"Stunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Say, what in the dickens are you doing out here in the mines, by all that's holey?—and what's all this story in the Goldite News about one Bronson Van Buren doing the benevolent brigand stunt with you and your maid, and shunting Searle off with the Cons? Why couldn't you let a grubber know you were hiking out here to the desert? Why all this elaborate surprise—this newspaper wireless to your fond ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... really thought there was great danger, but I do not. You will not lose me and if I go now I can sit still next time and say "I have done better things than that." If I had not gone it would have meant that I would have had to have done just that much harder a stunt next time to make people forget that I had failed in this one. Now do cheer up and believe in the luck of Richard Harding Davis and the British Army. We have carte blanche from The Journal to buy or lease any boat on the coast and I rocked ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... together" had saved my life. It was when we were in college and were out on a cross-country hike together; Benda suddenly caught my hand and swung it upward. I recognized the gesture; we were cheerleaders and worked together at football games, and we had one stunt in which we swung our hands over our heads, jumped about three feet, and let out a whoop. This was the "stunt" that he started out there in the country, where we were by ourselves. Automatically, without thinking, I swung my arms and leaped with him and yelled. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... privately he calculates on carrying off that prize offered for hammer throwing, because that is his pet hobby, you see. Yes, and more than that, he said they were all crazy up at his 'burg' over the big meet, boys being out practicing every sort of stunt, even to road-running ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... themselves by the arms; finally, giving a jump with the arms and clapping the hands together once, and then coming back to the original position. The non-commissioned officer who was leading this exercise weighed about 138 pounds. It is easy to imagine the contrast between his doing this stunt and a heavy man of 180 ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... much more elaborate, and reminded me of those examples with which the traveler becomes so familiar in the many churches of Rouen. The richly crocketed gables, the flying buttresses and pinnacles which run half way up this spire, while they adorn it, seem to stunt the profile and rob it of its towering altitude, just as is the case with the western spires of St. Ouen. Yet this northern tower is considerably higher than the ancient one at the south, being 374 feet high, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... and Maggie went leisurely down the zigzag steps, proud of the tremendous success of their adventure, the boy paused several times to execute an inspirational "stunt" that would in some ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... better Chancellor of the Exchequer than this merchant prince who, however, has had enough of politics and is going back very gladly to his desk in the City. He is not in the least soured by the public ingratitude, and rightly judges it to be rather the voice of unscrupulous and stunt-seeking journalism than the considered judgment of the nation. But he has a very poor opinion of the way in which the Government of ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... telephone booth gave me the first hint. That is the favourite stunt of the drug fiend—a few minutes alone, and he thinks no one is the wiser about his habit. Then, too, there was the story about his speed mania. That is a frequent failing of the cocainist. The ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... this sharpshooting stunt," Lieutenant Trent called in Darrin's ear, over the crackling of the rifles, "until we get a few of the Mexicans ahead. Then we'll rush their position and try to drive them ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... therefore, be regarded with discouragement, as something which will stunt and dwarf the life and mar its beauty. It should be accepted rather, when it comes, as part of God's discipline, through which he would bring out the noblest and best possibilities of our character. Perhaps we would be happier for the time if ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... make use of it? Take me round to the theaters and let me mimic all the swell actors and actresses. I've got more chance with you than with that Trust gang. They wouldn't give me room to do my own stunt; they'd make me fit into theirs. ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... to build up a concept of the framework wherein psi seems to function," I told him casually, just as if it were all a formularized laboratory procedure. "I had to pull last night's stunt to ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... little thing like that to help me out on my personal bravery stunt?" teased her companion. "I wonder why only the first class girls are permitted to do all those wonderful things and get all the ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... Bertie. Something's gone wrong with the darned thing. My private impression is that, without knowing it, I've worked that stunt that Sargent and those fellows pull—painting the soul of the sitter. I've got through the mere outward appearance, and have put ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... enough to draw the crowd," vetoed Nora O'Malley. "Besides, the sophomore class has already begun to make plans for a play. While the other three classes are making plans we ought to go ahead and astonish the natives. The early stunt catches the cash, you ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... was rotten of Daren, one way you look at it—our way," added Flossie. "But you have to hand it to him for that stunt." ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... lie for nothing," she declared. "I didn't quite tumble to the Douglas Romilly stunt, though. They say he has left his business bankrupt in England and brought a fortune out here. You don't look as though you were overdone ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for the growth of plants, and do not complain, or try in abnormal ways to force them to do what is entirely contrary to the laws of nature; and if we paid more attention to the laws of human nature, we should not stunt the growth of children, relatives, and friends by resisting their efforts,—or their lack of effort,—or by trying to force them into ways that we think must be right for them because we are sure they are ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... Soon she was riding by herself, smiling recklessly. Reynolds rode after that, then the Kuzaks. Like most of them, Frank Nelsen took the scooter up alone, from the start. He was a bit scared at first, but if you couldn't do a relatively simple stunt like this, how could you get along in space? He became surer, then gleeful, even when the centrifugal force made his head giddy, pushed his buttocks hard against the scooter's seat, and his insides down against ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... Jean Paul's teeth biting his tongue to keep from uttering words "unbecoming an officer and a gentleman;" for "being overhauled by a girl" after he had "made a confounded fool of himself trying a land-lubber's stunt" was not a role which seemed in any degree an ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... and it looks as if I was going to get them. It'll be rather a stunt to go to bed by candle-light. Are there any ghosts about this place? Or skeletons built into the wall? Or dungeons with rusting chains? Or mysterious footsteps? Oh! I thought there'd have been at least something spooky in ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... I was happy. I sang in the choir and attended the sewing society, and recited that 'Annie Laurie' thing with the whistling stunt in it, 'in a manner bordering upon the professional,' as the weekly village paper reported it. And Arthur and I went rowing, and walking in the woods, and clamming, and that poky little village seemed to me the best place in the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... of a fool stunt is this?" growled Tom, who, with his comrades, had been in the thick of the fight. "We had it all over those fellows, even if they were two or three times as many, and here we are retreating, when we ought ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... lip reciting "Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night" in her native language, which he pulls on all occasions when he's feeling too good. It's some imitation. The Sioux language, even when spoken by a trained elocutionist, can't be anything dulcet. Jeff's stunt makes it sound like grinding coffee and shovelling coal into a cellar at the same time. Anyway, our journey begun happily and proved to be a good one, the days passing pleasantly while we talked over old times and played ten-cent limit in my stateroom, though Jeff Tuttle is ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... call dancing an athletic stunt?" Sheila leaned back against a coat that smelled strongly of hay and tobacco and caught up her knees in her two hands so that the small white slippers pointed daintily, ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... a fair result at the laboratory after the things were adjusted," commented he. "I don't see why we can't work the same stunt here." ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... north-east. The old tub of a brig did her best to beat up towards the land, but without avail. A squall took all her sails out of her, and away we went driving helplessly before it, as if we were in a hurry to get across the Atlantic. Our master, Captain Stunt, though a good seaman, was nothing of a navigator, and we could scarcely tell even where we were driving to. The vessel also was old, and had seen a good deal of hard service. Our condition, therefore, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... criminal," he swung to Dane, "you're going to be fair game for about three networks. It seems you transmit well," he uttered the last as if it were an accusation and Dane squirmed. "Anyway you did something with your crazy stunt. And, Captain, three men want to buy your Hoobat. I gather they are planning a showing of how it captures ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... "Killican." The stream here flows over a lava bottom and is quite wide, in places very deep and in places quite shallow. There seemed to be quite an area of this shallow water. The shallow places suddenly dropped off into pools of great depth, and it was something of a stunt to wander around on the shallow bed rock and cast off into the pools below. I tried it and found the lava as smooth ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... replied mysteriously. "You've got to find that out for yourself, boys. All I can tell you is that he's an Englishman, and she has known him for a long time—kind of love stunt, I imagine. She wasn't having any, but now he's at death's door she seems to have relented. Anyway, she is breaking every engagement she's got, giving up her chairmanship of the War Hospitals Committee, and she isn't going to leave him while he's alive. ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... back at the house. He looked at the boys and at Bland. He took a deep breath, like a man making ready to dive from some sheer height into very deep water. "All right, stay where you are—but leave those controls alone. Want to show the boys a new stunt, Bland? We'll take Miss Selmer up, and you ride here on the wing. You can lay down close to the fuselage and hang on to a brace. They've been doubting your nerve, I hear." He climbed in, pulling off his cap ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... the key situation in the life of a cabman or a charwoman, and make them glow for a brief moment in the tender light of his sympathy. He does not run sympathy as a "stunt" like so many popular novelists. He sympathizes merely in the sense that he understands in his heart as well as in his brain. He has the most unbiassed attitude, I think, of any author in the world. Mr. Edward Garnett, in his introduction to Mrs. Garnett's translation ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... why I wanted you fellows to be sure to be on hand to-night," resumed Bob, as they walked along, "was that I saw in the program of the Newark station in the newspaper this morning that Larry Bartlett was down for an entirely new stunt. You know what a hit he made ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... unto thee! Be strong, yea, be Strong."[3] When, at some occasional test, dismay or self-pity took hold of me I formed a habit of saying to myself, in our expressive American idiom: "This is your special stunt. It's up to you to do this thing just as if you had all the facilities. Go at it boldly, and you'll find unexpected forces closing round you and Coming ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... once more on the Freak Dinner stunt. All our exclusive citizens will recall the Perambulator Parade Dinner, in which Last-Trick Todd, at his palatial home at Pilgrim's Pond, caused so many of our prominent debutantes to look even younger than their years. Equally elegant and more miscellaneous and ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... chequered with white waves Breaking beneath on boulders which choked up The narrowed issue seawards of the glen. The steep path would no more admit of wheels: I took the beast and tethered her to graze Within the shade of a stunt ilex clump,— Returned to find a vacant car; Hipparchus, Uneasy on my tilting down the shafts, And heated with strange clothes, had roused himself And lay asleep upon his late disguise, Naked 'neath the cool eaves of one huge rock ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... American business. The exigencies of their circumstances have made the American people a commercial people; but whereas in England a commercial life may not offer scope for any intellectual activity and may even have a necessary tendency to stunt the mentality of any one engaged in it, business in the United States offers exercise to a much larger gamut of abilities and, by its mere range and variety, instead of dwarfing has a tendency to keep those abilities trained and alert. A business in England has not approximately the same large theatre ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... the price of three of them to him. The messenger honorably returned, the pennygrabs were bisected with the new knife, and all of them but Merle smoked enjoyably. He, going back to his candy and lemon, admonished each and all that smoking would stunt their growth. It seemed not greatly to concern any of them. They believed Merle implicitly, ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... rich and great; rich in knowing that he was the child of Him to whom all the gold mines belong; and great in that humility which alone recognizes greatness, and in the beginnings of that meekness which shall inherit the earth. No more would he stunt his spiritual growth by self-satisfaction. No more would he lay aside, in the cellars of his mind, poor withered bulbs of opinions, which, but for the evil ministrations of that self-satisfaction, seeking to preserve them ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... turned in that night and drawn up the army blankets, excessively scratchy they were too, when the bugle sounded for everyone to turn out. (This was rather a favourite stunt of the C.O.'s.) Luckily it was a bright moonlight night, and we learnt we were to make for a certain hill, beyond Bisley, carrying with us stretchers and a tent for an advanced dressing station. Subdued groans greeted this piece of ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... perfection. It is often said that suffering in this world is casual, an accidental thing, arising from human mistakes, and that the time will come in which man will grow up into perfection without suffering. A perpetual sunlight is thought to be the best condition for the human plant. Pain and want stunt its growth, winter storms arrest its development; and so it is supposed that if we can get rid of this element of suffering, human beings will soon become all they ought to be. But the poet speaks ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... "Say, Mr. Chames, de mug what wrote dis piece must ha' bin livin' out in de woods for fair. His stunt ain't writin', sure. Say, dere's a gazebo what wants to get busy wit' de heroine's jools what's locked in de drawer in de dressin' room. So dis mug, what do youse ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... happening. Divisions were moving. There had been, there was going to be, a stunt. A battalion marched over the hill and sat down by the road. They had left the trenches three days march to the north and had come to a new country. The officers pulled their maps out; a mild breeze fluttered them; yesterday had been winter and to-day was spring; but spring in a desolation ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... show Colonel Stoddard my one-man and no-horse farm—you know, the automatically cultivated ten-acre stunt I've been frivoling with. A lot of changes have been made that have been waiting a week for me to see tried out. I've been too busy. And after that, I'm going to take him over the colony—what do you think?—five additions ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... made the small hawser fast he started the taxi stunt and presently they were moving past the outlying clumps of mangroves with never a bit of trouble. Perk made himself comfortable by throwing his really fatigued form flat on the deck and stretching his ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... justice to partake of the nature of a wrong. I held it to be, in its consequences, the worst economy in the world. In saving money I soon can count up all the good I do; but when by a cold penury I blast the abilities of a nation, and stunt the growth of its active energies, the ill I may do is beyond all calculation. Whether it be too much or too little, whatever I have done has been general and systematic. I have never entered into those trifling vexations and oppressive ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... attained to patriarchal dimensions. The natural result has been that the birth-rate has suffered a serious and prolonged check in France. It seems certain that the First Consul foresaw this result. His experience of peasant life must have warned him that the law, even as now amended, would stunt the population of France and ultimately bring about that [Greek: oliganthropia] which saps all great military enterprises. The great captain did all in his power to prevent the French settling down in a self-contained national life; he strove to stir them up to world-wide undertakings, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... quiet her voice had carried across the room. Nat Hicks, Ella Stowbody, and Dave Dyer were abstracted, fingers and lips slightly moving. She knew with a cold certainty that Dave was rehearsing his "stunt" about the Norwegian catching the hen, Ella running over the first lines of "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," and Nat thinking of his popular parody on Mark ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... don't catch better than that. Never reach up for it; remember that your opponent can't tackle you until you've touched it; wait until it hits against your stomach, and then grip it hard. If you take it in the air it's an easy stunt for an opponent to knock it out of your hands; but if you've got it hugged against your body it won't matter how hard you're thrown, the ball's yours for keeps. ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Stunt, the well-known Colorado mining magnate, who recently purchased the Isle of Rum, has announced his intention of contesting the Elgin Burghs in the Liquid Paraffin interest. At a political meeting at Lossiemouth last week he held the attention of a crowded audience ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... man, RAMSAY MACDONALD, while touring in the East Went out to shoot the tiger, that homicidal beast, The most electrifying humanitarian stunt Has been my khaki joy-ride along the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... a better plan than that ... we might be able to persuade 'Senator' Blair and old Sickert, joint editors of the Laurel Globe, to let the Scoop Club run their paper for a day—just as a college stunt!" ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... a little blunt, "This scheme that you are advertising Was all along a private stunt Of WILSON'S singular devising; His game we weren't allowed to know; Under a misty smile he masked it; We never gave him leave to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... men's hearts, to the skies. Then the band was playing again and they were marching off down the street together, this wonderful class that knew how to turn earth into heaven for a fellow who hadn't done much of a stunt anyhow, this grand, glorious, big-hearted lot of chaps who would have done much more in his place, every soul of them—so Johnny McLean's thoughts leaped in time with his steps as they marched away. And once or twice a terror seized him—for he was ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... height depends upon the length of his bones. The use of alcohol and tobacco by a growing boy has a tendency to stunt the growth of his bones, so that they do ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... breakfast again. I'll be a 'shadder' of my former self if this early rising stunt is to ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... doing a similar vamoosing stunt. It happened, however, that his horse was more frightened than those of the others. When he jerked at the bridle the beast whirled with such a vicious fling that the boy, totally unprepared for such a move, and unable to get the grip with his knees ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... the pupils, "is rising and falling in a series of abrupt curves like those in a roller-coaster railway. It is a very useful stunt to be master of, for it enables one to rise quickly when confronting a field barrier, or to get out of range of ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... romantic about it. No hint of adventure. A splendid pictorial argument against the alleged joys of small-boat sailing. Possibly that is what Cloudesley and I thought, that sombre, leaden morning as we turned out to cook breakfast and wash decks. The latter was my stunt, but one look at the dirty water overside and another at my fresh-painted deck, deterred me. After breakfast, we started a game of chess. The tide continued to fall, and we felt the sloop begin to list. We played ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... Imbros. Still good news from Anzac. Seeing that the stunt was on a small scale, we seem to have got into the Turks with a vengeance. In falling back as well as in counter-attacking after we had taken Hill 60, the enemy were exposed to the fire from our trenches along the Kaiajik Dere. Birdie declares that they have lost 5,000. We have taken several ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... going to tell you about how we collected books for soldiers and especially about Pee-wee's big stunt. ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... hand," she said. "A damned fool stunt. I figured to put the money back in a day or so. If somebody else hadn't been working the same racket, they'd never have caught me. But they had ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of habit. Through repetition the act becomes automatic. Who ever saw a trained animal, unless it be the elephant, do anything that betrayed the least spark of conscious intelligence? The trained pig, or the trained dog, or the trained lion does its "stunt" precisely as a machine would do it—without any more appreciation of what it is doing. The trainer and public performer find that things must always be done in the same fixed order; any change, anything unusual, any strange sound, light, ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... She had read the article in the encyclopaedia about Yoga right through again this morning, and had quite made up her mind, as indeed her proceedings had just shown, that Yoga was, to put it irreverently, to be her August stunt. He was still so deep in meditation that he could only look dreamily in her direction as she approached, but then with a long sigh he ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... which cause sunburn, prematurely age human skin and produce skin cancers. As early as 1840, arctic snow blindness was attributed to solar ultraviolet; and we have since found that intense ultraviolet radiation can inhibit photosynthesis in plants, stunt plant growth, damage bacteria, fungi, higher plants, insects and annuals, and ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
... promised the doctor. "They will never get any evidence on this case, if I am right, and neither will we—for the present. Our stunt is to lie low and wait for the next attempt of this nature and thus accumulate some evidence and some ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... Majesty's Bengal Civil Service, spent, for the most part, in undesirable Districts, had given him little to be proud of, and nothing to bring confidence. Old enough to have lost the first fine careless rapture that showers on the immature 'Stunt imaginary Commissionerships and Stars, and sends him into the collar with coltish earnestness and abandon; too young to be yet able to look back upon the progress he had made, and thank Providence that under the conditions of the day he had come even so far, he stood upon the ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... 'He's been eating it up. The hotter it got, the better it suited. He's one of the heroes fast enough. If he lives, he's due a cross for his last stunt—out under fire twice in five minutes to bring in wounded. But he won't live. There—it's clearing. You run along and find ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... were not in any way stunt performances to pile up a handsome aggregate of hours, but were the ordinary flying routine of the station to which the ships were attached, and most of the hours were spent in escorting convoys and hunting for submarines. In addition to these duties, manoeuvres were carried out on occasions ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... happen," says a contemporary, "the final decision as to Stockholm rests with the Government." Our contemporary is far too modest. A few months ago the final decision would have rested with the stunt Press. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... said Russ. "A sort of mechanical shadow. While you were busy with the stock market stunt, I made several of them. One for Wilson and another for Chambers and still another for Craven." He hoisted and lowered the one in his hand. ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... contrive a trap with but the cotton rope and the safety-pin, but the safety-pin like Mohammed's Allah, "made all things possible." I stuck that safety-pin in the woodwork and hung the noose in such position that the least jerk would bring it down over an intruding head—practised the stunt for ten or fifteen minutes, and then got well back against the wall with the end of the line ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... average men are banded together and condemned to make the best of each other's society for a prolonged period, there is apt to be a stagnation of ideas as well as of aspirations, which tends more or less to develop the physical, and to stunt the spiritual, part ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... is not because the newspapers do not like virtue, but because it is not worth while to say that nothing has happened when nobody expected anything to happen. So if the publicity man wishes free publicity he has, speaking quite accurately, to start something. He arranges a stunt: obstructs the traffic, teases the police, somehow manages to entangle his client or his cause with an event that is already news. The suffragists knew this, did not particularly enjoy the knowledge but acted on it, and ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... you think the effect of the present system is to stunt trade, and keep other shops down except those of the fish-curers?-I ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... stunt you are on now, Lundi?" he inquired, late one night, when he had cornered Druro in the club with a small but select poker-party of the hardest citizens in the country. Druro gave him ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... costumes; tambourines and bones for minstrel show, grease paint, and burnt cork—in fact, anything that you think will add to the fun of the camp. Good stories and jokes are always in demand. Bring something interesting to read to your boys on rainy days. Think out some stunt to do at the social gatherings. If you play an instrument, be sure to bring it along ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... he lighted it, took a satisfying puff and went on: "If you ask my advice I'd say to go back an' see if you can't locate the cattle. As Bud remarks, they're dollars an' cents. Th' rustlers aren't, though it would be a mighty good stunt t' wipe 'em off th' face of this cow country. But maybe we can attend to ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... that of flight itself, had been answered, and but few were interested in working out the less spectacular applications of its principles. Aviation remained very much of a poor sister in the scientific world, held back by all the discredit attaching to the early stunt-flying and by failure to break through the ancient belief in its impracticability for any purposes other than ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... "Same old stunt," the girl replied. "I have been reading up the records of the savants of New York. From what I can make out about them, it doesn't seem to me that there's one amongst the whole bunch likely to have pluck enough to tamper ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... yes. Cain was the kind who would try such a crazy stunt, alone, with such supreme overconfidence in his ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... in the tirade, my old friend the ex-centre-rush, who was standing in the wings with me, turned and whispered: "For God's sake, Billy, what kind of a Goddamn Bolshevik stunt is ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... best-informed operator in the office, accepted the invitation. What happened is described by Adams as follows: "We gathered up a couple of sounders, a battery, and sonic wire, and at the appointed time called on her to do the stunt. Her school-room was about twenty by twenty feet, not including a small platform. We rigged up the line between the two ends of the room, Edison taking the stage while I was at the other end of the room. All being in readiness, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... had put some distance between himself and the ball park, I begin to think the thing over. If he did pull any startlin' stunt, I stood to lose a thousand bucks, not countin' the weddin' gift, to Alex. They was five hundred more I'd invested right then, makin' fifteen hundred in all, which I considered was gettin' into money. For all I knowed, Hector and Alex might be framin' me and they ain't no man livin' ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... have thought of just the stunt to get it in shape the quickest. If one of you girls will go with me to present me to the lady, I can take down what she says in shorthand and knock it off on the type-writer afterward. Then we'll all get together, you two girls, ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... with the soldiers fighting in France. One met it everywhere. "Hello, you know Siegfried Sassoon then, do you? Well, tell him from me that the more he lays it on thick to those who don't realize the war the better. That's the stuff we want. We're fed up with the old men's death-or-glory stunt." In 1918 appeared 'Countermans' Attack': here there is hardly a trace of the 'paradise' feeling. You can't even think of paradise when you're in hell. For Sassoon was now well along the way of thorns. How many lives had he not seen spilled apparently ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... lighted the small man's dark, unwholesome face. "It's a fine detective stunt, and besides it means twenty dollars per column and mebbe a 'boost.' I can't wait, you can't wait! It's up to us to strike now! If these men knew you have their names they'd hike for Texas or the high seas. ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... it is an acknowledged fact that no woman ever was a great painter, poet, or musician. Genius, the mighty one, scorns to exist in weak female nature; and even if it did, custom and education would certainly stunt its growth. Look here, child,"—and, to Olive's astonishment, he snatched up one of her drawings, and began lecturing thereupon—"here you have made a design of some originality. I hate your young lady copyists of landscapes and flowers, and Jullien's paltry heads. Come, let us see this ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... will." Harcourt paused. "I dash up the Nile in the morning, going to do Karnak and Luxor—you know, the usual stunt. Been busy all day buying scarabs and mummied cats, but I want to see you sometime to-night. By the way, I've ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... last very long. I've always had a pardner, some feller to ramble around with and borrow all my money when he was broke, and I'm getting awful lonesome without one. Sooner or later, I reckon, I'll pick up another one and the crazy danged fool will kill me. Drop a timber hook on my head or some stunt like that—I wish I'd never seen old Mother Trigedgo! What you don't know never hurt anyone; but now, by grab, I'm afraid of every man I throw in with. For the time being, at least, he's the best friend I've got; and—oh, what's ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... "Monkey," in this case being a man, does as beautiful a piece of work as I know of. I have never seen a back somersault upon a high wire. I have never heard of it before. There may be whole generations of artists gifted in this particular stunt. You have here, nevertheless, a moment of very great beauty in the cleanness of this man's surprising agility and sureness. The monkey costume hinders the beauty of the thing. It should be done with pale blue silk tights against a cherry velvet drop, or else in ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... never have taken up railway building. Funny nag, that of his. Looks like a hobby horse come to life. What's he trying to tell us? Regrets he can't come? Or is it a challenge to bring my bow and arrow and settle the old feud? Anyway, it's a rattling good stunt—and I'd like ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... for years," whined Max. "Who puts on the rubber shoes and sneaks up dark alleys hunting votes among the garbage, while you do the Old Glory stunt on Main Street? I do. You got to get me out of this. It may mean jail. I couldn't ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... some one, if human beings are to live at all; it had only been the outcome of the needlessly elaborate life of a highly organised community. It had filled his life full of a futile intellectual toil. And then, the effect upon his own character had been to hamper and stunt his natural energies. It had given him false ideals and ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... couldn't read the Handbook through. All of a sudden, when he'd be reading it, he'd see something that he liked, and good night, he'd forget everything else. Mr. Ellsworth said Skinny would never do anything except one thing, and most likely that would be a big stunt and if he failed, it would kill him. I guess he was a kind of a genius, like—you know what I mean. Either that or he was half crazy. I could never make him out, I ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... only way that I can find To stop this car colliding stunt Is cutting off the end behind And likewise that ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... the old man, Doctor. No spiritual side to him: only a sort of classical side that goes down with his own set. Besides, he's done, gone, past, burnt out, burst up; thinks he is our leader and is only our rag and bottle department. But you may depend on me. I will work this stunt of yours in. I see its value. [He begins moving towards the door with Conrad]. Of course I cant put it exactly in your way; but you are quite right about our needing something fresh; and I believe an ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... embark on it. There are men who, if they took it into their heads that there was one chance in a hundred of reaching the moon by being precipitated into space in some kind of torpedo, would volunteer for the adventure. They do these mad things alike for trivial and noble ends. They love a stunt even (or especially) at the risk of their lives. Half the aeroplane accidents are due to the fact that many men prefer risk to safety. To do some things that other people cannot do seems to them the only way of justifying their existence. It is an initiation ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... such flights I have asked myself: "If a person can do that, why cannot he fly?" Perhaps human beings will some day be seen flying about in the air like birds. It only requires an extension of the trapeze "stunt". Travelling in the air by means of airships or aeroplanes is tame sport in comparison with bird-like flights, whether ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... low in the west, and there was a lovely golden light on the water, the shadows on the willowy shore were deep and mysterious, a kingfisher flashed along the bank like a living jewel. The spirits of the school, already risen to fermenting point, effervesced into stunt songs composed on the emergency of the moment, and passed ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... city transported him, warmed him, fed him, amused him, protected him. He had nothing to do with it in any way; he didn't even know how it was done. Deprived of his push-buttons, he was as helpless as a baby. Beyond the little stunt he did in his office or his store, and beyond the ability to cross a crowded street, he was no good. He not only didn't know how to do things, but he was rapidly losing, through disuse, the power to learn how to do things. ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... just done an abbreviated stunt for the Los Angeles High School the afternoon before Christmas. The occasion was a big ad., but they ripped matters through in a hurry, because the social event of the trip came that afternoon—Lillian Arnold's reception at her home on ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... miles an hour with two small guns peering out of each side. It was the first tank! We all thought at first it was an armored car of some kind. Then it swung off the road, crossing a ditch 8 feet wide and 17 deep and when we saw it perform this stunt our faculties were for the moment spellbound, and then we burst ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... Claire, 'is where I do my stunt. Watch it. I invented the steps myself. Classical stuff. It's ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... actors had not returned from Cornwall and Switzerland. Provincial companies enjoyed—a little anxiously owing to uncertain receipts at the box office—a brief license on the boards of famous play-houses. The newspapers had exhausted the stunt of the silly season and were at their flattest and most yawn-provoking. The South African War ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... North country—it gets in your blood—if your blood's red—and I don't think there's any water in your veins, little person. Lord! I'm afraid to let go of you for fear you'll vanish into nothing, like a Hindu fakir stunt." ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... this bad water. To- morrow we will tackle the 2-mile portage with light hearts. We are 3 miles south of where Low's map places us. Am beginning to suspect that the Nascaupee River, which flows through Seal Lake, also comes out of Michikamau, and that Low's map is wrong. Bully stunt if it works out that way. Saw lots of caribou and fresh bear tracks. Trout went fine for supper. Flies very bad. Our wrists burn all ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... is named for Citheron who was a poet, and regalis refers to a king. You mustn't touch it or you may stunt wing development. You watch and don't let that moth out of sight, or anything touch it. When the wings are expanded and hardened we will put ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... eighty-five, as I told you," said Breen, most of whose attention was occupied by a new stunt he was trying: he had cut a microscopic sliver of meat off a gnawed bone, and was sliding it under the glass. Would the dog ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... "Yes, I've seen your picture in the papers many times." The actor tried to force a smile but his face muscles twitched. "I—I seem to have pulled a pretty dumb stunt by faking that phone call from ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... You'd make some sailor. It's hungry I've been for sight of you. I met Gene in town this afternoon and he told me about the wonderful stunt you pulled ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... knew how it was coming down. When I wasn't in the air, I was skidding, but somehow I stayed top side up and on the course, making a record that went all over the world! That put "Model B" on the map—but not enough on to overcome the price advances. No stunt and no advertising will sell an article for any length of time. Business is not a game. ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... you that to do, has she? Some stunt, I'll say. Gee, she's got her gall with her, old Simone, puttin' that off on the public as something new. If I had a dollar for every time Mamie Gunn has walked in and out to show it to customers I'd buy a set ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... up by several. Growing alarmed, the ringmaster took to his heals and disappeared in the direction of the dressing-tent, whence his young victim had already gone. Then the band struck up, and the manager of the show sent out the clowns to do an extra stunt to quiet ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... Dray," replied Jack, "but it looks too good to be true. Doesn't shoot up on land for a change, does it? I have heard of Dixies doing that stunt." ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... and fruit trees blossoming, enter into our sub-consciousness with a power but seldom appraised. Prison life, factory service long continued, a clerk's stool, a housewife's day-long duties—these things stunt and transform the human animal as nothing else, because of all experiences they most restrict, most impoverish the natural environment. And it is the especial function of nature books to make vivid ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... said. I knew you all right when you first blew in, only I wasn't quite sure. Just had a glimpse of you once before. I naturally guessed your smoke-inspector stunt was a sham. So, I ran that Fred Karvan stuff in on you. You ate it up, which gave you clean away, for I never knew any guy of that name. Do you see ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... crowd?" The lawyer laughed. "Oh, they're doing their regular stunt. You'll find most of them here ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... stunt to cover my real interest from the watchman. No use letting the whole world in on what ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... rotten," he said ruefully, "but what can I do? A junior inspector is a nobody; if he has any views of his own he has to pocket them. I would chuck out all this discipline rot and go in for the Montessori stunt. Take my tip and never ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... he stood with an arm flung over the shoulders of Tom and Billy, while Frank, on his knees, vigorously rubbed and manipulated his ankle. "I'll be all right in a minute. It was a boob stunt for ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... brought up in a barbed wire country," Pink exploded, "but I'll be darned if I ever saw a stunt like that ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... in the broad human sense," pleaded Lans, and so the net drew close around little Cyn, and she did not struggle, because the mesh was so open and free that it did not chafe the delicate nature nor stunt the yet ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... any of them loaded. That would be a fool stunt." Shelton had pulled the starting handle of a motor-generator and its rising whine ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... quit it again. Such, in its outlines, was one of the marvellous narratives of Jock Mo-ghoal. He belonged to a curious class, known by specimen, in, I suppose, almost every locality, especially in the more primitive ones—for the smart ridicule common in the artificial states of society greatly stunt their growth; and in our literature—as represented by the Bobadils, Young Wildings, Caleb Balderstons, and Baron Munchausens—they hold a prominent place. The class is to be found of very general development among ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... the advent of electricity, electrical sparks came into use for lighting gas-jets and mantles and in isolated instances they have served as light-sources. Doubtless, every one is familiar with the parlor stunt of igniting a gas-jet from the discharge from the finger-tips of static electricity accumulated by shuffling the ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... water at Twenty Mile—the only water for twoscore of miles. Consequently it was an important station on the road between the southern country and Old Camp Grant, and the new mines north of the Mescal Range. The stunt, liquor-perfumed adobe cabin lay on the gray floor of the desert like an isolated slab of chocolate. A corral, two desolate stable-sheds, and the slowly turning windmill were all else. Here Ephraim and one or two helpers abode, armed against Indians, and selling whiskey. Variety in their vocation ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... to it. There's one thing it's good to remember. Them high-toned folks has somehow got it fixed in their minds that the rich must not be annoyed, so it'll be money in your pocket, as the sayin' is, if you can do your little stunt without makin' any fuss about it, or drawin' their attention. Just saw wood an' say nothin', ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... hidden and inward, as well as from obvious and external causes; and female education does its best to weaken every physical counterpoise to this nervous mobility—tends in all ways to stimulate the emotional part of the mind and stunt the rest. We find girls naturally timid, inclined to dependence, born conservatives; and we teach them that independence is unladylike; that blind faith is the right frame of mind; and that whatever we may be ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... "By gosh, Tex, what you can't think up, the devil wouldn't bother with. That's sure some stunt. Let's get the boys ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... Little. He was hot and looked it. "I thought you were satisfied about that. Look here; go ahead, pull whatever stunt is up your sleeve. I give you my word that if you see Leyden and feel as you do about him then, we'll hold back our own vessel until he's under weigh, no matter what we lose by it. Does that soothe ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... the growth of the social consciousness have slowly acted wholesomely during the past century to remedy the first evil results of the industrial revolution. The artificial and abnormal increase of the population has been checked because it is no longer permissible in most countries to stunt the minds and bodies of small children by placing them in factories. An elaborate system of factory legislation was devised, and is still ever drawing fresh groups of workers within its protective meshes. Sanitary ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... "And as the sun has set already I for one wouldn't care how soon you decided to do that stunt." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... feat, stunt (Colloq.), exploit, achievement, deed, action, procedure, turn; decree, edict, law, statute, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... one day. I will explain the miracle. I have been working on short wave phenomena for some time. In fact, I had actually made an invisibility machine, as Morey will testify, but I realized that it had no commercial benefits, so I didn't experiment with it beyond the laboratory stunt stage. I published some of the theory in the Journal of the International Physical Society—and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the pirate based his discovery on ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell |
