"Banter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up.' He has reached the stage of framing general notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and Polemarchus. But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion, and vainly tries to cover his confusion with banter and insolence. Whether such doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were really held either by him or by any other Sophist is uncertain; in the infancy of philosophy serious errors about morality might easily grow up—they are certainly put into the mouths of speakers ...
— The Republic • Plato
... the "Pictures" were produced, one might, I repeat, have been afraid lest Dickens should go through Italy as a kind of educated Sam Weller. Such prophecies would have been falsified by the event. The book as a whole is very free from banter or persiflage. Once and again the comic side of some situation strikes him, of course. Thus, after the ceremony of the Pope washing the feet of thirteen poor men, in memory of our Lord washing the feet of the Apostles, Dickens says: "The whole thirteen sat down to dinner; ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... evidently thought this an exquisite piece of banter, for by the corner of his mouth I ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... been invented by Iambe, the daughter of the King of Eleusis. Hence, also, came the jesting used in celebrating the rites of Ceres in Sicily, and the custom for people to post themselves on the bridge leading to Eleusis in Attica, and to banter and abuse those going to the festivals. The story of Iambe only marks the rural origin of the metre, and its connection with Ceres, the Goddess of Harvest. Eleusis was her chosen abode, and next in her favour was Paros; and here we ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... of her arose clearly before me—the smile in those frank blue eyes, the proud poise of the head, the banter of the soft voice, and the words spoken. While she had said nothing convincing—merely an expression of womanly sympathy for the sufferings of the patriot army—yet I could not drive away the impression left that she was desirous that final victory ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... field on the other side of the heap; but his jest failed. The earnestness and devout emotion of the boy to the vision of reality which his imagination, aided by the hues of sunset, had thus exalted, were too much for the gross spirit of banter, and the speaker shrank back into his dust-hovel, and affected to be very assiduous in his work as the day was drawing to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... round-eyed steady stare. He was a superb type of man. It gave Bradley a feeling of awkwardness to stand beside him and a consciousness of stupidity to listen to their banter, but Ida dismissed Cargill and Birdsell summarily and walked home with Bradley. He was not keenly perceptive enough to see that Ida put Birdsell off with a brusqueness that ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... you are really too flattering!" gravely and gratefully replied the parson. Wilkinson was afraid that his friend's banter might become too apparent, as the simple egotism of the graduate of Durham led him on, so, he changed the subject, and soon had the cleric quoting ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... not being then in vogue), and the descriptions were so pat, that each one who saw them was disposed to apply them in a joking way to any other who was known to practice bundling; and the result was, such a general storm of banter and ridicule that no girl had the courage to stand against it, and continue to admit her lovers to ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... those present did I spare my banter. This was the old seneschal, Miriani. He stood at his post by the buffet, and ever and anon he would come forward to replenish Messer Ramiro's cup in obedience to ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... So far all had gone well, but she didn't know how long she could match his banter. So she favoured him with a deliberate gaze, and said, "Bridge, is it? I'm fond of the game, but I play only with ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... his aggressiveness, succeeding partially, in that he subdued the quarrelsomeness of his voice and manner to that affectation of banter behind which he concealed habitually his real self, and by which he most ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... that if we are minded to discourse on a life of pleasure, these men won't give us leave to go on, but will presently confess themselves that the pleasures of the body are but short, or rather indeed but of a moment's continuance; if they do not design to banter us or else speak out of vanity, when Metrodorus tells us, We many times spit at the pleasures of the body, and Epicurus saith, A wise man, when he is sick, many times laughs in the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Tolstoy's rough banter recalls Rousseau's sarcasm about an opera of Rameau's. In the Nouvelle Heloise, he rails in a similar fashion against the sadly fantastic performances at the theatre. It was, even then, a question of monsters, "of dragons animated by a blockhead of a Savoyard, who had ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... queen, "your majesty will no longer be surprised, when you understand, that this is not as you suppose a bird, but a man." "Madam," said the king, more astonished than before, "you mean to banter me; but you shall never persuade me that a bird can be a man." "Sir," replied the queen, "far be it from me to banter your majesty; nothing is more certain than what I have had the honour to tell ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... difficulty in keeping their buggy in sight. Sometimes Bartley stopped long enough for them to come up, and then, after a word or two of gay banter, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... asserted that the court of Versailles was at that very moment labouring to counteract Pitt's diplomatists. But though Fox censured the French treaty, which formed the leading topic of the king's speech, he voted for the address, a circumstance for which he received a little banter from the lips of the minister. Pitt remarked:—"I am happy that, notwithstanding the vehemence with which the right honourable gentleman has argued against the address, he is ready to vote for it. I hope he will continue the same line ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... be crude. Still, crudeness is one of life's conditions." There was the slightest flavour of banter in the tone of Ricardo's governor. "Conceivable, but unlikely. Martin is a little crude; but you are not, Mr. Heyst. To tell you the truth, I don't know precisely where he is. He has been a little ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... forehead topped with close-cropped hair, and a scrubby and ill-trimmed fair beard. His bright eyes gleamed with intelligence. He seemed not in the least embarrassed and wore a pleasant smile, free from any shade of banter. ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... banter his antagonist. "You are a fine gentleman," he said; "you have been at Baiae" (Baiae was a fashionable watering-place on the Campanian coast). "Well," said Cicero, "that is better than to have been at the 'matrons' worship.'" And the attack and repartee ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... toward maintaining the mock-serious tone which he chose to adopt; and Mrs. Thornton's peculiar style of face gave her the same advantage. It pleased each to express for the other an exaggerated sentiment of regard. They considered it banter and badinage. How far it was safe was another thing. But they had known one another years before, and were only resuming the ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... was a sample of life at Temple Camp for seven days past. Those who were not given to jollying and banter had fallen back on checkers and dominos and other wild sports. A few of the more adventurous and reckless made birchbark ornaments, while those who were in utter despair for something to ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... canoe, they pushed out some twenty or thirty rods into the lake, cast anchor, and threw out their lines. Claud, who baited with grubs, soon had drawn in two, weighing as many pounds a piece, and began to feel disposed to banter the hunter, who had baited with a flap of moose-skin, which he had brought along with him, and which, to Claud, seemed little likely to attract the fishes to his hook. But he soon found himself mistaken; for, turning to give utterance to what was passing in his mind, he beheld ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... repeatedly. A certain expressman now smiled when he saw the long, slim figure approaching with a package under his arm, which from frequent reappearances had become easily recognizable; but as a person becomes accustomed to a physical deformity, Calmar Bye had ceased to notice banter. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... line of defense. Possibly her explanation, whatever it was, had seemed convincing when she poured it out to him in the heat of their first private colloquy; but now that it was exposed to the cold daylight of judicial scrutiny, and the banter of the town, he was thoroughly ashamed of it, and would have sacrificed her without a scruple to save his professional reputation. But the obstinate Judge—who perhaps, after all, was more inquisitive than kindly—evidently wanted to hear the story out, ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... as he looked after the retreating figure. He had watched Menard grow from a roistering lieutenant into a rigid captain, and he knew his temper too well to mind the flicks of banter. But before the soldier had passed from earshot, he ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... out a-laughing, and began to banter her. The gentleman who was sent to try the slipper looked earnestly at Cinderella, and, finding her ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... what it is, and what we can do," said Farnham, and there was no longer any banter ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... comfortably full, followed by hand-bags, blankets and a two-gallon demijohn. They said they had driven from Winona that day, and would stay all night. They ordered supper, and while it was in course of preparation, indulged in a good deal of banter back and forth. Of course, I had formed the determination of becoming acquainted with the contents of that demijohn in some way, by fair means or foul, and became deeply interested in their conversation, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... from a new angle of vision. Discreetly aloof, he observed, in passing, the complete free-and-easiness of the modern maiden with her modern cavalier; personalities flying; likewise legs and arms; a banter-wrangle interlude over a tennis-racquet; flight and pursuit of the offending maiden, punctuated with shrieks, culminating in collapse and undignified surrender: while a pair of club peons—also discreetly aloof—exchanged remarks whose import ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... he declared, with something of the old banter in his tone. "You are worse than the industrious apprentice. Have I, by chance, the pleasure of speaking to one of ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at night; my design being to see the ceremonys, this night being the eve of Christmas, at the Queen's chapel. But it being not begun I to Westminster Hall, and there staid and walked, and then to the Swan, and there drank and talked, and did banter a little Frank, and so to White Hall, and sent my coach round, I through the Park to chapel, where I got in up almost to the rail, and with a great deal of patience staid from nine at night to two in the morning, in a very great ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... mockingly, "you do keep me here writing deadly nonsense. Deadly to me! It has already killed my self-respect. And you may imagine," he continued, his tone passing into light banter, "that Montero, should he be successful, would get even with me in the only way such a brute can get even with a man of intelligence who condescends to call him a gran' bestia three times a week. It's a sort of intellectual death; but there is the other one in the background for a journalist ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... away from husbands, etc., till her eyes twinkled, and she laughed much. I had now broken down the barrier, had brought myself to her level, and she as every other woman would have done, took advantage of it, and began to return my chaffing and banter, every woman feels instinctively that when a man is chaffing her (be it ever so decently veiled), about fucking, that she may safely return it: both are at once on a common level. A washerwoman would banter a prince, if the subject was cunt, without the prince being ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... morning, T was probably one of the most thoughtful and judiciously-minded; yet of every one but myself the business in being abroad was sober and reasonable, while mine was utterly ridiculous and silly. And the girl whose banter had driven me to it—perhaps she had attached no seriousness whatever to my petulant vow and had even now forgotten it. With these reflections were mingled the pangs of parting from my home and family; and for a time I was ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... changed in this vein of humorous banter since Shakespeare died. One of the best pieces of Shakespeare criticism ever written is contained in four words of the present Poet Laureate's Ode for the Tercentenary of Shakespeare, 'London's laughter ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... This banter, coupled with the assurance that the girl knew exactly what she was about, cooled Lennon's excitement. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... would convert them all," he returned, indulging her in this childish banter. "You see, you converted me with only a few words, and I was a ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... study of Aretino. Nola, Bruno's birthplace, was famous for the license of its country folk. Since the day of its foundation by Chalkidian colonists, its inhabitants had preserved their Hellenic traditions intact. The vintage, for example, was celebrated with an extravagance of obscene banter, which scandalized Philip II.'s viceroy in the sixteenth century.[85] During the period of Bruno's novitiate, the ordinances of the Council of Trent for discipline in monasteries were not yet in operation; and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Henri's mocking voice, and there, sword in hand, stood my cousin, barring our path. Below him were several brawny ruffians, bearing pikes and clubs, and, last of all, Pillot, who shouted with good-humoured banter, "Aha! the ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... amusements which increase upon us, the town," says the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1752, "has been lately entertained with a kind of farcical performance, called 'The Old Woman's Oratory,' conducted by Mrs. Mary Midnight and her family, intended as a banter on Henley's Oratory, and a puff ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... among them with a jabber of strange terms, a bright smile and ready banter, and I could see that he was to be a quick favourite. I envied him for his ease of manner, a thing I could never compass. Presently ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Burdette and George Cable, and for a while my gentlest and cheeriest of friends, Bill Nye, joined with me and made the dusty detested travel almost a delight. We were constantly playing practical jokes on each other or indulging in some mischievous banter before the audience. On one occasion, Mr. Nye, coming before the foot-lights for a word of general introduction, said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, the entertainment to-night is of a dual nature. Mr. Riley and I will speak alternately. ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... way before the important purpose I had formed, and to which the banter now recalled me. So fair an opportunity might never offer again. In the vicissitudes of a soldier's life, the chance of to-day should not be disregarded—to-morrow may bring change either in the scene ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... subject to athletics, and was in the highest spirits the rest of the day; but underneath all his fun and banter the question constantly arose in his inner consciousness: How could he elude his roommate's watchfulness and on the coming Saturday escape ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... interrupted the youth, with something of banter in his manner, "you don't think me good, ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... in Peru has been quoted as exhibiting exaggeration in the description of the condor surpassing anything that can be laid to Polo's charge here; but that is, in fact, only somewhat heavy banter directed against our traveller's own narrative. (See Travels in Various Parts of Peru, 1830, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... very fond of him, was mildly scornful of his Philistine outlook. He cared nothing for books, and the only form of art that appealed to him was the musical comedy. She treated him as a rule with pleasant banter and refused to take him seriously. It required a good deal of energy to keep their friendship on a light footing, for she knew that he had been in love with her since he was eighteen. She could not help feeling flattered, though on her side there was no more than the ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... bearing. There was none of the bluster of the armchair Jingo, none of the loud hectoring and swaggering and bravado that distinguish the carpet warrior. On the contrary, when they were talking of the war amongst themselves they had an air of quiet determination, of good-humoured banter, and of easy, serious confidence far more ominous for an enemy than any amount of fluent rant. After the world of politics, with its hair-splitting and word-mincing, it was good to be with soldiers—the ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... hearty desire to know and be led by the truth; to be taught of God, and conformed to his will in all things, and I venture to promise he will not be suffered to err. But let him avoid disputes about religion, they are seldom productive of any good; let him fortify his mind against banter and ridicule, it is no small degree of persecution. Yet, if he be determined to follow his Lord, he must expect to meet with it, and I know from experience it is hard to bear. I have found the safest way is to receive it in silence; for those who are ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... with a short laugh, relapsing into that light tone of banter which was his most natural mode of expression; "when, one fine day, a hired coach clattered up Sir Rupert Landale's avenue and deposited upon his porch a tattered mariner who announced himself, in melancholy tones that would have befitted the ghost no doubt ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... inferior men all his life; he liked to ride rough-shod; he was never pleased when his path crossed people over whom he could not ride rough-shod. Generally she had accepted his classification of those who opposed him strongly as "blamed idiots"; sometimes with a little of her laughing banter, but usually, his superiority standing out sharp and clear when opposed to the dull Canaanites, endorsing his opinion. "I sort of wish," he went on, with that keen, wire-edged exasperation still sawing in his voice, "that you wouldn't have much to do with that chap. He ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... sensations when they have to think so much of other people's," she responded merrily; and she felt again the strange impulse of retreat, the prompting to fly before the earnestness that appeared in his voice. While he was flippant, her intuitions told her that she might be serious, but when the banter passed from his tone, she turned to it ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... difference of their ages was like another bond between them. Once, when twitted with the uncharitableness of his youth, Mr. Van Wyk, running his eye over the vast proportions of his interlocutor, retorted in friendly banter— ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... medicated draughts are often mentioned in Romances. The reader will recollect the banter upon them in Don Quixote, where the Knight of La enumerates to Sancho the cures which had been performed upon many valorous champions, covered with wounds. The Hindus, in their books on medicine, talk of drugs for ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... kind of ease—the kind that still preserves punctilio. The planter himself seemed to be the dynamo that generated the larger portion of the gaiety and wit. The younger ones at the board found it more than difficult to turn back on him his guns of raillery and banter. It is true, the young men attempted to storm his works repeatedly, incited by the hope of gaining the approbation of their fair companions; but even when they sped a well-aimed shaft, the planter forced them to feel ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... street to the old plaza where their hotel was located. Their transit was an interrupted one, for these four cattlemen were among the best known in the Southwest. All along the route they scattered nods of recognition, friendly greetings, and genial banter. One of them—the man who had formerly been the hard-riding, quick-shooting sheriff of the county—met also scowls once or twice, to which he was entirely indifferent. Luck had no slavish respect for law, had indeed, if rumor were true, run a wild and ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... faire; ils ont des canons?" This was the 3d May, 1631. This probably is about the nadir-point of the Brandenburg-Hohenzollern History. The little Friedrich, who became Frederick the Great, in writing of it, has a certain grim banter in his tone; and looks rather with mockery on the perplexities of his poor Ancestor, so fatally ignorant of the time of day it had ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... easy chat and gay banter of the friendly groups the more to her taste, because she had come from a rather trying quarter of an hour in Rosamond's room, where Mary Browne—with an e as she always explained carefully—was being shown the purchases which had seemingly ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... rocks beneath his chamber window and was injured fatally. Frischlin was considered one of the best Latin poets of post- classical times; but his genius was marred by his immoderate and bitter temper, which caused him to imagine that the gentle banter and jocular remarks of his acquaintances were insults to be repaid by angry invective and bitter sarcasm, with which his ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... swallow things we don't like sometimes." Then he broke off into a tone of banter. "So you've brought the flag back ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... Penetration, which your Libertines display at some Times, are inconsistent with the Ignorance, Folly and Stupidity they shew at others. It is impossible that Men of Parts, and the least Spirit, how much soever they were in the Wrong, could see themselves defeated, banter'd and exposed with so much Tranquility and Chearfulness; and I can't conceive how any, but egregious Coxcombs, without Sense of Shame, could behave as Alciphron and Lysicles do throughout your ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... she began, in a tone of gentle banter, as she stroked the helpless hands. "Were you worried? I'm so sorry! I asked Miss Munch to let you know. Didn't she?... I went over to Mr. Flint's to take dictation. The storm washed out the track. I tried to make the boat in Mr. Stillman's car, but we broke down and missed it.... I had to stay ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... the evening passed with the banter that invariably took place when Rube was of the party. It was late when they left the Squire's, the constable going along with them, and all singing merrily as birds on ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... wrote a letter to Dean Swift, in which he says, "The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday; the Queen died on Sunday. What a world this is, and how does fortune banter us!" In other {48} words, Bolingbroke tells Swift that full success seemed within his grasp on Tuesday, and was suddenly torn away from him on Sunday. But the most characteristic part of the letter is a passage which throws a very blaze of light over the unconquerable levity ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... seemingly mocking smile, he appears about to lead her back into the ballroom, there is, at least so I like to read the music, a pretty little laugh, as much as to say, "Can't you read my real feelings under my mask of banter," a tender glance indicated by a retard on a charmingly expressive little turn of the melody—and she ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... at his banter of this red-tape official, the official himself stood gasping like a fish out of the water, and trying to realise the insult levelled at his dignity. Jobson—a small man—sidled round to the front of him and made a ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... banter the scouts left Mr. Gilroy where the trails diverged,—they to cross the crest and invite the boys over for supper the next day, and Mr. Gilroy to go home to ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... in his delightful essay on Huxley said that in the Huxley home there was more jest, joke and banter than in any other place in London. The air was surcharged with mirth, and puns, often very bad ones, were tossed back and forth with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... the pet topic of Toryism, from whom he certainly provoked some retaliation, is only paralleled in Blackwood. We have included the Shakespeare and the Moxon as attractively brief samples on the approved model of savage banter, and the Jane Eyre as perhaps the most flagrant example of bad taste to be found in these merciless pages. It was George Henry Lewis, by the way, who so much offended Charlotte Bronte by the greeting, "There ought to be a bond between us, for we ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... particular, and he advanced with great gravity, saying, "Gentlemen, your most obedient servant:—give me leave to introduce my friend Mr. Random to your society." Then, turning to me, "Mr. Random, this is Mr. Bragwell—Mr. Banter, sir—Mr. Chatter—my friend Mr. Slyboot, and Mr. Ranter sir." I saluted each of then in order, and when I came to take Mr. Slyboot by the hand, I perceived him thrust his tongue in his cheek, to the no small entertainment of the company; but I did not think proper to take any ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... object of the characters in The Courts of Idleness (WARD, LOCK) was to amuse themselves, and as their sprightly conversations were often punctuated by laughter I take it that they succeeded. To give Mr. DORNFORD YATES his due he is expert in light banter; but some three hundred pages of such entertainment tend to create a sense of surfeit. The first part of the book is called, "How some passed out of the Courts for ever," and then comes an interlude, in which we are given at least one stirring war-incident. I imagine that Mr. YATES ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... a top hat or a morning suit in Monte Carlo," she said, furious at his banter. "Let us talk about ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... Why, my chap, you looks as if ye didn't much mind what come t'yer nose, I reckon. You looks an old poacher, you do. Tall ye what 'tis'!" He changed his banter to business, "That bird's mine! Now you jest hand him over, and sheer off, you dam young scoundrels! I know ye!" And he became exceedingly opprobrious, and uttered contempt of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not having the least conception that it could be otherwise. To tell them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them would be to betray her agitation, while to decline their offers to dress her would prolong their banter and insistence. She flushed, her beautiful eyes grew dim, red blotches came on her face, and it took on the unattractive martyrlike expression it so often wore, as she submitted herself to Mademoiselle Bourienne and Lise. Both these women quite sincerely tried to make her look pretty. She was so ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the room. Afterward, as they wheeled from time to time in their chairs, they bitterly insulted each other with the utmost good-nature, taking unerring aim at faults and riddling personalities with the quaint and cynical humour of a newspaper office. Throughout this banter, it was strange to note how infrequently the men smiled, particularly when ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... night with the decencies of family affection, and Bessie delivered the elder lady over to her maid. Then the girl sank down again, and lay musing in her deep chair before the fire with her book shut on her thumb. She looked rather old and worn in her reverie; her face lost the air of gay banter which, after the beauty of her queer eyes and her vivid mouth, was its charm. The eyes were rather dull now, and the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... narrative of the frenzy of Mr. John Dennis," published in the Miscellanies of Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, and said to have been written by Pope, is a grave banter on his usual violence. It professes to be the account of the physician who attended him at the request of a servant, who describes the first attack of his madness coming on when "a poor simple child came to him from the printers; the boy had no sooner entered ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... have returned a sharp reply to this banter, but she was very anxious to find a physician for Phoebe, and so thought it best to ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... up my little table and began to show them how easy it was to guess which shell the little pea was under. The unlettered hinds gathered in a thick semicircle and began to nudge elbows and banter one another to bet. Then was when Rufe ought to have single-footed up and called the turn on the little joker for a few tens and fives to get them started. But, no Rufe. I'd seen him two or three times walking about and looking at the side-show pictures with his mouth full of peanut candy; ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... her comrade, Ilse Westgard; she exchanged gossip and banter with the Cossacks, argued with them, laughed ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... thing. Who would jeer, and jest, as she stood before the altar, and pledged fidelity unto death to her betrothed partner? And why, I would ask, should the preliminaries of marriage be treated as a theme fit only for levity and merriment? It is said that we Americans are peculiar for banter on this subject. One scarcely hears it alluded to in society, except with a laugh, or a jest. As a natural consequence of this state of feeling, and this style of conversation relative to the affections, it is not easy to know when one speaks as he ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... Chairman was Lord Rattley. Lord Rattley, a peer with very little money and a somewhat indecorous past, rarely honours the Tregantick bench by attending sessions; but for once he was here, and at once started to banter Sir Felix on ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a little strip of shade, and panted like a hunted rabbit. A sickening pain throbbed up from his toe. The train moved slowly at first, and Jimmy knew that he could not hide from the train men in a coal car. On a banter from Piggy Pennington and Bud Perkins Jimmy had ridden on the brake-beam while the switch engine was pulling freight cars about the railroad yards. He had a vague idea that midway of the train, between two box cars, would be a safe place. When the ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... prefect had transferred Abel to the seventeenth arrondissement, and so the old friendship was picked up where it had been dropped, and the ruddy-faced agent found it both convenient and agreeable to drop in frequently at Madame Caille's on his way home, and exchange a few words of reminiscence or banter for a box of sardines or a minute package of tea. But, with the deterioration in his old friends' wares, and the almost simultaneous appearance of the Salon Malakoff, his loyalty wavered. Flique sampled the advantages of Hippolyte's establishment, and, being won over thereby, ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... her fingers twitched convulsively at the handle of her parasol. Here was her lover saying to her all that she had dreamed he might say, saying in an earnest, trembling voice that he loved her; in a voice so different to his customary tone of banter, that she for a moment almost believed in his sincerity; yet as she averted her face and looked over the bay she could see clearly in her mind's eye the little picture which had remained in it from yesterday—her lover holding ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... a sudden spirit of banter Terry turned to the Major: "Before I begin, Major, I wish to congratulate you upon having won to the bliss of matrimony without violating that bachelor formula which you so ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... conversation, books, and newspapers. The Dutchman hates to be interfered with, and resents the advice of candid friends, and cannot stand any 'chaff.' He has his kind of humour, which is slow in expression and material in conception, but he does not understand 'banter.' He is liberal in theories, but intensely conservative in practice. He will agree with a new theory, but often do as his grandfather did, and so in Holland there may be seen very primitive methods side by side with fin de siecle thought. ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... Molly looked more like a stately young empress than an impecunious doctor's daughter as she floated into the room, to be embraced and complimented by the Lavender Lady and to receive a generous meed of admiration, seasoned with a little gentle banter, ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... of the scholars who had sat here and there, Miss Ludington began gently to banter Ida about this and that boyish sweetheart, and divers ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... all the vases, trained some vines, and then with some needlework went out on the veranda. At the table she listened and responded interestedly to Mrs. Merlin's bromidic remarks, was gentle with the children and most flatteringly deferential to Kurt. Of her former banter and coquetry toward him there was no trace. After the children had gone to bed, she played cribbage with Mrs. Merlin ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... were better to cancel the preceding paragraphs. Is not any savor of banter out of place in the reception we are bound to accord to an alleged solution of the unthinkable problem which underlies creation and man's position therein? If the impulse which first controlled us is not denied expression, it is because ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... pecuniary transaction happened to my father whilst doing the business of the rent-day. He was receiving sums of money from the tenants in succession. After looking over a bundle of notes which he had just received from one of them, a well-known character, he said in banter, "James, the notes are not correct." To which the farmer, who was much of a humorist, drily answered, "I dinna ken what they may be noo; but they were a' richt afore ye had your fingers in amang 'em." An English ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... you lapse into such talk, you fully justify the precaution. I was just thinking what a young lady you had grown into,' he answered in a tone of banter, under which, however, she felt a rebuke; and while directing her attention to the Pantheon, he took care to get within ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... conference, confabulation, chat, parley, causerie, parlance, confab; dialogue, interlocution; soliloquy, monologue; palaver, buncombe, blarney, blandishment, flattery, flummery; chaff, banter, raillery, persiflage, badinage, asteistn; chatter, babble, chit chat, gibberish, jargon, twaddle, fustian, moonshine, hanky-panky, jabbering, rhapsody, rant, grandiloquence; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... I'll start at once." Fred dropped his banter. "I'll tell you what, Nancy. I may not be able to do much right off, but I'll promise you that he has a fair chance before ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... Braund, and Barnes, is a Banter on Criticks, and Genealogists, who make such a Pother about the Orthography of Names and Things, that many Times, three Parts in four of a Folio Treatise, is taken up in ascertaining the Propriety of a Syllable, by which Means the Reader is ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... to color my fancy for a horse. As for a mistress, or for those fugitive affairs of the heart which English fashion countenanced—nay, on which fashion insisted—I had no part in them, and brooked much banter from the gay world in consequence. It was not merely lack of money, nor yet a certain fastidiousness implanted, nor yet the inherent shrinking of my English blood from pleasure forbidden, for my Renault blood was hot enough, God wot! It was, I think, all of these reasons that kept ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... "What has made you think of it so suddenly?" said I. "Do you not want to catch some more canaries?" said she. "I suspect," said I, "that you would like to have ours escape." "Perhaps," said she, "that would be a relief to you from your present embarrassment." Then I saw that all this was banter. She wished to teaze me a little. The truth is, I have two fine singing canaries and a mocking-bird. Some of my pro-slavery friends delight to pester me about them. They say that they mean to issue a habeas corpus, and take them before Justice Bird, (who, you know, queerly enough, happens to ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... was exchanging some gay banter with Paul and did not hear. But Ruth and Alice did, and the latter could not avoid a thrust at the scornful ones. To Ruth, in an unnecessarily loud voice, ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... our out-spoken host. I soon found that we were not likely to learn anything of the interesting subject from Armitage himself, for he was remarkably reticent, and I saw that it would not do to banter him, or allude in any ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... only as a matter of policy, and was not capable of being wilfully unjust. Palmerston, essentially superficial, delighted in banter, and knew how to divert grave opposition by playful levity; LINCOLN was a man of infinite jest on his lips, with saddest earnestness at his heart. Palmerston was a fair representative of the aristocratic liberality ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... same token you are all sweetness and blue eyes and dearness and dimples," he punished her. Then the banter in his ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... banter frae Lord Deas, Nae promises o' fees That never will be paid afore the judgment-day, Nae lies dubbed "information," From the worst rogues in the nation,— The days o' my ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... loose. Would you mind very much, Squaw-talk-far-off?" He ducked and peered into her face again, and again his face sobered. "What's the matter?" he asked, in an entirely different tone—which Miss Georgie, in spite of her mood, found less satisfying than his banter. ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower |
