"Banjo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... banjo, an' a skinny mule 'e rides, An' the stuff 'e says an' sings us, Lord, it makes us split our sides! With 'is black coat-tails a-bobbin' to Ta-ra-ra Boom-der-ay! 'E's the proper kind o' padre for ten deaths ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... musical instruments. At one end of the room stood a small upright piano, a 'cello held one corner, a guitar another; upon a table a cornet was deposited, and on the piano a violin case could be seen, while a banjo hung from a nail on ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... impossible for him, Sidney had intermittent instruction from professors of both sexes at home. But he learnt practically nothing except the banjo. Horace had to buy him a banjo: it cost the best part of a ten-pound note; still, Horace could do no less. Sidney's stature grew rapidly; his general health certainly improved, yet not completely; he always had a fragile, interesting air. Moreover, his deafness did not ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... were a little swollen, and his ideas had loose edges, and would not fit together. However, he did his best to pull himself up and make good talk. But his r's rolled like an unstrung drum, and his n's twanged like a cracked banjo. On the subject of the proper amount of provisions to take with us for our six weeks' camping trip he wandered wildly. Without doubt we must take enough—in grand quantity—one must live well—else one could not carry the load on the portages—very long portages—not good for heavy packs—we must ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... whole lot of ugly fellows screeching forth what might have been esteemed air or accompaniment, as the case might be. That a sorry musical effect was produced will surprise no one who considers the build of the most musical of their instruments. The mandolin is by way of being a guitar, or banjo—only in a very small way indeed. Nothing has been added to the idea since first Mercury stumbled on the original testudo—indeed, I should guess that the dried sinews of a tortoise would give out a far purer sound than the jingling wires with which the mandolin is mounted. I have sometimes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... stretched tight as banjo strings, had an awful instant of not knowing whether she would be able to be a man or whether she would be merely a shrieking and running little mad girl. For the respectable Ugly-Wugly shook her limply ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... Dale rowed on until the lights on shore seemed mere specks, and we could just perceive the gentle roll of the Atlantic swell. He rested on his oars and listened. The voices of the others were lost in the distance, and only the tinkle of a banjo wafted from afar broke the night's tranquillity. The water was alive with phosphorescence that sparkled like gems around ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... about the garden to inspect the lilies in pots, the gold and silver fish, fat and wonderfully shaped, which glided about in the tanks and ponds, and then led us into a kind of arbour, where, beneath a kind of wooden eave, an instrument was hanging from a peg. It was not a banjo, for it was too long; and it was not a guitar, for it was too thin, and had not enough strings; but it was something of the kind, and evidently kept there for ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... of the work, gasoline lamps and Kitson lights were used. The former, of the familiar banjo type, and a modification of this, with a section of wrought-iron pipe for the reservoir, were very unsatisfactory, and were out of repair and leaking a large proportion of the time. The Kitson lights were given only a ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... adoring the house with flowers. Toward nine the three miners said that as they had brought their instruments they might as well tune up, for the boys and girls would soon be arriving now, and hungry for a good, old-fashioned break-down. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet—these were the instruments. The trio took their places side by side, and began to play some rattling dance-music, and beat time with ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... of the loss of identity, which is the same thing, I take to be one of the remaining terrors in European minds meditating on death. Of all the imagined forms of survival, only one is obviously more horrible than the night of nothing, and that is the state in which Beethoven twangs a banjo and Gladstone utters the political forecasts of a distinguished journalist. It may be that my affection for the "narrow ego" is too violent, but, for myself, I do not find M. Maeterlinck's consolations more genuinely consoling than other philosophy. On the second and far ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... what the moral was that it was meant to convey. But I think the idea is that if the schoolmaster had long before abandoned the study of medicine, for which he was not fitted, and gone in, let us say, for playing the banjo, he might have become end-man in a minstrel show. Yes, ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... private called Cheeseman, a born comedian, who used to get up sing-songs and sketches; the star turn, however, was a selection from his orchestra, which he used to conduct with a broomstick from an inverted bucket. The instruments were two mandolines, one banjo, one mandola, a tin whistle, an accordion, a rattle, a comb, and a lump of iron. Somehow the performers played in tune, but they always sent us into fits of laughter, and even amused the watching Huns. Although Cheeseman often disappeared into cells for several days, he ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... say they used to have breakdowns in slave time—breakdown dances with fiddle and banjo music. Far after slavery, they had them. The only other amusement worth speaking about was the churches. Far as the churches was concerned, they had to steal out and go to them. Old man Balm Whitlow can tell you all about the way they held church. They would slip off in the woods and ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' low, She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kul-la-lo-lo!" With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' her cheek agin my cheek We useter watch the steamers and the hathis pilin' teak. Elephints a-pilin' teak In the sludgy, squdgy creek, Where ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... one is often attracted by the notes of fresh, young voices, where soft lights glow through open casements, or the singers sit under the vine-traceried verandah of a "stoup," accompanying the melody with guitar or banjo. Occasionally stentorian lungs roar unmelodious music-hall choruses that jar by contrast with sweeter strains, but sentiment prevails, and who can wonder if there are sometimes tears in the voices that sing "Swanee River" and "Home, ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... early days of October, 1862, saw a stir about head-quarters which indicated that something out of the ordinary was afoot. During the evening of the 8th the officers were engaged in a lively social intercourse with the ladies of "The Bower," the entertainment ending in a serenade in which the banjo and fiddle took chief part. Warlike affairs seemed absent from the thoughts of all, with the exception that the general devoted more time than usual to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and hoe corn. But he felt he could do plumbin' better than them who had handled plumbs for years. And when I see Josiah wuz sot on hirin' him to do the job I felt dretful, for he wuz no more fit for it than our brindle cow to do fine sewin', or our old steer to give music lessons on the banjo. He wuz a creeter I never liked, always tryin' to invent sunthin' and always failin. But Josiah insisted on havin' him because he wuz ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... singing "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Opposite the Board of Trade building on the edge of the river a street medicine-fakir had drawn a crowd to his wagon. To the beat of the Salvation Army's tambourine rose the thrum of a made-up negro's banjo. ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... at the Convalescent Home," piped Mr. Farge; while his friend and devout admirer, Albert Edward Worthington, tore at the banjo strings and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... like him nearly so well as the art student who plays a banjo in the orchestra because he needs the money. Peggy ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... bench. He looked up at the window. The blinds were closed. So far as he could see there was no light in all the great house. Behind the rose trellis was a group of stately Norway spruce; he could see the sheen of their foliage in the moonlight. He took his banjo out of its case and sat down on the bench, smiling to himself, for he was thoroughly enjoying, with that enjoyment of youth, health, and vitality which belongs to twenty-one, this rustic adventure. He touched the strings lightly ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... arranged the compositions of the great European masters in such a grotesque manner. The executants are five in number; one plays the tambourine, Mr. Germon, who is the leader; another the bone castanet; the third, the accordion; and the two others, the banjo, or African guitar. The castanet player does not sing; but his four colleagues have good voices, and, in glees, harmonize charmingly. In a quartet, the parody on the Phantom Chorus, from Bellini's 'Sonnambula'; and in a glee, 'You'll See Them on the Ohio,' ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... warn't dese here huggin' kind of dances lak dey has now. Dere warn't no Big Apple nor no Little Apple neither. Us had a house wid a raised flatform (platform) at one end whar de music-makers sot. Dey had a string band wid a fiddle, a trumpet, and a banjo, but dere warn't no guitars lak dey has in dis day. One man called de sets and us danced de cardrille (quadrille) de virginia reel, and de 16-hand cortillion. When us made syrup on de farm dere would always be a candy pullin'. Dat homemade syrup made real good candy. Den us would have a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... give them a banjo solo, do a clog dance, and afterwards wrestle with your celebrated imitations you know so well, and do so badly, of John Drew, Dave Warfield, Nat Goodwin, Sarah Bernhardt, and Sir ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... such things could be, now that he was a guest in a Southern home and saw the bright side of their life. Never had he seen anything brighter than the smiles of those negro musicians as they proudly touched their instruments: the violin, the banjo, the flute, the triangle and castanets, and watched the dancers swing through each number. There could be no mistake about the ring of joy in Sam's voice. It throbbed with unction. It pulsed with pride. Its joy was contagious. He caught himself glancing at his ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... a quite surprising performer on the banjo, which her father had taught her when she was quite a little girl, and invented charming tunes and effects and modulations that had never been tried on that humble instrument before. She could have made a handsome living out of it, crippled ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... reply according to time-honoured formula, and Charlie, who was expecting something quite different, was at no pains to hide his perplexity. "A banjo?" he ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... and broken ceiling, marred woodwork and stained wall paper; but etchings, foreign photographs, sketches put up with thumb tacks and bright hangings made it odd and attractive. On a low couch piled with cushions lay Helen's mandolin and a banjo. A plaster cast of some queer animal roosted on the mantel, craning its ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... stood looking out at the west, where some cirro-stratus clouds were waiting to see the sun down beyond the horizon, and keep his memory golden for half an hour. Bones was affecting ability to answer conundrums, asked by an unexplained person with a banjo, who treated him with distinction, calling him "Mr. Bones." Both were affecting an air of high courtesy, as of persons familiar with the Thrones and Chancelleries of Europe. The particulars of these conundrums were inaudible, from distance, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... exchanged in a desultory fashion over the bars at Mustang Kate's and Dutch Lena's; and derisive comments made as to Mrs. Huzzard and her late charge, the girl in the Indian dress. Some of the boys, who owned musical instruments—a banjo and a mouth organ—were openly approached by bribery to keep away from the all too perfect gathering, so that there might be a dearth of music. But the boys with the musical instruments evaded the bribes, and even hinted aloud their desire ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... times it would seem as if his soul were in a trance, and could only find existence, expression, in the ecstasy of tone, that would catch our souls with his into the very seventh heaven of harmony. Or, in merry mood, I have seen him take a banjo, for he could play on any instrument, and as with deft fingers he would strike some strange new note or chord, you would see his eyes brighten, he would begin to smile and laugh as if his very soul were tickled, while his hearers would ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... choice selection of portraits of females almost always in sadness and generally in disguise or dishabille, glittered round the neat walls of his elegant little bower of repose. Medora with disheveled hair was consoling herself over her banjo for the absence of her Conrad—the Princesse Fleur de Marie (of Rudolstein and the Mysteres de Paris) was sadly ogling out of the bars of her convent cage, in which, poor prisoned bird, she was moulting away—Dorothea of Don Quixote was washing her eternal ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... instinct. Music is for the most savage natures. The boor that couldn't appreciate the Taj Mahal, or the sculpture of Michael Angelo, might be swept off his feet by the music of a master, though he couldn't understand its story. Besides, I've carried a banjo and a cornet to the ends of the earth with me. I saved my life with the cornet once. A lion got inside my zareba in Rhodesia. I hadn't my gun within reach, but I'd been playing the cornet, and just as he was crouching ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... know who he was nor whence he came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better than anyone ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... as soon as Eliphalet and the officer went into the house, there began at once a series of spiritualistic manifestations, a regular dark seance. A tambourine was played upon, a bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went singing ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... only before prep. was rigidly observed, except when Merevale was over at the Hall, and the Sixth had no work. On such occasions Charteris felt justified in breaking through the rule. He had a gramophone, a banjo, a penny whistle, and a mouth organ. The banjo, which he played really well, was the most in request, but the gramophone was ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... to file, soft-shod, through his mind, while there drifted into the room furnished sounds and furnished scents. He heard in one room a tittering and incontinent, slack laughter; in others the monologue of a scold, the rattling of dice, a lullaby, and one crying dully; above him a banjo tinkled with spirit. Doors banged somewhere; the elevated trains roared intermittently; a cat yowled miserably upon a back fence. And he breathed the breath of the house—a dank savour rather than a smell—a cold, musty effluvium as from underground vaults mingled with the reeking ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... several years when the glee club was dormant. With its effectual revival in 1884, the history of the University Glee Club has been continuous to the present time. It was supplemented in 1889-90 by the Banjo Club and in 1895 and 1896 by the Mandolin Club—and after that time the triple organization went by the name of the University Musical Clubs. The first extended trip was taken in 1890 when the organization visited several Michigan cities, and also Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, and St. ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... bottled up under water where no sound could escape to attract the attention of the outside world, Mike Mowrey had tuned up his old banjo and the boys ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... a summer camp, organized by the railroad, and supplied with modern comforts. You bought a ticket and a gasolene launch took you up the lake. Then the men wore smart flannels and the girls new summer clothes. In the evenings one sang and played a banjo, ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... moon sent a white beam through the little square window of old Uncle Tim's cabin, it formed a long panel of light upon its smoke-stained wall, bringing into clear view an old banjo hanging upon a rusty nail. Nothing else in the small room was clearly visible. Although it was Christmas eve, there was no fire upon the broad hearth, and from the open door came the odor of honeysuckles and of violets. Winter is often in Louisiana only a name given by courtesy to the ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... upon the possibilities of plaintive Negro melodies, which they of course capitalized. In New York late in 1842 four men—"Dan" Emmett, Frank Brower, "Billy" Whitlock, and "Dick" Pelham—practiced together with fiddle and banjo, "bones" and tambourine, and thus was born the first company, the "Virginia Minstrels," which made its formal debut in New York February 17, 1843. Its members produced in connection with their work all sorts of popular songs, one of Emmett's ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... was strangely familiar. Back at Bannister College, where he remembered he had gone in the dim and dusty past, he had often heard that same fog-horn voice, roaring songs of a less blood-curdling character, and accompanied by that same banjo twanging, which tortured the campus, and ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... people like priests and these copra dealers. I have read in novels of men who are like gods, who are bold and strong, but who make their women happy. Do you know an officer of the Zelee, with hair like a ripe banana? He is tall and plays the banjo. I saw him one time long ago when the warship was here. He was on the governor's veranda. Oh, that was long ago, but such a young man would be ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... my homage owns, Skilled on the banjo and the bones; For whom I would not fear to die, If death would ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... my mind in a flash, almost subconsciously, and before I had time to check my impressions, or even properly verify them, I made an involuntary movement, catching the tight rope in my hand so that it twanged like a banjo string, and in that instant the creature turned the corner of Sangree's tent and was gone ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... handsprings on the grass that prodded Tom to envious sarcasm. And then, with a whoop, he clattered to the rear and brought back Uncle Ike, a battered colored retainer of the family, with his banjo, and strewed sand on the porch and danced "Chicken in the Bread Tray" and did buck-and-wing wonders for half an hour longer. Incredibly, wild and boisterous things he did. He sang, he told stories that set all but one shrieking, he played the yokel, the humorous clodhopper; he was ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... Mrs. Orban, as the children rushed into the drawing-room to fetch the banjo, "there is no tea in the pot, and you may as well sing ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... curtain and peeped out to catch the last glimpse of his figure. The moon was rising, and she could see that he walked slowly, peering into spots of dense shadow or thickets of shrubbery, as if looking for some one. But all was motionless and still, save the sound of a banjo from the group of servants. "How I wish I could hear that voice again!" she thought to herself. "It's very singular Gerald should appear so indifferent to it. What can be the meaning ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... anny time he ixpicts to see a black face peerin' through a window an' in a few years I'll be takin' in laundhry in a basement instead iv occypyin' me present impeeryal position, an' ye'll be settin' in front iv ye'er cabin home playin' on a banjo an' watchin' ye'er little pickahinnissies rollickin' on th' ground an' wondhrn' whin th' ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... an orchestra are banjo, pianola, concertina, mandoline, psalteries, shawms, bagpipes, bells to clash with, violins, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... it was, sure enough, and a candle-box at that, with the brand upon the side of it; and it had banjo-strings stretched so as to sound when the wind blew. I believe they call the thing a Tyrolean[4] harp, whatever ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all planters were wealthy. They numbered their slaves by thousands. Standing on the broad piazza of one of these Southern homes, one could see the rows of rough huts that made up the negro quarters, and hear faintly the sound of the banjo and rude negro melodies, mingling with the music of piano or harp within the parlor of the mansion-house. Refined by education and travel, the planters of the region about Port Royal made up a courtly society, until ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... almost to feel fatigue in the joyous scenes which followed. The fiddle and the banjo, animated as it would seem like living things, literally knew no rest, night or day; while Terpichore covered her face in absolute despair in the presence of that famous double-shuffle with which the long nights and ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... to pick his banjo, while a boyish trooper with tough black hair sat near him and kept time with his heels. "It's a cottonwood-tree I was speakin' of," observed Jones. There was one—a little, shivering white stalk. It stood above ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... takes up my banjo an' I plays a little chune, An' you see dem hai'ds come peepin' out to listen mighty soon. Den my wife say, "Sich a pappy fer to give you sich a fright! Jes' you go to bed, an' leave him, say yo' ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... the mixed entertainment that followed, in which dancing and singing, banjo playing, and a liberal display of the anatomy of the female "artists" formed the principal features, they sipped their beer and applauded loudly the efforts of those who ministered ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... down under the shade of a tree and fell asleep, and in his dreams he saw the instrument which he had invented gradually developed into a "Strad", and from that into the most glorious instrument of our time; namely, the banjo. This so soothed and pleased him, that, waking up, he adorned his tortoise-shell with flowers, and sang aloud to all his descendants in all time and tune, and out of all time and tune, if necessary, to join him in praising the invention of Music ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... up a trail-scarred banjo from the floor and began to strum a few wandering notes. ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... afternoon to a detention school for delinquent girls. Over in the corner of the room where the afternoon service was to be held was the piano, the orchestra, made up of members of the school, was gathering. There was a cornetist, two or three violins followed, then a banjo and guitar. The service that day was to be a great event, for the wonderful woman in charge of that school who had done away with the cells, taken down the great spiked iron fence and planted flowers in its stead had persuaded board, committee and municipality to permit ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... generally suspended in this hour of uncertainty, public feeling was drawn as tight as a banjo head in the sun. In the courthouse the few officials and clerks necessary to the county's business were at the windows looking upon the station, all expecting a tragedy of such stirring dimensions ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... the only banjoist of my acquaintance, and being also a younger son of a retired colonel, the poem of Mr. Kipling, by a strange aberration of associated ideas, always seems to me to have been written with an exclusive view to his person. When he did not play the banjo he loved to sit and look at it. He proceeded to this sentimental inspection, and after meditating a while over the strings under ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... along the banjo," Obed said, for he was quite an expert with that cheerful instrument, "and evenings we can ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... the giant's little boy banged so hard on the piano with his little finger nail that he broke a string, and made a funny sound, like a banjo out of tune. ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... interruption. An occasional burst of laughter floated down the corridor. At some distance away, on the same deck of barracks in Bancroft Hall, a midshipman was industriously twanging away on a banjo. Darrin, however, absorbed in his novel, paid no heed to any of the signs of Saturday-night jollity. He was a third of the way through an exciting tale when there came a knock on the door—-a moment later ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... sure is a swell rig!" Weary paid generous tribute. "Only I will say old Banjo reminds me of an Irish cook rigged out in silk and diamonds. That outfit on Glory, now—" He ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... follow his advice. The next four men she visited—who were Jo Plum, Jo Egg, Jo Banjo and Jo Cheese, named after the trees in their orchards—she made Colonels of her Army; but the fifth one, Jo Nails, said Colonels and Generals were getting to be altogether too common in the Army of Oogaboo and he preferred to be a Major. So Jo Nails, Jo Cake, Jo Ham and ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... you how to look any young fellow in the face," says I—"one that's got his hair combed back and no part in it, and playing La Paloma on a banjo or a guitar, and guess what he's thinking ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... me, she began to talk about herself, Pashka, and their mutual relations. He was a baker with red moustaches and played very well on the banjo. He came to see her and greatly pleased her, for he was a merry chap and wore nice clean clothes. He had a vest which cost fifteen rubles and boots with dress tops. For these reasons she had fallen in love with him, and he became ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... pistols, such as courteous Claude Duval used for side-arms. Opposite were two old rifles, and beneath them two stone beer-mugs, and a German student's pipe absurdly long and richly ornamented. A mantel close by was filled with curiosities, and near it hung a banjo unstrung, a tennis-racket, and a blazer of startling colors. Plainly they were relics of German student life, and the odd contrast they made with the rough wall and ceiling suggested a sharp change ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... names were Bobstay, Rattle, Clipper, and Dick, came into the room with great white collars and black faces, and began to sing like the Ethiopian Serenaders. Bobstay played the Fiddle, Rattle the Bones, Clipper the Banjo, and Dick the Tambourine, when they sang "Old Dan Tucker," and "Kafoozlum." The four Misses White almost fell off their seats with laughing, and Sir Claude was seen to put the tail of his coat into his mouth; Captain Black didn't like it much, for he had a dark complexion and thought they ...
— A Apple Pie and Other Nursery Tales • Unknown
... arms and shouted to the company in the bar-room. What he said no one could hear. Hissing and roaring filled the world, submerging the crackling of the fire, the banjo tunes, and human voices. Men looked at each other, stupefied, holding their pipes from their mouths. Then a wave struck the solid old tavern, hissed across its gallery, and sprawled through the hall upon the bar-room floor. Not a person in the house ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... day's work was over Hopwood could be relied on to provide baths. Ross, as has been said, considered himself an expert at swizzling cocktails, and all three men had a fancy for playing the banjo, which they could ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... in a little hollow, where a small stream ran through a sparse grove of young white oaks. A half dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the "hi, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... brought his banjo, and when the party had settled low about the fire it helped to keep alive the talk. Every few minutes the taffy and the coyotes were demanded in turn, and Glover was kept busy apologizing for the absence of the wolves and the slowness of his kettle, ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... was finished, and tin cups and plates had been put aside, the officer took from its nail an old banjo, and began strumming. Presently he was singing, and his rich, clear voice, admirably suited to the time, place and surroundings, filled the little cabin and floated across to the green where the Indians camped. Song followed song, ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... large, dreary house in John Street, Bloomsbury, these four dwelt together; a family in appearance, in reality a financial association. Julia and Uncle Joseph were, of course, slaves; John, a gentleman with a taste for the banjo, the music-hall, the Gaiety bar, and the sporting papers, must have been anywhere a secondary figure; and the cares and delights of empire devolved entirely upon Morris. That these are inextricably intermixed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... give us a little music, before it gets past hours," suggested Dave, and willingly enough Luke got out a banjo, tuned up, and rendered several favorites. While the playing was going on, the door was left open, and a small crowd congregated in the hallway to listen, for Luke was really a skillful performer. All too soon the playing had to come ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... boy, without any special bent for music, or art, may want to play on a drum, or a banjo—or to paint pictures with water-colors—and through the effort devoted to this want, encourage the growth of tastes and feelings, which may prove of benefit and value, all ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... into her tent Teresa Peterson sat presumably playing upon the banjo. The sounds she was making were not particularly pleasing. Yet the camp was fairly deserted. Only a few of the other girls were to be seen and they were busy ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... the announcer, "shake hands with Slim Morris, whether he'll let you or not. And here's Matt Rice. We usually call him 'Mister' Rice, for he's extremely talented. He knows how to play the banjo." ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... worth as well, singing so well that he became leading bass in the choir and occupied the position with honor. With all his daily work as an artisan he found time to master and play successfully the violin, mandolin, auto harp and harmonica combined, banjo and guitar. He passed out of life April 26th, 1912, leaving a wife, son and daughter to mourn the loss of a talented father. So my musical family comes and goes and I am called upon to lose them first in one way and then in another. This was a sad surprise and a shock to me. I wrote ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... nothing better to do," he assured her. "And my patience is well rewarded. Hope you're keen on music. I've brought my banjo for the Rajah's edification. It's better than a tomtom anyway. I wonder if the fates have put us next to each other. I'll lay you five rupees to ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... afternoon. The grave arches of the bridge, made complete circles by the reflexion of the water, sustained, as if by some unifying and justifying reason, the erratic flat flashes and streaks and glares of traffic that fretted to and fro overhead. A voice sang intermittently and a banjo tinkled, but remotely enough to be indistinct ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... Flea found in General Haynau's Ear. "Who's Dat Knocking at de Door?" is a question put by Johnny Russell to old Joe (Hume), who once in every session in those days stood knocking at the door with his banjo ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... words, except before large or unsympathetic audience. Fetching comic "biz," and superlative Music-hall "chic." Would have no objection to black face and appear at evening parties, or in fashionable streets, with banjo (if provided with small police escort.) Testimonials from several highly respectable relatives, now in asylum, or under treatment at seaside.—Address, with terms, the Hon. ALGERNON BRASSLEIGH CHEEKINGTON (or at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... himself on being able to play any tune on the banjo after he had heard it once, perched himself on the side of a hill one Sunday morning and began to pick the strings in a ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... you can play them. They will sell readily if they are shown off. It is good you can play the banjo. We can play that and the accordion whenever we want to open up, and thus attract a crowd. Some use a bell, but music, even when it is poor, is better. Sometimes I used to sing a comic song or two for old Gulligan when we were on ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... and gaming and pow-wowing which takes place in the long cool twilights, just outside the bunk-house. Cuba undertook to serenade the dour one by donning certain portions of Struthers' apparel and playing my old banjo under his window. Whinnie quietly retaliated by emptying his bath-water on the musician's head—and the language was indescribable. I have been forced to speak to Dinky-Dunk, in fact, about the men's profanity before my ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... the most interesting time for Ken. There was always something lively going on. He wondered when the boys studied. When some of the outside students dropped in there were banjo and guitar playing, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... would satisfy her demand for a pet. This is also justifiable, as she has several magnificent cats, about whom she has published a number of interesting stories. Her Madame Ref is quite a noted cat, but Mrs. Wilcox's favorite and the handsomest of all is named Banjo, a gorgeous chinchilla and white Angora, with a silken coat that almost touches the floor and a ruff, or "lord mayor's chain," that is a finger wide. His father was Ajax, his mother was Madame Ref, ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... and made for the scrapbasket, but Francis was more thorough than she had thought, and it was empty. She opened the cupboard and looked in—there was a little flashlight lying near it, and she illuminated the dark with it. There in the cupboard lay a banjo. ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... spokesman for the Anglo-Saxon breed. His gospel of orderly energy is the inspiration of thousands of business offices; his sententious maxims are parts of current speech: the victrola has carried his singing lyrics even farther than the banjo penetrates, of which latter democratic instrument his wonderful poem is the apotheosis. And we have the word of a distinguished British major-general to prove that Mr. Kipling has wrought a miracle of transformation with Tommy Atkins. General Sir George Younghusband, in a recent book, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... SNUG, and reserved for mates and similar good company. About the room, some amazing coffee-coloured pictures varnished an inch deep, and some stuffed creatures in cases; dotted among the audience, in Sung and out of Snug, the 'Professionals;' among them, the celebrated comic favourite Mr. Banjo Bones, looking very hideous with his blackened face and limp sugar-loaf hat; beside him, sipping rum-and-water, Mrs. Banjo Bones, in her natural ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... me'll take that in, Jock," said Jones to his friend, the black-haired boy. "'Sigh no more, ladies,'" he continued, singing. "The blamed banjo won't accompany that," he remarked, and looked out again at the tree. "There's a chap riding into the post now. Shabby-lookin'. Mebbe he's got stuff ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... lifetime. Meanwhile Von Baumser, at the other end, was floundering about with a broad smile upon his face and an elderly lady tucked under his right arm, while he held her disengaged hand straight out at right angles, as if she had been a banjo. In short, the fun was fast and furious, and waltz followed polka and mazurka followed waltz with a rapidity which weeded out the weaker vessels among the dancers and tested ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... infernal curriculum of military training, as being peculiarly within the province of the boy scouts and wholly beneath the dignity of an officer of the Houssas. And he felt horribly guilty as he read Hamilton's letter, for the night before it came he had most certainly entertained his company with a banjo rendering of ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... was thunderstruck upon discovering that she had actually disposed of fifty dollars so lightly. For several days a shadow hung over their intercourse, and when the clock came, as large as a banjo, gilded and quaint, he broke her heart afresh by pretending not ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... believe such lying possible, but the Freeman, as a liar, has, by constant practice, attained virtuosity. What Rubinstein is on the piano, what Blondin was on the tight-rope, what the Bohee Brothers are on the banjo, what Sims Reeves was in the ballad world, what Irving is in histrionic art, what Spurgeon was as a preacher, what Patti is in opera, what Gladstone is as a word-spinner, what Tim Healy is as a whipping-post, what the Irish peasant ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... least it should; Even a homely voice sounds good That sings a cheerful, gladsome song That shortens the way, however long. A screechy fife, a bass drum's beat Is wonderful music to marching feet; A scratchy fiddle or banjo's thump May tickle the toes till they want to jump. But one musician fills the air With discords that jar folks everywhere. A pity it is he ever was born— The discordant fellow who toots ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... Trafalgar Square They pour from every quarter, banging drums And tootling penny trumpets: to a blare Of tin mouth-organs, while a sailor strums A solitary banjo, lads and girls, Locked in embraces, in a wild dishevel Of flags and streaming hair, with curdling skirls Surge in a frenzied, reeling, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... with it until her head was too heavy to hold up any longer. Then she went to sleep upon an odorous couch piled deep with all sorts of odd garments, her feet thrust into a tangle of lifeless satin pillows, her head upon the fur lining of some old cape, a banjo prodding her uncomfortably whenever ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... cranes, descending by the thousands from the mountains to the ocean, then in the town the lights are lit and the evening amusements begin. The negro minstrels play on bones, and by the campfires can be heard the picking of the banjo; the Mexicans dance on an out-spread poncha their favorite bolero; Indians join in the dance, holding in their teeth long white sticks of kiotte, or beating time with their hands, and exclaiming, "E viva;" the fires, fed with redwood, crackle as they blaze, sending up clouds ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... sometimes marriages among the slaves were grouped so as to give occasion for a general frolic. Thus Daniel R. Tucker in 1858 sent a general invitation over the countryside in central Georgia to a sextuple wedding among his slaves, with dinner and dancing to follow.[2] On the whole, the fiddle, the banjo and the bones were not seldom ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... The rollicking song-loving, banjo-playing Virginian had early distinguished himself as an Indian fighter. He had been dangerously wounded, but recovered with remarkable rapidity. His perfect health and his clean habits stood him in good stead on the day an Indian's bullet crashed ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... walking, and still others riding on various animals—ostriches, sheep, goats, fawns, and small donkeys, all pure white. One boy was riding on a ram, and as he came by, strum-strumming on a little silver-stringed banjo, he sang a very curious song, which made Martin prick up his ears to listen. It was about a speckled snake that lived far away on a piece of waste ground; how day after day he sought for his lost playmate—the little ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... idea of playing the classics in "Ragtime," being the first person on the stage to play "Mendelssohn's Wedding March," "Oh Promise Me," "Star-Spangled Banner," etc., in syncopated rhythm or "Ragtime." He was also the first on the stage to do imitations of the harp, bagpipe, mandolin, banjo, etc., on the piano. His act was much imitated all ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... child, likewise sawed one stick upon another in imitation of playing the fiddle. And there's Little Babe of Lonesome Creek who delights in a gourd banjo. His grandsir, finding a straight, long-necked gourd among those clustered on the vine over kitchen-house door, fashioned it into a banjo for the least one. Cut it flat on one side, did the old man, scooped out ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... musician concentrate his energies upon the banjo—he may dignify the instrument, but he belittles himself in doing it. Kate," he pleaded, "don't throw away any years of happiness! Don't hurt your own character for a handful of nonentities whose importance you exaggerate! ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... and were gathered in groups under the trees or on the verandas, when the sound of a banjo caused a sudden hush of expectancy. Glances were sent here and there in search of the musician, yet no one was greatly surprised that he was not visible. Several tunes were played; then followed a song in the negro dialect, which made ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... "It was so. I heard Sadler tune that to his banjo the night we got to Colon. Abe's got that kind of a memory, which is loose but gluey. It was so. Sadler meant ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... beginning to go down under the strain, slept comfortably. Oakland did nobly. People shared their beds with absolute strangers, and while the newcomers in the park camps were dead to the world, those who came the day before cheered up considerably. One camp of young men got out a banjo and sang for the entertainment ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... de place o' my fust wife. My fust wife wuz Sue, an' she wuz er good 'oman, I tell you. But she liked music too well. Dar come up yere one dem yaller barbers, an' he pick er thing at her dat looked sorter like er banjo, an' she cl'ared ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read |
