admit that the voice in which he sang the andante of the Swiss mountaineer's chorus resembled a reed pipe more than a hautboy; but, to make amends when he reached the presto, his voice, a rather good bass, struck the horse's ears with such force that the latter redoubled his vigor as if this melody had produced upon him the effect of a trumpet sounding the charge on ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... leech cures, at a distance, patients who say they need no physician. Find out your ignorance, first; admit it frankly, second; be ready to recognize with true honor the next man you meet, third; and then, presto!—although it were needed that the floor of the parlor should open, and a little black-bearded Merlin be shot up like Jack in a box, as you saw in Humpty-Dumpty,—the right person, who knows the right thing, will appear, and your ignorance ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... day lamented the loss of a first cousin killed in America, 'Pr'ythee, my dear,' said he, 'have done with canting; how would the world be the worse for it, I may ask, if all your relations were at once spitted like larks and roasted for Presto's supper?' Presto was the dog that lay under the table while we talked." The counter version, given by Boswell is, that Mrs. Thrale related her cousin's death in the midst of a hearty supper, and that Johnson, shocked at her want of feeling, said, "Madam, it would give you very little concern ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... wand, took up a pile of halfpence. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you see these halfpence, and you see this cap. The cap I will place on the table, and taking the halfpence in my left hand, as you see, I will pass them from under the table into the cap. Heigh, presto, fly!" Sure enough, he lifted up the cap, and there were the halfpence. "Now I will pass them back again into my hand— listen." One after the other they were heard dropping into his hand, and when the cap was lifted they were gone. Then he put a die on the ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the kind of moonlight they have in Germany," she laughed when she found it. After hammering out a few discords of her own she started recklessly into the incomprehensible "presto," thundering away at every crescendo as if to break her fingers. "Isn't it fine, Daddy?" she ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... operated, and even the soldiers who were all more or less familiar with the workings of this magnificent system in Canada, were astonished at the speed with which the new machine, especially built by the Company for army purposes, would throw down the rails, fasten them—presto! a railroad ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... laid upon smouldering embers, a thin curl of smoke crawls lazily up the chimney, another follows with like indolence, and it looks after a while as if the wood would not burn at all. Suddenly a little whiff of air enters the pile, when, presto! up blazes the fire, and soon there ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... princess of chameleons; and, to confine ourselves to her two most piquant contrasts, by her mother's side she is always more or less childlike; but, let a nice young fellow engage her apart, and, hey presto! she shall be every inch a woman: perhaps at no period of her life are the purely mental characteristics of her sex so supreme in her; thus her type, the rosebud, excels in essence of rosehood ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... judicious and gallant people, "full pay during my life," and an honorary medal, were voted to me, accompanied by the truly gratifying announcement that such estimable gifts were "en testimonio de gratitud nacional por grandes servicios que presto a la Republica ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... can see it," was the response. "Sometimes they wear orders. It's funny—if they have on a ribbon when you first notice them, they follow you, and presto—the ribbon is gone! I always laugh over that. I've watched them in the glass of the shop windows. They try to look unconcerned, but as they walk along they snap out the ribbon with their thumb—as one ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... enriched the cloisters with their productions, and employed their talent on holy subjects, such as the lives of the saints, the martyrs, and other Christian subjects. Everywhere, especially, there are Cabreras, an artist somewhat in the Luca Giordano style; the same monotony, facility, and "fa presto Luca!" All his pictures are agreeable, and some strikingly beautiful. Occasionally he copies from the old masters, but rarely. Ximenes and Enriquez are not so common, and some of their productions are very ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Christopher, and Michael; partly from the calendar of the English Church, as the {28} lives of St. Thomas of Canterbury, of the Anglo-Saxons, Dunstan, Swithin—who is mentioned by Shakspere—and Kenelm, whose life is quoted by Chaucer in the Nonne Presto's Tale. The verse was clumsy and the style monotonous, but an imaginative touch here and there has furnished a hint to later poets. Thus the legend of St. Brandan's search for the earthly paradise has been treated by Matthew Arnold ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... that authors have indicated the movements of their compositions, but the words which they have employed have changed in sense with time. Formerly the difference between the slowest movement and the most rapid movement was much less than at present. The "largo" was only an "adagio" and the "presto" would be scarcely ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... written in Latin only. "Supplico tibi, Domine, Pater et Dux rationis nostrae, ut nostrae Nobilitatis recordemur, qua tu nos ornasti: et ut tu nobis presto sis, ut iis qui per sese moventur; ut et a Corporis contagio, Brutorumque affectuum repurgemur, eosque superemus, atque regamus; et, sicut decet, pro instruments iis utamur. Deinde, ut nobis adjuncto sis; ad accuratam rationis nostrae correctionem, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... murmured my "At last!" Her tearful excitement was like Barbara's. You did not tell me she is so young. You must have made her feel our closeness, or she may have found a bit of my verse that all expressed her, and presto, the whole-hearted one is my friend. Her poet is now her father, brother, comrade,—what she ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... cumulative from start to finish, passing from the exalted calm of the Adagio, through the graciousness of the Allegretto, to that inspired and inspiring torrent of harmony the Presto Agitato. Its incomparable effect of the rush and murmur of many waters, through which the still small voice of melody rings clear as a song dropped straight from heaven, leaves little room in a listener's soul for the jangling discords of earth. Into that movement the great deaf musician ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... the blueberries, though: There may not have been the ghost of a sign Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine, But get the pine out of the way, you may burn The pasture all over until not a fern Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick, And presto, they're up all around you as thick And hard to explain as a conjuror's trick." "It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit. I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot. And after all really they're ebony ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... estrecho, Mucho al de Borbon le debe 25 Y es fuerza satisfacerlo: Le ofrece para calmarlo Un desagravio completo. Y, llamando a un gentil-hombre, page 66 Con el semblante severo Manda que el de Benavente Venga a su presencia presto. ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... peaks and passes, the prairie-dogs and the thorny plain, the next all these portieres and rugs and etchings and down pillows and pretty devices in glass and china, as if some enchanter's wand had tapped the wilderness, and hey, presto! modern civilization had sprung up like Jonah's gourd all in a minute, or like the palace which Aladdin summoned into being in a single night for the occupation of the Princess of China, by the rubbing of his wonderful lamp. And then, just as the fruit-plates were put on the table, came ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... Twice, alas! has an unkind Fate robbed me of my all! But, as I said, 'tis my own fault. Nemo contentus, sir—you know the passage? I was not satisfied: I must have a little more; and yet a little more. I put my wealth forth in hazardous enterprises—presto! it is swept away. But I was born, sir, after all, under a merry star. Nothing discourages me. After a brief sojourn for recuperation in this salubrious spot, I shall return; and this time, mark you, I shall run no risks. Five years to make my fortune; then I shall come home, content ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... all the parties are peer-esses; The dulness of the toujours gai, The yawning night, the sleepy day, The visages of cheese and chalk, The drowsy, dreamy, languid talk; The fifty other horrid things, That strip old Time of both his wings! There's not a topic of them all But comes, hey presto! at his call. ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... man of honour to wish to deceive me. Go tell him that I am most anxious for peace, and that I deeply regret the defeat that has been sustained against the Turk. Had I been there I would have come out dead or victorious. Let him arrange an agreement between us, so that presto he may see me there with my brave nobles, with infantry and with plenty of Switzers. Tell him that I am his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is a great thing, Mistress Anne, to have written a book. In all of my pot-boiling days I would never have believed it. A plot was a plot, and presto, the thing was done! The world read and forgot. But the world doesn't forget. Not when we give our best, and when we aim to get below the surface things and the shallow things and call up out of men's hearts that which, in these practical ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... stupendous conjuring trick. I've done something that isn't done—not something that's wrong, something that's incontestably right. But it isn't done. People don't do it, and I've done it and therefore hey, presto, I'm turned into a leper, a pariah, an outlaw. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Providence. I shall stroll out this morning, as soon as I've "cleaned myself," and embrace the first stray enterprise that offers. Our Bagdad teems with enchanted carpets. Let one but float my way, and, hi, presto, I seize it. I go where glory or a modest competence waits me. I snatch at the first offer, the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... no means," replied La Force; "there is not a lady in Quebec but feels in her heart that Angelique des Meloises can steal away her lover when and where she will. She has only to look at him across the street, and presto, change! he is gone from her as if by magic. But will you really help ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... word, he can't get a hearing. He might talk with the tongues of men and angels, but nobody will listen to him. It is a dirty shame. But what in the world can you expect? Lift a finger against the gang, and, presto, your job's gone, and you can't find another high or low. Ryan's money goes everywhere—into the schools, the church, the press. The press. That, of course, is the System's most powerful ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... "you don't seem to realise that it takes more than a gondola to make a paternal Doge. I've got to ask you to remember that I was born in Chicago. And it's my bed time. Gondolier! Albergo! Andate presto!" ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... with me! We cannot see properly here! I know where to go. There will be wheels of fire, and masses of flowers, and a picture of the Regina Margherita. Presto! Presto!" ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens |
