"Poking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... long green-house, and on the other stood a barn, with a sleek cow ruminating in the yard, and an inquiring horse poking his head out of his stall to view the world. Many comfortable gray hens were clucking and scratching about the hay-strewn floor, and a flock of doves sat cooing ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... imagine his cultured greatness in a "teeny weeny" little house. "Am busy enamelling a cosy corner," said Fanny, sprawling to the end of her third sheet, "so excuse more." Miss Winchelsea answered in her best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's arrangements, and hoping intensely that Mr. Se'noks might see the letter. Only this hope enabled her to write at all, answering not only that letter but one in November and ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... science, but particularly of chemistry and geology. When I stopped to look at him, I thought he must have put his own tastes in his pocket for several days past that he might gratify mine. I was standing on a rock, high and dry and grey with lichen; he was poking about in ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... papillote, And a thousand more things I shall ne'er have by rote, I can scarce tell the difference, at least as to phrase, Between beef a la Psyche and curls a la braise.— But in short, dear, I'm trickt out quite a la Francaise, With my bonnet—so beautiful!—high up and poking, Like things that are put to keep chimneys ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... while his wife leaned out of a window scolding at him. "Your sister," repeated the carter, turning round his face with its great red lump of nose—"she's gone to hospital—diphtheria hospital—she has. Doctor was here over a week ago and took her off. They've been here since poking round and asking who she was and where she belonged—well, we didn't know. And asking where you were, too—and we didn't know either. She was real bad, if you ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... asked the old gentleman, who wouldn't let Phronsie get down out of his arms, under any circumstances; so there she lay, poking up her head like a little bird, and trying to say she wasn't in the least hurt, "where's everybody been not to know she'd gone?" he exclaimed, "where's Polly—and Jasper—and ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... The attorney's tall forehead had a little pink flush over it at this moment, and he was looking down a little and poking the base of Sir William de Braundon's monument with the point of his umbrella. 'I wish, Captain Lake, to be perfectly frank, and, as I said, above-board. You'll want the money, and you must make up your mind to ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... habits come in to hide declension, let me earnestly exhort you and myself to watch ourselves very narrowly. Unconsciousness does not mean ignorant presumption or presumptuous ignorance. It is difficult to make an estimate of ourselves by poking into our own sentiments and supposed feelings and convictions, and the estimate is likely to be wrong. There is a better way than that. Two things tell what a man is—one, what he wants, and the other, what he does. As the will is, the man is. Where do the currents of your desires ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... time, the great events of this, his first day at school. He felt like a hero just returned from an overwhelming victory. The whole family seemed conscious of his added importance. Even Bruce, his collie dog, sat close beside him, poking him occasionally with his nose, that he might have a share in his master's glory. And as for Granny, she stopped every few moments in her work of straining and putting away the ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... in one ear and came out the other," declared the little old gentleman, poking Jane with the ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... fireman's window again. The headlight was now entirely snowed in and the big black machine was poking her nose into the night at the rate of a ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... half the world before his eyes, unless the muck and dirt of that earthquake was to spoil his clothes. William Brigmawl has been head-waiter in this house nigh upon thirty year; and beyond a stately way of banging-to a carriage-door, or showing visitors to their rooms, or poking a fire, and a kind of knack of leading on timid people to order expensive wines, I really don't see Brigmawl's great merit. But as to Brigmawl at an inquest, he's about as much good as the ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Morty, poking his head this way and that, peering into the chamber as he had peered yesterday, wished he could see Colonel John's face. But Colonel John, bending resolutely over the handful of embers that glowed in an inner angle ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... The poking efforts accomplished little. Occasionally the 'coon made a little dash or scramble, but never went far. There was a great deal of talking, shouting, ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... he does, he cannot come poking about in Osterno. Catrina will give him no information. Maggie hates him. You and I know him. There is ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... quietly climbed up the nearest tree, and ate fruit most of the day, but the rabbit tired himself to death poking his nose into every heap of dried leaves he saw, hoping to find a serpent among them. Luckily for himself the serpents were all away for the afternoon, at a meeting of their own, for there is nothing a serpent likes so well ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... all right," went on Andy, playfully poking his brother in the ribs, "and it stove in my boat. If I could catch the beggar I'd sell his hide or oil or whatever is valuable about him, and get ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... was a little brown Field Mouse; and one day he was out in the fields to see what he could find. He was running along in the grass, poking his nose into everything and looking with his two eyes all about, when he saw a smooth, shiny acorn, lying in the grass. It was such a fine shiny little acorn that he thought he would take it home with him; ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... Lass,' which part she acted, she transformed her whole being, body, shape, voice, language, look, and features, into almost another animal, with a strong Devonshire dialect, a broad, laughing voice, a poking head, round shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the most bediz'ning, dowdy dress that ever cover'd the untrain'd limbs of a Joan Trot. To have seen her here you would have thought it impossible the same creature could ever have been recover'd to what was as easy to her, the gay, the lively, and the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the day, found a good deal of pleasure in poking fun at woman's use of dress and ornaments as bait for entrapping lovers, and many a squib expressing this theory appeared in the newspapers. These cynical notes no more represented the general opinion of the people than do similar satires in the comic sheets of to-day; but they ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... woman stepped briskly up, and poking her head between us, said, at the highest pitch of her cracked voice,—"Yes, it is good; it was made this ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... saw myself. My very hair began to rise and to tingle. How had I dared to make this proposal to Dorothy? And as Dorothy was silent, and looked down as we walked, poking with her parasol at pebbles in the road, I was in a tense anxiety to know with what words she would break the oppressive pause between us. "I could see," she said, "that you liked me; and of course you wouldn't come so far to see me ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... (for Mun Bun had been poking it with a stick) that its legs and head were drawn into the shell and it refused to move. Russ did not know but that the tortoise would bite, so he said they had all better go back to the calf. Mun Bun did not like to give up his new-found ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... confoundedly, and very soon gave it up." "Pray, Sir," said Mr. Hume, "in what branch of philosophy did you employ your researches? What books did you read?" "Books?" said Mr. White; "nay sir, I read no books, but I used to sit whole forenoons a-yawning and poking the fire." Boswelliana, p. 221. The French were more successful than Mr. Edwards in the pursuit of philosophy, Horace Walpole wrote from Paris in 1766 (Letters, iv. 466):—'The generality of ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... hear something," said Mrs. Allen, now poking her night-capped head from beneath the blankets, and listening a moment attentively. "'Tis a sound of heavy carts drawn by oxen over frozen ground. Ay, I guess it is the new family, that bought out neighbor Williams, moving their goods. Just look out the window,—our yards join,—and ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... starting to his feet and poking his head out of the den; "we are all right now—it's raining ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... the lad became the complete scapegrace of the village; a pest to his uncle, and to every one else. Nor were his pranks confined to the land; he soon learned to accompany old Pluto on the water. Together these worthies would cruise about the broad bay, and all the neighboring straits and rivers; poking around in skiffs and canoes; robbing the set-nets of the fishermen; landing on remote coasts, and laying waste orchards and water-melon patches; in short, carrying on a complete system of piracy, on a small scale, Piloted by Pluto, the youthful Vanderscamp soon became acquainted with all the ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... warm ashes, and groping, in mean misery, with a stick, for some charred nothing she would cheat the Spoiler of, there was a dangerous quality in Pintal's look, as, with folded arms and vacant eyes, he seemed to stare upon, yet not to see, the shocking scene. Presently the woman, poking with the stick, found something under the ashes. With her naked hands she greedily dug it out;—it was a tin shaving-case. Another moment, and Pintal had snatched it from her grasp, torn it open, and had a naked razor in his hand. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... filled with water. When these began to gurgle and steam, the Maestro set himself to stripping the horrified bunch in his room; one by one he threw the garments out of the window to Tolio who, catching them, stuffed them into the receptacles, poking down their bulging protest with a big stick. Then the Maestro mixed an awful brew in an old oil-can, and taking the brush which was commonly used to sleek up his little pony, he dipped it generously into the pungent stuff ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... of these have been constantly leaping on to our floe. From the moment of landing on their feet their whole attitude expressed devouring curiosity and a pig-headed disregard for their own safety. They waddle forward, poking their heads to and fro in their usually absurd way, in spite of a string of howling dogs straining to get at them. 'Hulloa!' they seem to say, 'here's a game—what do all you ridiculous things want?' And they come a few steps nearer. The dogs make a rush as far as their harness or leashes ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... slowly round the tank instead of standing on one leg when he found it a failure. Perhaps he was thinking the thing over. He did not think to much purpose, for day after day for more than a week back came the adjutant to walk like a soldier on duty up and down, up and down, poking his head through the bars each time. Sometimes he did it a score of times, sometimes only two or three. After ten days he disappeared. Where is he? Has he gone to find a blacksmith among the adjutants? or have his brother adjutants had him shut up till he has sense to know the best way for ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... did not seem interested in what was said, or in what I answered. He was a man of few words. He went off to the eastern wall, whither we followed him. I found him poking about there with a stick. The Jo'burg charioteer was soon fussing along, hurrying on tea-time. 'He didn't want to get a dose of fever this trip,' he said. He had heard about our unhealthy season up north, and the month ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... but for venting Christmas wishes, hardly! What has Ba told you and wished you in the way of love? I wish you the same and love you the same, but Geddie, being part of you, gets her due part. We are as happy as two owls in a hole, two toads under a tree stump; or any other queer two poking creatures that we let live, after the fashion of their black hearts, only Ba is fat and rosy; yes, indeed! Florence is empty and pleasant. Goodbye, therefore, till next year—shall it not be then we ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... it, save a long, bare, terraced range of hill, and the sky above all. There was no other habitation in sight, except a tiny church, planted on one acclivity, and two or three labourers' cottages, in the doors of which a few rolypoly, open-eyed children stood, poking their fingers in their mouths, and ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... debris of all descriptions infest the metropolitan river, floating about, washing onto the shores, poking up stolidly here and there out of mudflats. Most items in a dreary inventory that might be compiled would turn out to be something that was discarded somewhere it didn't belong by someone who did not want to go to the trouble to put it where it did belong. Therefore, the main source is ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... heard, a promise to Saint Christopher of Paris—the monstrous statue in the great church there—that he would give him a wax taper as big as himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, you donkey!' said the fellow,—but softly, so that Saint Christopher should not hear him,—'do you think I'm in earnest? If I once get my foot ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... are not vocal. They spend their days and nights assiduously (in the literal sense) bent over mediocre stuff, poking and poring in the unending hope of finding something rich and strange. A gradual stultitia seizes them. They take to drink; they beat their wives; they despair of literature. Worst, and most preposterous, ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... irremediably dislocates all their articulations, sooner than anything else. Of course these pleasantries are only carried on in the absence of the demonstrator. Should he be present, the industry of the student is confined to poking the fire in the stove and then shutting the flue, or keeping down the ball of the cistern by some abdominal hooks, and then, before the invasion of smoke and water takes place, quietly joining a knot of new men who are strenuously endeavouring to dissect ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... of the navy was with the American captain for, as he went poking about the Galapagos Islands, he surprised three fine, large British whaling ships, all carrying guns and too useful to destroy. To one of them, the Georgiana, he shifted more guns, put a crew of forty men aboard under Lieutenant John Downes, ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... that was his title, took not the slightest notice of her reply, but nodded again—once, then two or three times together, then once alone, just as before. Griselda did not know what to do, when suddenly she felt something poking her head. It was the cuckoo—he had lifted his claw, and was tapping her head to make her nod. So she nodded—once, twice together, then once—that appeared to be enough. The king nodded once again; an invisible band suddenly struck up the loveliest music, ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... "There, Fan, you're poking fun now. Wait till I get through. Only for Tom, you would have found me at Ten Mile Gulch, hanging by the neck to the limb of that tree just in front of ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... humble-bee takes it leisurely enough as she goes lumbering along, poking her head into the larkspurs, and remaining so long in each you might almost think she had fallen asleep. The brown hive-bee on the other hand, moves busily and quickly among the stocks, sweet peas, and mignonette. She is evidently out on active duty, and ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... up like a forest of bare trees against the clear sky. And the river sweeps on red and angry-looking under the sunset, with the rank grass and vegetation on its shelving banks. Rats are scampering along among the wet stones, and then a vagrant dog poking about amid some garbage howls dismally. What is that black speck on the crimson waters? The trunk of a tree perhaps; no, it is a body, with white face and tangled auburn hair; it is floating down with the current. People are passing to and fro on the bridge, the clock strikes ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... better than that. It is nice, sweet roots and grasses that grow down under water," and, with that, what do you think he did? Why, he stood right up on his head, and reached his bill down beneath the pond, and got some of the nicest grass that ever was. "There," said the old gentleman duck, poking up his head, "do as I did, ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis
... but now it was stiller than the dead. Tryon waggled the levers to no avail, then flung himself out of the car and got busy with the crank. Not a move. Druro then got out and had a go at the crank. No good. Thereafter, the two made a thorough examination of the beast, but poking and prying into all its secret places booted them nothing. As far as the eye of man could see, nothing was wrong with the thing but sheer obstinacy. It was more from habit than a spirit of inquiry that Druro finally gave a casual squint into the reservoir. Then the ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... girl for fresh air," said Emeline. "Sit down, Doctor, and don't mind Ma!" Mrs. Cox, perhaps slightly self-conscious, was wandering about the room picking threads from the carpet, straightening the pictures on the walls, and dubiously poking a small ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... you by the adoption of a tone of easy familiarity. Surely, I thought to myself, I cannot be wrong if I address my friend POMPOSITY by his name, and speak to him in a chatty rather than in an inflated style. If I chose the latter, might he not think that I was poking fun at him by cheap parody, and manifest his displeasure by bringing a host of BULMERS about my ears? These considerations prevailed with me, and the result was the letter you received. But, O pectora caeca! I have learnt from an authoritative source that you are displeased. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... and finding fault here and there, and sniffing at the flowers, a quarter so often as pretty Dolly does, perhaps you wouldn't make such a perfect angel of her, and run down her sister in comparison. But your wonderful Miss Faith comes peeping here and poking there into pots and pans, and asking the maids how their mothers are, as if her father kept no housekeeper. She provoked me so in the simple-room last week, as if I was hiding thieves there, that I asked her at last whether she ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... her fork and began poking contemptuously at the tomato, and Anthony expected her to begin flinging the stuffings in all directions. He was sure that she was approximately as angry as she had ever been—for an instant he had detected a spark of hate directed as much toward ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... this way, and we may yet beat off the villains!" Saying this he sprang aft to drive back a gang of the pirates, who were attempting to board on our quarter. Two of the first paid dearly for their temerity, and were cut down by either the captain or Mr Gale. I got a long pike, and kept poking away over the bulwarks at every fellow I could reach. Several pistols were fired at me, but missed their aim; but at last the pike was dragged out of my hands, and thrown overboard. Unfortunately there was so ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... to her at other times. But really it almost makes me as discontented with life as herself to hear her talk in unexcited hours. Turning over my books one day, she said, 'You can never be either a poet or a painter, or a Mozart or a philosopher, Hermione? what is the use of all your labour and poking?' What could I say? I felt myself colour up, and I laughed out, 'Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity!' Yet certainly God has set before us the things of earth in order that we may admire and find them out; and that is the answer to all such foolish questions!" And Hermione ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... whimpering like a baby at the loss of a loan of a couple of hundred pounds?" cries out Mr. Warrington, very fierce and angry. "Leave the room, Gumbo! Confound you! why are you always poking your woolly head in at ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you jolly well make an ass of yourself. We find ourselves in this predic.; either we've got to shut up about this valuable find, or have the police poking about the island when ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... earnest? Did he really mean he had enjoyed the chorus, or was he poking fun at them? They could not ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... with his large hunting-whip under his arm, stood poking his great round face over the shoulder of the homme d'affaires, it is unnecessary to say anything. That thin-looking oldish person, in a most correct and gentleman-like suit of mourning, is Mac-Casquil, formerly ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... said Rosy. "Nasty cross old thing. She says it will make him ill, and I am sure it's much more likely to make him ill keeping him poking in there when he wanted so much to come ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... from going over to give Melicent a piece of her mind about her lofty airs and arrogance in thinking herself better than other people. And she was very eager to tell Therese that she meant to do as she liked, and would stand no poking of noses in her business. It was a good while before she fell into a heavy sleep, after shedding a few maudlin tears over the conviction that he intended to leave her again, and clinging to his neck with beseeching enquiry whether ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... and immediately after them a party of English officers, and then some more Americans. Each time the boss would gather up the lobster and personally introduce him to the newcomers, just as he had done in our case, by poking the monster under their noses and making him wriggle to show that he was really alive and not operated by clockwork, and enthusiastically dilating upon his superior attractions, which, he assured them, would be enormously enhanced if only messieurs would agree forthwith to partake of ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... the stump, she picked up a stick, and began poking in the earth at her feet. As she did so, there was a rumbling sound beneath her, and the world seemed to be slipping from her. This was followed by a rush of earth and a clatter of stones, and Stella went down ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... quite a group round the fire when they reached it. An old gypsy woman was seated on the ground nursing her knees, and occasionally poking a skewer into the round kettle that sent forth an odorous steam; two small shock-headed children were lying prone and resting on their elbows something like small sphinxes; and a placid donkey was bending his head ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... away the time between shearings, and we were having a sort of fishing and shooting loaf down the river in a boat arrangement that Jake had made out of boards and tarred canvas. We called her the Jolly Coffin. We were just poking up the bank in the slack water, a few hundred yards below the billabong, when Jake said, 'Why, there's a horse or something in the river.' Then he shouted, 'No, by God, it's a man,' and we poked the Coffin out into the stream for all ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... Bee would get up if she knew Cousin Edith were poking about downstairs," thought Gwen. "I know I ought to stay—but I can't, I can't! It means so much to pass that exam. It would be horrid to stop at home, too, with Bee in bed directing everything. If she were going away, and would leave me to it, I shouldn't mind. It's not the work I'm dreading. ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... is especially useful in our local jewellery and other trades, but it is very slowly making its way against the old English foot and yaid, even such a learned man as Professor Rankine poking fun at the foreign measures in a comic song of ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... better of them. Ransome was not the sort of man who could go about poking his nose into cupboards and places, or flourish a feather brush with a serious intention. He was even more incapable of badgering a beautiful girl whom he had already wronged sufficiently, who declared herself to be ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... in desultory fashion their afternoon's experiences, and compared their finds. All, that is to say, with the exception of von Schalckenberg, who, in his usual absent-minded way, was to be seen, about a mile distant, still prodding and poking at the cliff-face as industriously and with as deep an absorption as though so important a function as afternoon tea was ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... steps past the seat where the little drama had taken place he saw an elderly gentleman poking and peering beneath it and on all sides of it, and recognised his earlier ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... you little goose—that his convert was a rich man. His mind would have dwelt on the chapel, or the mission, or the infant school, in want of funds; and—with no more abominable object in view than I have, at this moment, in poking the fire—he would have ended in producing his modest subscription list and would have betrayed himself (just as our odious Benwell will betray himself) by the two amiable little words, Please contribute. Is there any other presentiment, my dear, on which you ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... slender dogwood switch that I had been poking into the holes of the digger-wasps up the hillside. If one thing more than another will turn a snake tail to in a hurry it is the song of a switch. Expecting to see this overbold fellow jump out of his new skin and lunge off into the swale, I leaned forward ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr Toots; but got up on the next, and went downstairs. Lo and behold, there was something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on a pair of steps had taken its face off, and was poking instruments into the works by the light of a candle! This was a great event for Paul, who sat down on the bottom stair, and watched the operation attentively: now and then glancing at the clock face, leaning all askew, against the wall ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... to find out how to tell how far it is from his head to his heels, without having to make the trip when he's tired," said Bob Sharp, who was always poking fun at Sid's ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... triumph was hard to bear. As long as his mother was there, however, he endured in silence, but the first day she went out in a vain search for work (it is about as difficult to get washing as to get into the Cabinet), he gave the infant a piece of his mind, poking up her head with a stick so that ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... As she was poking the fire, her maid knocked and entered with a letter. The postmark was Wiesbaden; the handwriting was her husband's. No doubt a further appeal to her feelings, she reflected contemptuously. But the letter proved to be from Elaine—written ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... one trust them when one does not know what they are talking among themselves; they jabber like Jews, and when they talked to me they were poking fun at me. Besides, there was some talk of free ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... favorable for our work of burning the logs but, despite a strong wind, they burned slowly and we had to keep poking and turning them to get a hot blaze. The smoke and heat were like to overcome me, but Sloot went ahead. He was born in the bush and all its work is second nature to him. Washed in the pond ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... were both no more, it cast a slur upon our memory which he knew we had done nothing in our miserable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle, therefore, he buried in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay while you, you thankless wretch, were prodding and poking—often very near it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should never see the light; but he was afraid to destroy it, lest to destroy such a document, even with his great generous motive, might be an offence at law. After ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... nice and cool!" murmured she, poking her little pink toes into the burning sand; till presently, a thorn, which appeared to be waiting for that very purpose, thrust its way deep into her foot. She sat down in the middle of the road and screamed. Jennie tried her best to draw out the thorn, but only succeeded in breaking it off. ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... might learn more. He went back to the old desk. It might have been his uncle's. He opened a drawer; it was empty. A second and a third; the last contained some valueless miscellany, an old glass knob a faded bit of worsted fringe, some papers. Poking under them, he actually found a package of letters. He picked it up, and with a little thrill of realization recognized his uncle's writing. The paper was old and yellowed with time. It had no address, but was sealed with red wax. Scarcely expecting fulfillment ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... fair. And a good many years the junior of him, There are some might be found entertaining a notion, That such an entire, and exclusive devotion, To that part of science, folks style entomology, Was a positive shame, And, to such a fair dame, Really demanded some sort of apology; Ever poking his nose into this, and to that— At a gnat, or a bat, or a cat, or a rat, At great ugly things, all legs and wings, With nasty long tails, armed with nasty long stings And eternally thinking, and blinking, and winking, At grubs—when he ought of her to be thinking. But no! ah no! 'twas ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... wall, in a very disorderly manner, just before the opening of the other chapel, and the commencement of a new chaunt, announced the approach of his Holiness. At this crisis, the soldiers of the guard, who had been poking the crowd into all sorts of shapes, formed down the gallery: and the procession came up, between ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Meanwhile, after poking about in as much of the ruins as I could penetrate, I stepped out through a gap in one of the walls and found myself again on the path by which I had entered. I noticed that it still ran on farther north, as having a destination beyond. So leaving the haunted ruins behind, I pushed on, ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... mind, they went from room to room, searching on desks, chairs, and tables, poking into dark corners, peeping into vases and other such receptacles, and feeling about under the furniture; but all to no purpose. They came at last to the great bedroom where were so many signs of agitation and hurried departure, deciding that here would be the most likely field for discovery. Goliath ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... and when winter comes in,— Och hone! widow machree,— To be poking the fire all alone is a sin, Och hone! widow machree. Sure the shovel and tongs To each other belongs, And the kettle sings songs Full of family glee; While alone with your cup Like a hermit you sup, Och ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... George would come poking along in," Sandy commented. "I believe I'll go out in the thicket after I get warm and see if he isn't somewhere in this vicinity. I thought I heard a call over there just a ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... stir with a long instrument, JD. Comb.: pout-staff, anet fastened to two poles, used for poking the banks of ...
— A Concise Dictionary of Middle English - From A.D. 1150 To 1580 • A. L. Mayhew and Walter W. Skeat
... caused by this chance remark. He vaguely recollected the manner in which the lines from "Maud" came to his lips after the episode of the letter. Was it possible that he had unknowingly uttered them aloud and Iris was now slily poking fun at ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... poking her head under his hand. He stroked her, and she promptly curled up at his feet, laying her head on a hindpaw. And in token of all now being well and satisfactory, she opened her mouth a little, smacked her lips, and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... I am free to confess, I couldn't help resenting Otoo's poking his nose into my business. But I knew that he was wholly unselfish; and soon I had to acknowledge his wisdom and discretion. He had his eyes open always to my main chance, and he was both keen-sighted and far-sighted. ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... an impatient jerk. They were poking him up on all sides, wanting him to come to a decision, and he could not see his way to it. Of course he was half asleep; he knew it himself. He felt that he wanted rest; his entity was working for him ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... was out here poking around in my fields and up in the hills from dawn till dark. Said he was making some soil tests. I yelled at him for stepping all over ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... it, and hang their great boughs over it, in the most lavish and reckless way. Almost all our crops, too, are sown broadcast, even peas and turnips. A farmer among us, who should go about his twenty-acre field, poking his finger into it here and there, and dropping down a mustard seed, would be thought a penurious, narrow-minded husbandman. The dandelions in the river-meadows, and the forget-me-nots along the mountain roads, you see at once they are put to no economy in space. Some seasons, too, our ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... now spoke somewhat above a whisper. "I don't want some police launch poking her nose up here. It's light enough for us to see to get out of the way if anything comes along. I'm not going to answer ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... Austrian sky-line to the northward; and all day long Dominion reconnoitering parties wandered among valleys, alms, forest, and peaks in company sometimes with Italian alpinists, sometimes by themselves, prying, poking, snooping about with all the emotionless pertinacity of Teuton tourists preoccupied ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... it," I said, sitting down on a fallen tree and looking up at her as she stood, tall and lithe, against an old pine, with her eyes averted. "I shouldn't have supposed you'd want an old fogy like myself poking about and spoiling the idyllic ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... What on earth are you poking up here for at this time of day?" was the matter-of-fact greeting. "You are to hurry up and come into our house and stay to dinner. Mother said you are allowed, so you needn't stop to ask permission; and, just think, the box that grandma sent from ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... staff galloped off and the escort clattered behind, minus two troopers, who sat on the edge of the veranda in their blue-and-yellow shell jackets, carbines slung, poking at the grass with the edges ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... kindly promulgate yo'se'ves in dis disrection yo' will find sufficient condiments an' disproportionate elements to induciate a feelin' ob intense satisfactoriousness," exclaimed Washington White, poking his head in ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... walked away and left the cent in the road, a humiliated boy. The next day he told Jim Gates about it. Jim said he was green not to take the money; he'd go and look for it now, if he would tell him about where it dropped. And Jim did spend an hour poking about in the dirt, but he did not find the cent. Jim, however, had an idea; he said he was going to dig sweet-flag, and see if another carriage ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... down, now, Antrim." He drew the pistol from Red King's mane, where it had been concealed during Antrim's talk with his men, and sheathed it. And then Blackburn, who had been a silent, amazed witness to what had occurred, whistled softly, covertly poking Shorty in ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of the bluff, and I saw that he would escape us. My rifle barrel was hot as fire. My fingers were all thumbs. I jammed a shell into the receiver. My last chance had fled! But Copple's big, brown, swift hands fed shells to his magazine as ears of corn go to a grinder. He had a way of poking the base of a shell straight down into the receiver and making it snap forward and down. Then he fired five more shots as swiftly as he had reloaded. Some of these hit close to our quarry. The old grizzly slowed up, and looked across, and wagged his ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... much for it at fust, but he didn't raise no objection; and when the gal got up to go he stopped the bus for 'er by poking the driver in the back, and they all got off together. Ted went fust to break her fall, in case the bus started off too sudden, and Charlie 'elped her down behind by catching hold of a lace collar she was wearing. ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... do, Miss Brangwen,' sang Hermione, in her low, odd, singing fashion, that sounded almost as if she were poking fun. 'Do you ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... item of serving pie with a knife, not by way of poking fun at anybody; but here was a man five years away from his inland hills, for a whole year owner of an eating-place in a good-sized seaport city, and had not yet noticed that some people ate pie without a knife. By it I fancied I could gauge the man's social inheritance. ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... would have done the same. I did open the door of the canary's cage. He was poking his poor little bill through the bars, and I was so sorry for him! I thought he wanted to go to his mother, who, perhaps, might be perched up in the tree opposite, and so I gave him his liberty. Mr. Sherwood has often told me that kindness to animals ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... and comin' to the turn I saw the amateur was holding back And poking into every hole he could To get her blocked, and so I pulled behind And drew the whip and dropped it on the mare — I let her have it twice, and then she shot Ahead of me, and Smithy opened out And let her up beside him on the ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... poking him up now and then, it's good for him, and I always take his part against other people. Sam is a bully and so is Mose, and I'll thrash them both if ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... word, and let married people have fallen ever so wide asunder, the thought, "my child's mother," "my baby's father," must in some degree bridge the gulf between them. When Peter Ascott was seen stooping, awkwardly enough, over his son's cradle, poking his dumpy fingers into each tiny cheek in a half-alarmed, half-investigating manner, as if he wondered how it had all come about, but, on the whole, was rather pleased than otherwise—the good angel of the household ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... swinging her feet and poking at the grass with a branch she had stripped of willow leaves; "I suppose that even if you are at the castle and I at Cairn Ferris we can always come here or meet at the alder grove—why, there ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... to feel I have something to do for you in Leipzig," said Ronnie; "and I enjoy poking about among crowds of queer instruments. I should like to have played in Nebuchadnezzar's band. I should have played the sackbut, because I haven't the faintest notion how you work the thing—whether you blow into it, ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... and satisfied herself that at any rate the youngsters were amusing themselves, spoke a word to Mrs. Greenacre over the ditch, and took one look at the quintain. Three or four young farmers were turning the machine round and round and poking at the bag of flour in a manner not at all intended by the inventor of the game; but no mounted sportsmen were there. Miss Thorne looked at her watch. It was only fifteen minutes past twelve, and it was ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... these would fit; one might just try them, but I wouldn't lift up the lid if they did. Oh no, what should I be the richer for knowing? (All this time he tries the keys one by one.) What's his name to me? a thousand names begin with an H. I hate people that are always prying, poking and prying into things,—thrusting their finger into one place—a mighty little hole this—and their keys into another. Oh Lord! little rusty fits it! but what is that to me? I wouldn't go to—no, no—but it is odd little ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... own business, Master Bunce," muttered the other, "and do you do the same. It ain't nothing to you what I does;—and your spying and poking here won't do no ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Emphasis is the soul of speech, it gives it its feeling and truth. Emphasis deceives less than words; perhaps that is why well-educated people are so afraid of it. From the custom of saying everything in the same tone has arisen that of poking fun at people without their knowing it. When emphasis is proscribed, its place is taken by all sorts of ridiculous, affected, and ephemeral pronunciations, such as one observes especially among the young people about court. It is this affectation of speech and manner ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... with her new bed, and, after curiously sniffing and poking into all the nooks and corners of it, she curled up and began to ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... there was Chatterer scurrying around and poking under the fallen leaves, but he hadn't found a single nut. Happy Jack couldn't stop to quarrel any more, because you see he was afraid that Chatterer would find the biggest and fattest nuts, so he began to scurry around ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... something not to be tolerated, and as Loring refused to budge from his position of calm superiority, the only thing left for Petty was to leave. So far from going to Yuma, he had progressed only to Monterey, and there spent two or three days poking about the resorts around the plaza in search of gossip that was rumored to be in circulation at Loring's expense. He found the gossipers easily enough, but had greater difficulty in reaching their authorities. It proved disheartening work, for the further he went the ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... and a fine estate, my dear. Sir Harry is a nice young fellow, but a fool. An absentee landlord, too,' grumbled Mrs Pansey, resentfully. 'Always running over the world poking his nose into what doesn't concern him, like the Wandering Jew or the Flying Dutchman. Ah, my dear, husbands are not what they used to be. The late archdeacon never left his fireside while I was there. I knew better than to let him go to Paris or Pekin, or some of those ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... about the tea-table on the lawn, Hephzy, Frances, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss, their son, and Heathcroft. The conversation had drifted to the subject of eatables, a topic suggested, doubtless, by the plum cake and cookies on the table. Mr. Heathcroft was amusing himself by poking fun at the American custom of serving cereals ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "Get out! Poking fun at me! It was like this 'ere. The gent yonder,"—and the man gave his head a jerk backwards—"wrote to me and said that he'd had to pay a pound for a bit of damage to the fence about his orchard, and that he thought, as my elephant had done the mischief, and I ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... smoking the kalian (Persian water-pipe, not unlike the Turkish nargileh, except that it has a straight stem instead of a coiled tube), and swallowing glasses of raw arrack every few minutes; they furthermore amuse themselves by trying to induce me to follow their noble example, and in poking fun at another young man because his conscientious scruples regarding the Mohammedan injunction against intoxicants forbids him indulging with them. About eight o'clock the Khan becomes a trifle sentimental and very patriotic. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... medical man of the old school. The doctor asks what sort of a night his patient has had, inspects his tongue with professional gravity, feels his pulse, looks at his watch, and mysteriously shakes his head. He then commences thrusting and poking Mr. Verdant Green in various parts of his body, - after the manner of doctors with their victims, and farmers with their beasts, - inquiring between each poke, "Does that hurt you?" and being answered by a convulsive "Oh!" and a groan of agony. The doctor ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... ask permission to visit one of the three great pumping engines for draining the immense Haarlem lake, and then drove to it. Imagine a round tower with a steam-cylinder in its center; and the piston which works up-and-down, instead of working one great beam as they usually do, works eight, poking out on different sides of the round tower, and each driving a pump 6 feet in diameter. I am glad to have seen it. Then ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... you mean to do for me, old fellow?' asked Mr Lenville, poking the struggling fire with his walking-stick, and afterwards wiping it on the skirt of his coat. 'Anything in the gruff ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Lady Carse, laughing. "Come, let us go and call to him, and tell him he may leave off poking among the weeds. Come; I ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... lord,' said Melmotte. 'I'll show your lordship the way.' The Marquis did not speak to his son, but poked at him with his stick, as though poking him out of the door. So instigated, Nidderdale followed the financier, and the gouty old Marquis toddled ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope |
