"Joker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... O'Toole saw an old woman come limpin' along th' dock where th' Starbuck lay. She hobbled on to th' gang-plank an' started aboard, an' O'Toole began to chaff Garnett. He waren't half bad as a joker. ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... well enough—as well as I want to be. Here is no lack of my best friend,'—touching his case-bottle;—'but, to tell you a secret, he and I have got so used to each other, I begin to think he is like a professed joker, that makes your sides sore with laughing if you see him but now and then; but if you take up house with him, he can only make your head stupid. But I warrant the old fellow is doing the best he can for ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... if you break anything, I'll bash in your fool head. There's going to be some style to this dishwashing. I used to slide 'em all in together and let her go. But that ain't the way here. She knows four aces and the jolly joker better ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... game, and that was what the Governor was. But they were not able to score. They made several efforts, but the Governor defeated these efforts without any trouble and went on smiling his pleasant smile as if nothing had happened. Finally the joker chiefs of Carson City and Virginia City conspired together to see if their combined talent couldn't win a victory, for the jokers were getting into a very uncomfortable place: the people were laughing at them, instead of at their proposed victim. They banded themselves ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... 'the composer,' 'the poet.' He wrote a long epic, Karl the Great, an Arthurian romance, Daniel of the Blooming Vale, and several short tales of which the best is Pfaffe Ameis. The hero is a peripatetic rogue and practical joker who plays tricks on people and makes much money. The selection is from the translation by Karl ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... their yellowed slimy fingers, their dull eyes intent upon the worn spots in the carpet. It was funny! Even Carol smiled, not the serene sweet smile that melted hearts, but the grim hard smile of the joker when the tables are turned! She flattered herself that this wretched travesty on parsonage courtesy would be ended before there were any further witnesses to her downfall from her proud fine heights, but she was doomed to disappointment. ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... There is a joker somewhere. Just drop in once and file a little story. You've got a correspondent up there, for a little story. If it's a big story, the A.P. will get it or the paper can send a man up there. What the hell do you want to spoil my ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... she told her son. "She sends you her regards. And this Yegor Ivanovich is such a simple fellow, such a joker! ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... interested and generous had grown suddenly obstinate and set. Tabs hurried on. "So I can understand Terry's preference. And yet, as you've owned, despite your advantages, I hold the winning card. I can joker all your aces by telling—well, the things to which you have referred." He leant forward across the table. "I don't want to have to tell. To do that I should have to make myself still more inferior to you than you have proved me to be in the hardest ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... aspect of things in the crowd. At any rate, the Genoese, though apparently occupying a secondary station, had no grounds to complain of indifference to his presence. Most of the observances and not a few of the sallies of honest Peter, who had some local reputation as a joker and a bel esprit, as is apt to be the case with your municipal magistrate, more especially when he holds his authority independently of the community with whom he associates, and perhaps as little likely to be the fact when he depends on popular favor for his ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... was given to a facetious turn of thought or to a "sportive" exercise of the imagination. When he talks in "The Taming of the Shrew" of "her mad and head-strong humor" he doesn't mean to imply that Kate is a practical joker. It is interesting to note in passing that the old meaning of the word still lingers in the verb "to humor." A woman still humors her spoiled child and her cantankerous husband when she yields to their ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... "Isn't he a joker, that officer! One, two—get out of the way," cried a colossal grenadier. "No, you won't, hey! Well, ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... as rolls in France. I would have, too, but he simply wouldn't listen to me; told me he'd send it back freight if I did; and I had to believe him, though, it seemed unnatural. But they wouldn't let me go look at their blame trenches. I tried to get this General joker to pass me in, but he wouldn't fall for it. 'No, no,' he gurgles and splutters. 'A Benevolent Neutral in the trenches! Never do, never do. We'll have to put some new initials on the Mechanical Transport,' he says, 'B.N.M.T. Benevolent Neutral! I must tell Dallas of the ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... tears flowed from his eyes; he sobbed, cried aloud, and we could see the thumping of his heart against his chest. We had never had a subject who took the matter so hardly. When the operation was completed, we learned the cause of all this trouble. Our interpreter turned out to be a joker, and, while we were telling him encouraging remarks, with which to soothe the subject, he was saying, "Now you will die; pretty soon you will not be able to breathe any more; you will be dead and buried before to-morrow; your ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... trained athlete, stocky and tremendously powerful, his hide that of an extreme blond burned by months of a tropic sun upon salt water. His hair was an aureole, yellow as a sunflower, a bush of it on a bullet-head. And, incredible almost—as if made of putty by a joker—his nose stuck out like the first joint of a thumb, the oddest nose ever on a man. His little eyes were blue and bright. Barefooted, bare-headed, in the sleeveless shirt and short trousers of a life-guard, with an embroidered V on the front of the upper garment, he ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... reserve party was about to carry off their baggage. They ran to secure it. The reserve party, however, galloped by, whooping and yelling in triumph and derision. The last of them proved to be their commander, the identical giant joker already mentioned. He was not cast in the stern poetical mold of fashionable Indian heroism, but on the contrary, was grievously given to vulgar jocularity. As he passed Mr. Stuart and his companions, he checked his horse, raised himself in his saddle, and clapping his hand on the most insulting ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... "The little joker wouldn't part with it at first—afraid of getting into more hot ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... said I mustn't talk about that," she added, with a sudden realization that Josie was regarding her curiously. "Abe an' me's chums, an' what he says is between us. P'raps he was only jokin', 'bout gettin' rich. Abe's a great joker, anyhow." ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... queens, presidents, princes, prime ministers, congresses, parliaments, and all other representatives of material strength, may repeat for formal use the conventional clause; but there is always what we flippantly know as a "joker" in the lip-recitation. "Kingdom, power, and glory," we can hear ourselves saying in a heart-aside, "lie in money, guns, commerce, and police. God is not sufficiently a force in the affairs of this world for us to give Him more than the ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... shot, under the direction of one Mr. Hatchway, who had one of his legs shot away while he acted as lieutenant on board the commodore's ship; and now, being on half-pay, lives with him as his companion. The lieutenant is a very brave man, a great joker, and, as the saying is, hath got the length of his commander's foot—though he has another favourite in the house called Tom Pipes, that was his boatswain's mate, and now keeps the servants in order. Tom is a man of few words, but an excellent hand at a song concerning the boatswain's whistle, hustle-cap, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... was not only a demagogue, but an incorrigible joker. He used frequently to visit Washington after the expiration of his Congressional term, and was in the city after the close of the summer session of the Thirty-fifth Congress. Judge Douglas was also there, busily engaged in advancing his Presidential prospects. One evening, as Walsh was sitting ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... somebody calls "an allegorical practical joker." But Chesterton gives a better description ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... not really want any honey. All he wanted to do was to play a joke on his friend, but it very often happens that the practical joker gets the worst of it in the end. And as Coonie stepped up to the hive and pretended to knock, he put his paw right down on top of the Queen Bee, whom he did not see sunning herself on ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... day of his death, this simple Western attorney, who, according to one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the doctrinaires among his own supporters accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had laid on the hearts and understandings of his countrymen. Nor ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... wasn't accustomed to taking orders from some joker that barged in and shot an unauthorized landing. He was the one who should be giving the orders. He started to ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... call Major Flint, with his bawlings and his sniffings, the least mysterious. He laid all his loud cards on the table, great hulking kings and aces. But Miss Mapp felt far from sure that Captain Puffin did not hold a joker which would some time come to light. The idea of being Mrs. Puffin was not so attractive as the other, but she occasionally gave ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... we shall meet two popular figures in Sicilian tales, whose jokes are repeated elsewhere as detached stories. One of these persons is Firrazzanu, the practical joker and knave, who is cunning enough to make others bear the penalty of his own boldness. In the story in Pitre (No. 156, var. 2) Firrazzanu's master wants a tailor for some work, and Firrazzanu tells him he knows ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... French, but peers at people as Vidocq might, to see if they are not thieves. If a lover, a thief, or you—I make no comparisons—could get the better of this first wicket, well, in the first hall, which is shut by a glazed door, you would run across a butler surrounded by lackeys, an old joker more savage and surly even than the porter. If any one gets past the porter's lodge, my butler comes out, waits for you at the entrance, and puts you through a cross-examination like a criminal. That has happened to me, a mere postman. He took me for an eavesdropper ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... often, and a great deal of time was devoted to the study of their movements. In the silence of the night a practical joker would rush out with a field-glass in his hand and shout "balloon!" at the top of his voice. The desired effect—of bringing the whole street out of bed to see the balloon—was easily produced. The star-gazers would thus spend an hour or so ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... the boat." To this she instantly replied, with an explosive laugh, "He says that if he did it was all blown out of him!" I will only comment on this reply, that it was quite in accordance with the character of my brother to joke on the most serious subjects—he was an inveterate joker. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... shades of thought in politics, had agreed in threatening me with many ludicrous misadventures, and with sudden death in many surprising forms. Cold, wolves, robbers, above all the nocturnal practical joker, were daily and eloquently forced on my attention. Yet in these vaticinations, the true, patent danger was left out. Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered by the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let me, in two words, relate the lesson of my experience. If the pack ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... smiling pallidly, "the little joker that James inserted in the contract, about your getting fifty thousand in the event of a favorable report. I told him it didn't look well—but he said it would test you. He would be funny, though, no matter how serious the business. But you ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... these men and women would detest jokes, or have a blindness to their points; nevertheless, not one but would be eager to express in the most practical form his or her sense of the services rendered to Society by the joker. But now that people saw with open eyes through the transparent mechanism of exchange, they were extremely loth to part with their tangible commodities in return for mere flashes of wit or vulgarity. Previously ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... hanker arter, hey? I'm jiggered, too, if I don't, ye young whelp! Fur I guess ye wer kinder in truck with thet durned nigger when he tried to pizen me an' Mister Flinders. I'll skin ye alive, though ye aren't bigger nor a spritsail sheet knot, my joker, fur ye hevn't got half enuff ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... he reflected. "But the girl was English, a thoroughbred, too. What was it he said? 'Work of the right sort, for a man with brains and pluck.' Well, I shall give this joker a call. If he wants me to tackle anything short of crime, I'm his man. Failing him, I shall see Jack to-morrow, ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... answered, and the burst of laughter that followed would have been enough to silence the most ambitious joker, but this girl fun-maker was not in the least ambitious, so she laughed appreciatively with ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... despatches. He was thinking over 'The Seven Hunters.' It might be, probably was, a blind, or the kidnappers, having touched there, might have departed in any direction—to Iceland, for what he knew. But the name, 'the Seven Hunters,' was not likely to have been invented by a practical joker in London. If not, the conspirators had really captured and kept to themselves Mr. Macrae's line of wireless communications. How could that have been done? Merton bitterly regretted that his general information did not include ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... practical joker, "I have great objections to having that box opened. Yet it contains, I assure you, nothing contraband, nothing dangerous to the peace of the Grindwell government or people. It is simply a toy I am taking to a friend's house as a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... for some dry sort of joker, whose jokes, he being a customer, it might be as well to appreciate, "he, he! You understand well enough, sir. Take this seat, sir," laying his hand on a great stuffed chair, high-backed and high-armed, crimson-covered, and raised on a ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... the old man went on to say. "If I expect to be paid what I have expended in saving George from being turned loose upon the world without education, I suppose it is a joke. Ha! ha! ha! I never thought of laughing at it before, but now I will. I always heard that you were a joker, Sir Lionel. Ha! ha! ha! I dare say you have laughed at it ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... described. Not once did he hint of a special purpose which had brought him to the island, and it was growing late. The fire died down upon the stones, and the thought of the Celebrity, alone in a dark cave in the middle of the island, began to prey upon me. I was not designed for a practical joker, and I take it that pity is a part of every self-respecting man's composition. In the cool of the night season the ludicrous side of the matter did not appeal to me quite as strongly as in the glare of day. A joke should never ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... it. The only trouble was, he said, that when the gas started the machine guns made so much noise you couldnt hear it an it always came at night sos you couldnt see it and when you smelled it it was most to late to bother anyhow. I been thinkin that over. Seems to me theres a joker in the contract somewhere. Ask your father to read it over an see if it sound droit (thats French for right) to him. Better still. Ask Higgins the grocer to give it the once over. Hes got a grand tete as the French say ...
— Dere Mable - Love Letters Of A Rookie • Edward Streeter
... you know he's the champion practical joker of this burg. He was here a while ago—hasn't been gone a quarter of an hour. Went just before Mr. Rolls came in. Asked if he could use the telephone. I said yes, and my servant showed him into my mother's boudoir next to this room. I heard him ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... me, child," she said, in pretended severity. "Tom, you take my hand in the game, and don't let me hear you've been bidding ten on no suit without the joker." She led Mr. Wrenn to the settee hat-rack in the hall. "The third-floor-back will be vacant in two weeks, Mr. Wrenn. We can go up and look at it now if you'd like to. The man who has it now works nights—he's some kind of a head waiter at Rector's, or something like that, and ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... and learns their trouble. He tells 'em to quit their worry; that he's a notary public and can perform a marriage as good as any Baptist preacher they ever saw. I never been able to make out whether he was crazy or just a witty, practical joker. Anyway, he married the pair with something like suitable words, wouldn't take a cent for it, and gave 'em a paper saying he had performed the deed. It had a seal on it showing he was a genuine notary public, though ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... as cheerful as it was diverse. There were some officers on their way to rejoin their units, a bevy of tarts from Marseille, a rich Mahommedan merchant, returning from Mecca, some strolling players, a Montenegran prince, a great joker this, who did impersonations.... Not one of these people was sea-sick and they spent the time drinking champagne with the captain of the Zouave, a fat "Bon viveur" from Marseille, who had an establishment there and another in Algiers, and who rejoiced ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... only Bellefont, farther down the valley, has cut us out. Then we had the cinnabar mines—you may see them along the slope to northward, right over the west end of the town. They went well for about sixteen months; and then came the stampede. A joker in the Bellefont Sentinel wrote that the miners up in Eucalyptus were complaining of the 'insufficiency of exits'; and he wasn't far out. Last there were the 'Temperate Airs and Reinvigorating Pine-odours of America's Peerless Sanatorium. Come and behold: Come and be healed!' ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of amusing stories of her exploits were told us by her C.O., who was an R.N.V.R. Lieutenant. Some practical joker produced a cylinder alleged to be in cuneiform writing. A translation of the inscription proved beyond doubt that the Shushan was used by Nebuchadnezzar as a royal yacht, and is the last surviving link ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... accurseds," reading melaa'n (pl. of melaoun, accursed); but the word in the text is plainly mulaa'bein (objective dual of mulaa'b, a trickster, malicious joker, hence, by analogy, sharper).] ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... turned in any direction, and made to do any work; and they are surprised to find that the power, available and great for one kind of work, is worth nothing for another. A man very clever at one thing is positively weak and stupid at another thing. A very good judge may be a wretchedly bad joker; and he must go through his career at this disadvantage, that people, finding him silly at the thing they are able to estimate, find it hard to believe that he is not silly at everything. I know, for myself, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... "Yes, I guess I do. I can't help it. I'm no joker; no time for that. Jokers don't get anywhere. Never saw one that did. It's the fellow who keeps thinking about his job and banging away at ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the evening's entertainment, but he was a man more generally known than our worthy President, James K. Polk. That man was the famous Captain Riley, whose "Narrative" of suffering and adventures is pretty generally known all over the civilized world. Captain Riley was a fine, fat, good-humored joker, who at the period of my story was the representative of the Dayton district, and lived near that little city when at home. Well, Captain Riley had amused the company with many of his far-famed and singular adventures, which, being mostly told before ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... stupendous snakes in the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and a Yankee skipper who lived a year among the natives informs us that he "once saw some arter a boa in Sumatra." The skipper, however, is a small joker, and always ready to Sacrifice Truth on the Alter Ego of a miserable pun. A vile habit this, but one that it is to be feared will ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, it is not even a step from the absurd to the ludicrous and amusing. The professional wit or joker is never so richly amusing as the man who is utterly unconscious that he is in the least funny, while heroically in earnest. The professed comedian never furnishes so much amusement as the would-be heroic tragedian, who, like the Count Joannes, furnishes uproarious ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... seated round the tables. An audacious challenge which embraced them one and all, without regard to size or age, could hardly be regarded otherwise than as a joke—but it was a joke which might be a dear one for the joker. ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that, with our species upon the edge of extermination or appalling degradation, with no clear prospect before us but the chance of a horrible death, we could sit following the chance of this painted pasteboard, and playing the "joker" with vivid delight. Afterwards he taught me poker, and I beat him at three tough chess games. When dark came we decided to take the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... fee in it for him," was the answer. And then the joker had to dodge an olive and a pickle that Dave and Phil hurled at him, while ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... Thomas grimly. Yet had he told the entire truth he would have said he had administered such a beating to the practical joker, upon learning where he had sent Bob, as Fairfax had never seen given by ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... told mother he was going to blow me to it." The child laughed. "Father's the greatest joker; he says the funniest things. He didn't blow me to it at all. He took me in the cable car, and we had more fun! It was the most be—eautiful place you ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... Stevens, as Larry relaxed in relief. "Whoever this practical joker is, we will show him he is wasting his talents—even though it means carrying a supernumerary for the rest ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... constantly coming and going, the question was peculiar. The young guardian of the portal seemed to find it so. He regarded Mr. Bangs with the puzzled stare of one not certain whether he has to do with a would-be joker ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... now is, were the fifteen auditors of Mr. Sothern fooled and deceived, or was this a genuine manifestation of extraordinary power? Sothern is such an inveterate joker that he may have put the thing upon the boys for his own amusement; but if so, it was one of the nicest tricks ever witnessed by yours truly, ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... coachman, was of a yeoman house of 400 years' standing. It will be observed that Mrs. Ricketts was a good deal annoyed even before 2nd April, 1771, the day when she dates the beginning of the worst disturbances. She believed that the agency was human—a robber or a practical joker—and but slowly and reluctantly became convinced that the "exploded" notion of an abnormal force might be correct. We learn that while Captain Jervis was not informed of the sounds he never heard them, and whereas Mrs. Ricketts heard violent noises after he went to bed on ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... reins and started off, only to be hustled and ordered back into the line by the nearest marshal. This manoeuvre never failed to produce its effect of hilarity upon those near at hand. Everybody laughed at the blunderer, the joker jeering audibly. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... precautions, the terrible practical joker of Lancia felt he was quite secure. With the exception of the three or four friends who helped him to persuade Don Santos, nobody knew about his plot. But the Sunday afternoon preceding the event, he ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... is that the splendid dome should be the chief feature of a building that is really an indoor garden and that the most prominent note of the coloring should be green, nature's favorite and most joyous color. Some joker," he went on, "says that this Exposition is domicidal. He expresses a feeling a good many people have here, that there are too many domes. But I don't agree. The domes make a charming pictorial effect, and they harmonize with the general ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... poltroonery can breed. Wicked wags knew that they could frighten him at any moment; they would greet him cordially, and then suddenly assume an air of deep concern. The poor plutocrat's face changed instantly, and he would ask, "What is the matter?" The joker then made answer, "You are a little flushed. You should rest." This was enough. The truant imagination of the unhappy butt went far afield in search of terrors; neither food, nor wine, nor the pleasures of the theatre could tempt him, ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the floor," whispered Milton to his father as he sat down by his side. Milton was a merciless joker, ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... "He's a jolly joker all right," muttered Hood, this time to the clock. "Must be pretty hard up for something ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... one of the over-hanging trees and deftly fashioned an Indian drinking-cup. Working from the idea of a birch-bark canoe somebody offered the cup-full, as a "schooner of water." On being asked to explain her nautical terms, the joker protested ignorance and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... matter of fact the Consumers' League's bill carried a "joker" which made its full enforcement practically impossible. The matter of inspection of stores was given over to the local boards of health, supposedly experts in matters of health and sanitation, but, as it proved, ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... 19th ult., tells the following good story of a notorious practical joker of that city, yclept "Straight-back Dick." Dick was at the wharf, one day last week, when one of the up river boats arrived. He watched closely the countenance of each passenger as he stepped from the plank upon the wharf, and at length ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... a chuckle; "you play a mighty safe game, don't you? You're not takin' any chances on the cards. I believe you reckon I've got the joker up my sleeve, hey? But you're wrong, 'cos me sleeves is rolled up. But you've got a tidy twist on ye for mutton, all the same, an' I reckon it's lucky for you I killed that staked ewe. Now, how d'ye like plain damper? Just see how ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... Lantier and Pierre Sandoz at the college of Plassans. While there he was an inveterate practical joker, one of his escapades being the transformation of Professor Lalubie's room into a chapelle ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... think you don't believe me! Up there!" said he, hailing the scaffold, "are you coming down for a glass?" Three of the workmen came running down the ladder as men with good "building legs" will do; but the others didn't answer, except the joker (if he must so be called), who called out without turning round: "Excuse me, neighbours for not getting down. I must get on: my work is not superintending, like the gaffer's yonder; but, you fellows, ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... I didn't recognize the joker, and emptied the contents of my water pitcher on him just as he broke the bottle," Dick smiled. "Poor old Tom. That was ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... Juan, being a joker, once thought to have a little fun at others' expense, so he robed himself in a shroud, placed a bier by the roadside, set candles around it, and lay down so that all who went by should see him and be frightened. ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... of silence and repose,—geraniums and the click of knitting-needles in the sitting-room; faint odors of a fragrant pipe from the shed kitchen; no stir of boisterous fun, except when some bronzed, solemn joker, with his wife, came in for a formal call, and solemnity gave way, by a gradual descent, to merriment. Joe had given no new departure, only an impulse. "James used to behave himself quite well," Mrs. Parsons would say, archly raising her eyebrows, "before ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... way or other the second in command found out that the circulation of air in the pigeon-house was faulty; to remedy this defect, he one day set the door a little ajar. Air certainly got into the house, but the pigeons came out. A joker, on discovering that the birds had flown, wrote up "To Let" in big letters on the wall of the pigeon-house. The second in command was not in a very gentle frame of mind ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... old joker," observed Duff. "Hillo, here comes old Monsieur Collet with his cargo of ginger-beer. Let's go and get some; ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the "Archies," (flyers' name for anti-aircraft guns) and when that job was finished, would come home in a series of somersaults, loops and spins which made one dizzy to watch. He was a great joker and frequently, when the shell-bursts were unusually thick around him, would come tumbling down from the sky like a shot pigeon, only to recover at a height of several hundred feet and shoot off in a bee line for the air dome. I've no doubt that the ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... won't. It bores you. 'Oh, go away—can't you see I'm busy? I've got a malignant growth here, potted in a glass bottle with a diet of sterilised fat and an occasional whisky and soda, and we're sitting around until the joker develops D.T. He's an empyema, ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of us profane it readily, leaving the coarse prints of our heels upon its paths, mauling and man-handling the fairy blossoms with what pudgy fingers! Comes the poet, ruthlessly leaping the wall and trumpeting indecently his view- halloo of the chase, and, after him, the joker, snickering and hopeful of a kill among the rose-beds; for this has been their hunting-ground since the world began. These two have made us miserably ashamed of the divine infinitive, so that we are afraid to utter ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... racer with the trotter for a moment. The racer is incidentally useful, but essentially something to bet upon, as much as the thimble-rigger's "little joker." The trotter is essentially and daily useful, and only incidentally a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... even to imagine that there was one. Fantastic instrumentations, humoristic sallies became grotesque through the coarseness of the execution. It was lamentably stupid, the work of an idiot, of a joker who knew nothing of music. Christophe tore his hair. He tried to interrupt, but the friend who was with him held him back, assuring him that the Herr Kapellmeister must surely see the faults of the execution and would put everything right—that Christophe ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... is useless to inquire of any stupid joker, for he will idly say that there is no such man there, because, forsooth, a certain single woman who was sent to the moon came back again, which she would never have done if a man had been there with ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... watched the miserable crowds afoot and reflected upon them, was neither remorseful nor triumphant. He simply noted an interesting fact—a commonplace fact—of the methods of that sardonic practical joker, Life. Because the scheme of things was unjust and stupid, because others, most others, were uncomfortable or worse—why should he make himself uncomfortable? It would be an absurdity to get out of his limousine and ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... pals!" cried the Chourineur, addressing those prisoners who ranged themselves on his side; "you have hearts; you will not see a man murdered who is half dead; only cowards are capable of such conduct. Skeleton is no bad joker; he is condemned in advance; that is the reason why he urges you on. But if you aid him to kill Germain, you will be roughly treated. Besides, I have a proposition to make. Skeleton wants to finish this young man. Well! let him come and take him, if he can: it will ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... off to sleep, but presently was aroused by sounds which were unmistakably caused by a gentle tapping on the window pane. Exasperated, the man arose, picked up a boot, slipped to the window and raised it gently ready to give the joker or would-be burglar a rousing whack on the head if within reach. He stuck his head out of the window for a better view of the exterior world, and his curiosity was rewarded with a stinging blow on the cheek. The pain aroused all the Pomeroy French Huguenot fighting blood in his veins. Viciously ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the design of a joker. But tread not on the domain of the scientist, for he will prove to you that each separate queerness is only a trick of nature to fit its owner to the necessities of his habitat. The parrot-fish are screamingly ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... traveller class are very bad, for their mirth is prepared; their jokes have run the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, and they are not always prepared to sacrifice the privilege of being coarse which used to be regarded as the joker's prerogative. In moving about the world I have always found that the society of the great commercial room set up for being jolly, but I could never exactly perceive where the jollity entered. Noise, sham gentility, the cackle of false laughter were there; but the ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... soldiers were idling about the station. They had no idea what was taking place. They thought either that the locomotive had been carried up the track to take on or leave a freight car, or that some practical joker was playing a prank. They showed their enjoyment of the situation by laughing and cheering loudly when Captain Fuller, followed by Engineer Cain and Mr. Murphy, started after ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... on a farm. You have to live with the beasts, and you get to be like 'em. But it is the truth I tell you now, Sir, that men do treat each other worse than the beasts. 'Be kind to the animals.' That was on a notice a joker stuck up in our trench.... But what isn't good enough for them is good enough for us. All right; I'm not kicking. Things are like that. We have to take it as it comes. But you could see that the little Sergeant had never been up against it before; the rain and the mud, and the meanness; the ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... village in the cow-counties. A worthy matron, who had been absent looking after a vagrom cow, returned home, and pushing against the door found it obstructed by some heavy substance, which, upon examination, proved to be her husband. He had been slaughtered by some roving joker, who had wrought upon him with a pick-handle. To one of his ears was pinned a scrap of greasy paper, upon which were scrambled the following sentiments ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... shall be able To show you one preserved in fable. A joker at a banker's table, Most amply spread to satisfy The height of epicurean wishes, Had nothing near but little fishes. So, taking several of the fry, He whisper'd to them very nigh, And seem'd to listen for reply. ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... chuckled, and the words broke the spell of supernatural terror which had hung over Andy; he knew, by the words of the speaker, it was the bully joker of the election was present, who browbeat O'Grady and out-quibbled the agent about the oath of allegiance; and the voice of the other he soon recognised for that of Larry Hogan. So now his giants were ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... against one round street corners and utterly abolishing and destroying all that is peaceful in life. Nothing sours my temper like these coarse termagant winds. I hate practical joking; and your vulgarest practical joker is your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on her mission, grumbling pettishly. Why shouldn't she speak her own language? What did the man think? He must be a joker! ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... sure way to live dangerously is to become a practical joker. Should you have any doubts about it you might ...
— This is Klon Calling • Walt Sheldon
... concerned; and there are those, too, who are so completely busied with either the consciousness of being noticed, or the hope of being noticed, or the hatred of it, that they take note of nothing else. Fifth Avenue expressions are a filling meal for the prowling lonely joker; but what will most satisfy his cannibal appetite is the passage of the self-conscious men and women. For here, on a good day, he cannot fail to relish some extreme cases of their whimsical disease: fledgling young men making believe to be haughty to cover their dreadful ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... manager now lived in an atmosphere of Stygian gloom. Two of the most extensive purchasers of newspaper space, the Boston Store and the Triangle Store, had canceled their contracts immediately after the attack on the Pierces, through a "joker" clause inserted to afford such an opportunity. All the other department stores threatened to follow suit when the "Clarion" took up the cause ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... now and began to protest. They said that this farce was the work of some abandoned joker, and was an insult to the whole community. Without a doubt these signatures were ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... while Captain Roby's favourite corporal, an unpleasant-looking fellow, much disliked by Lennox and Dickenson for his smooth, servile ways, had grown so hollow-cheeked that he was always spoken of as the "Lantern," after being so dubbed by the joker of his company. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... move on the board. He don't use no shove-nets, nor such-like tackle; not he; I s'pose he don't call that sport. Besides, I got master to stake the whole water, and set old knives and razors about in the holes, but that don't answer; and this joker all'us goes alone—which, in course, he couldn't do with nets. Now, I knows within five or six yards where that chap sets his lines, and I finds 'em, now and again, set the artfullest you ever see. But 'twould take a man's life to ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... up with a grin. "I don't know what the old joker will say if you bring your scheme ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... Not unlikely this circumstance was owing to the fact that several of the rude chairs had soft layers of old blanket tacked on them. Whatever were Frank's internal emotions, he presented a remarkably placid and commonplace exterior; but when Jim began to search for the missing pan of dough, the joker slowly sagged ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... you ain't the greatest joker Putnam Hall ever see then I'll eat my hat," declared Peleg. "Jump in an' don't ask me about no grandfathers, or wife's sisters, nor nuthing. Ain't ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... he's found out they ain't got enny pistols. He's got one, an' shows 'em how straight he shoots, jest in case there should be enny trubble between 'em. Plays both ends to the middle, does Carlsen. Slick! But he ain't won the pot. They's a joker in this game. Mebbe he holds ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... than anything in Rabelais. The same contrast, between an innocent style of narrative and the huge palpable nonsense of the story told, marks the tale of the agricultural newspaper which Mr. Twain edited. To a joker of jokes of this sort, a tour through Palestine presented irresistible attractions. It is when we read of the "Innocents Abroad" that we discern the weak point of American humour when carried to its extreme. Here, indeed, is the place where the ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... Person in the Ship.* (* This history of Mr. Orton's misadventure is omitted from the Admiralty copy. It is an illustration of the times to note that the fact of Orton having got drunk does not seem to call for the Captain's severe censure. In these days, though the practical joker receives punishment, the drunkard would certainly come in for a ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... never yet a respectable man. Indiscriminate familiarity either offends your superiors, or else dubbs you their dependent and led captain. It gives your inferiors just, but troublesome and improper claims of equality. A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit. Whoever is admitted or sought for, in company, upon any other account than that of his merit and manners, is never respected there, but ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... heard much of you, Sir Charles Grandison: but I am quite mistaken in you: I expected to see a grave formal young man, his prim mouth set in plaits: But you are a joker; and a free man; a very free man, ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... been hurled since the beginning of literature against this loathly dirt-born insect, this living carrion, this blot on the Creator's reputation—and thereto add a few of my own. Lucian, the pleasant joker, takes the fly under his protection. He says, among other things, that "like an honest man, it is not ashamed to do in public what others only do in private." I must say, if we all followed the fly's example in this aspect, life would ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... practical joker would hardly care to go to the length of cutting open government mail-pouches; for Uncle Sam ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... told, also, about the bad habits and vulgarities of Philippe Bridau, and thus caused the breaking off of the marriage of this weather-beaten soldier with Mlle. Amelie de Soulanges. A talented cartoonist, distinguished practical joker, and recognized as one of the kings of bon mot, he led a free and easy life. He was on speaking terms with all the artists and all the lorettes of his day. Among others he knew the painter, Hippolyte Schinner. He turned a pretty penny, during ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... down the street from the hotel to the Arno, and in a few moments he stood on the bridge, where he had talked with that joker in the morning, as they looked down together on the boiling river. He had a strange wish that the joker might have been with him again, to learn that there were some things which could ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... squadron has been augmented on the West India station. The brig 'Firefly,' corvettes 'Croaker' and 'Joker,' touched at Nassau, New Providence, on the 2d instant, bound to leeward. We also learn that the United States have fitted out a squadron of small vessels, called the Musquito Fleet, to search for the noted pirate Brand, who has so long committed atrocities ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... through a crowded neighbourhood, he might think himself fortunate if his annoyances were confined to the shouts and cries of the populace. The obnoxious hat was often snatched from his head, and thrown into the gutter by some practical joker, and then raised, covered with mud, upon the end of a stick, for the admiration of the spectators, who held their sides with laughter, and exclaimed in the pauses of their mirth, "Oh! what a shocking bad hat! .... What a shocking bad hat!" Many a nervous, poor man, whose purse could ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... by," said the Major, shaking a discouraging head. "Another joker with another name, who turned up a hundred miles off! Harrisson, I fancy—yes, Harrisson. It was only my idea they were the same. I came away, and don't know how ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... is that, not content with a golden popularity, he cannot refrain from sneering at genuine artists. Thus, to the interviewer, he referred to Stephane Mallarme as a "fumiste." No English word will render exactly this French slang; it may be roughly translated a practical joker with a trace of fraud. There may be, and there are, two opinions as to the permanent value of Mallarme's work, but there cannot be two informed and honest opinions as to his profound sincerity. It is indubitable that he had one aim—to produce the ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... 'Ah, Little joker! Little pig!' cried the visitor. 'Ha ha ha ha!' And throwing Mr Flintwinch away, as a closing piece of ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... those dreaming eyes upon him, and suddenly he laughed and stretched his arms wide as one awaking. The steadfast look went out of his eyes; they danced with gaiety. "Hullo, you old joker! Well, let's dress then and be ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... illegitimate sphere in Her Majesty's Navy, an' it was just then that Old 'Op, our Yeoman of Signals, an' a fastidious joker, made remarks to ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... thought himself well occupied in seeing the moving to and fro of boats, for business and pleasure, just as his own boat had gallantly cut invisible paths on the air and water in those earlier years. The nap would steal upon him like an amiable yet inexorable joker, and throw a cloudy veil over his brain and eyes, and he would sink into a gulf he had not perceived. It lay at his feet, and something was always ready to push him into it. He thought sometimes, wondering at the inevitableness of it, that one day the ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... to John Peter ten minutes later, "how your inquisitive man hates a question, just as your joker can't never face a joke that goes against him. I met Philp, just outside, with a carpet bag: and I no sooner asked what he was carryin' than ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... ha—go away! 'Tis a tale, methink, Thou joker Kit!" laughed she. "I've known thee many a year, Kit Twink, And ever hast ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... and ward over the grounds, assisted by his entire force of uniformed men. He evidently did not intend that any boy, with a mind that turned to practical joking, should have a chance to exercise his evil propensities unchecked. Should such a thing be attempted the joker would find himself up against a snag immediately; and, as those posters announced, he was going to be harshly dealt with up to the "extreme penalty of ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... this joker up, Jack," he said then. "To me the mere mention of South America is like Mother Gary's chickens to a sailor, a ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... this afternoon." He stood up. "You and I break even, Barger, understand? Don't take me wrong. I'm not turning you loose entirely. You belong to me. Whenever I call for the joker, Matt, I ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... situation as the sheerest humor, a sort of lunatic farce for the laughter of some cosmic joker. He swung the gunsights up towards the smiling face. Amusement bubbled in his blood and he heard himself laugh—heard it ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... that anything not obscene was tame. By the way, these abrupt and insolent remarks are characteristic of public-house wit. A favourite joke is to ask a friend a serious question. When he fails to answer, then the joker shouts some totally irrelevant and indecent word, and the questioned man is regarded as "sold." I cannot repeat the interlude with which Billy Preston favoured us, but it was very spicy indeed, and referred to some of those sacred secrets which ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... ordered him to pipe the men to dinner in a sharp tone; and he said to Mr Cheffinch, the gunnery lieutenant, when he crossed over the deck to go on board the old Blake to lunch, "He had me nicely there, like that other joker the chimney-sweeper. It must have been a planned ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Corrie, gravely, at the same time laying his hand impressively on his companion's arm, "I'm a tremendous joker—awful fond o' ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... joker too, it seems," roared the other, but he laughed nevertheless, and the volume of it shook the windows. "There's no offence in me. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... just let 'em go," Carrots said. His glance at Rick was vindictive. "This is the smart joker that dove at me in his airplane. I owe him somethin' ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... he's been telling lies," said Daly. "The fellow will have his joke. Never saw such a joker ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... says Scraggs, still perfectly polite and uninterested. "'Have you?' says he, removin' his pipe and spitting carefully outdoors again. And then he slid the joker a'top of Smithy's play. 'Well, I have been a Mormon,' ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... tree whose roots sucked up juices from all the land, whose liberal fruits were showered all around; having a key to unlock all hearts, and a treasure for each; hospitable friend, husband-lover, doting father; a boisterous wit, fantastic humorist, master of pathos, practical joker, sincere mourner; always an extremist, yielding to various excess; an April day, all smiles and tears; January and May met together; a many-sided fanatic; a universal enthusiast; a large-hearted sectarian; a hot-headed judge; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various |
