"Trick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the same time. The drum is commonly played by the man, and the playing is accompanied by a very monotonous song. We have not seen it accompanied by dancing, twisting of the countenance, or any other Shaman trick. ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... blame on Austin. Nor were these the most serious tokens of his ill-will. One day he managed to give Frank a push which sent him down through a trap-door, though he luckily escaped unhurt. Another time, a similar trick hurled him into the well in which the ship's pump worked, and he only avoided serious injury by clinging ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... threads being sewn on foundations, epaulettes in course of making, heavy dependent nuggets hung upon scarves. Gold floated in the air, and when the sun came through the windows it all looked as though one could play the conjurer, and perform the enchanting trick of making a dash with the hand and secure sovereigns. Many of the girls wore glasses because continued attention to the glistening colours affected the eyes; sometimes a worker became pale of features, anaemic and depressed, and had ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... grave, and occasionally scolded me; my grandmother slapped me hard and rated me continually; but reproof or correction from the two latter were of no avail; and the former, when she wished to play any trick which she dared not do herself, employed me as her agent; so that I obtained the whole credit for what were her inventions, and I may safely add, underwent the whole blame and punishment; but that ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... the justice, as they seated themselves together in the pew, "that there is an order to-day. Whenever the assistant is so delighted and friendly, there is something wrong. They are certainly meditating some villanous trick against Frederick, and therefore our good pastor is ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... "Recognised and established regulations," "afford pastime to large masses of industrious population," "unable from pecuniary circumstances," "the more expensive forms of sport." That all very well, but not quite all. Easy enough to catch the trick of speech; who but JEMMY LOWTHER can add the indefinable personal gifts which invest even the commonplace ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... far too low. Should he grin and bear it, and by doing nothing show these fellows that he could afford to despise their cowardly device? For it WAS cowardly to let his grass get ripe and play it this low trick! But if he left things unfought this time, they would try it on again with the corn—not that there was much of that on the estate of a man who only believed in corn ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... may, Peter's stern words to Ananias put all the stress of the sin on its being an acted lie. The motives of the trick are not disclosed. They may have been avarice, want of faith, greed of applause, reluctance to hang back when others were doing like Barnabas. It is hard to read the mingled motives which lead ourselves wrong, and harder to separate them in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... an agony of mental stress. At that time, I swear to Heaven, Miss Trevert, I was determined to let Marbran do his worst rather than lend myself to this odious blackmailing trick, my own suggestion, as I bitterly remembered. But for the rest of the week his parting threat rang in my ears. Unless he heard by the following Sunday that I had confronted Parrish and called his bluff, as he put it, the British police should have word, not only of Parrish's activities ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... that he knew them as white men. And they had found a way to safely muzzle him. They must have ridden hard over those sand dunes to have reached Carson City and sworn out this warrant. It was a good trick, likely enough to hang him, if the fellows only stuck to their story. All this flashed through his brain, yet somehow he could not clearly comprehend the full meaning, his mind confused and dazed by this sudden realization of danger. His eyes ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... neat watch was fastened. The longest march, through mud and rain and wind and sun, would find him as trim and clean at the finish as though he had just stepped out of a bandbox. Jumma had the happy faculty of never looking rumpled, a trick which I tried hard to learn, but all in vain. He was as black as ebony, yet his features were like those of a Caucasian; in fact, he strikingly ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... and aft on our short deck, one on each side, smoking our pipes and whistling for a breeze, and pausing occasionally to listen for the roll of oars in their rowlocks, or their plash in the water; for we did not know what new trick our neighbour astern might feel disposed to play us, though we both thought it improbable he would send another boat away—at all events, whilst we maintained our present ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... "no one would say so but one of your country-breeding, that knows no better. I will say, and I care not who hears me, there is something about the real gentry that few men come up to that are not born and bred to the mystery. I wot not where the trick lies; but although I can enter an ordinary with as much audacity, rebuke the waiters and drawers as loudly, drink as deep a health, swear as round an oath, and fling my gold as freely about as any of the jingling spurs and white ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... out, I had a little moist red paint in the palm of my hand. I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my face, and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick." ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... Brother Cross knew anything about the party he introduced. But it so happens, as we learn from Brother Cross himself, that the first acquaintance he had with Stevens was made upon the road, where Stevens played a trick upon him by ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... importance to this professional appeal. General valedictions were exchanged, the landlord bowed, and we moved off for the forest. Mephistopheles had his travelling case of pistols. These he began now to examine; for sometimes, said he, I have known such a trick as drawing the charge whilst one happened to be taking a glass of wine. Wine had unlocked his heart,—the prospect of the forest and the advancing night excited him,—and even of such a child as myself he was now disposed to make a confidant. "Did you observe," said he, "that ill-looking ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... companionship with Sada. I had hoped his Book of Etiquette said, "After this, bow and depart." But my hopes had not a pin-feather to rest on. He stayed right where he was. All right, old Uncle, thought I, if stay you will, then I shall use all a woman's power to beguile you and a woman's wit to out-trick you, so I can make you show your hand. It is going to be a game with the girl as the prize. It is also going to be like playing leap-frog with a porcupine. He has cunning and authority to back him, and I have only my love ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... house pricked up its ears and began to listen eagerly, for Beaupere began to touch upon Joan's Voices, a matter of consuming interest and curiosity to everybody. His purpose was to trick her into heedless sayings that could indicate that the Voices had sometimes given her evil advice—hence that they had come from Satan, you see. To have dealing with the devil—well, that would send her to the stake in brief ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... for a while, leading him to and fro, and putting him through various antics till he was a little tired; then Dan sat on the wall and gave him bread, but watched his chance, and getting a good grip of the halter, slipped on to his back. Charlie tried the old trick, but Dan held on, having had practice with Toby, who occasionally had an obstinate fit, and tried to shake off his rider. Charlie was both amazed and indignant; and after prancing for a minute, set off at a gallop, and away went Dan heels over head. If he had not belonged to the class of ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... of the agricultural industry in the richer parts of the middle and south, is so desperately unprosperous as to endanger a political constitution. Under our stupidily [Transcriber: sic] centralized system, Irishmen have no doubt acquired the enervating trick of attributing every misfortune, great or small, public or private, to the Government. When they learn the lessons of responsibility, they will unlearn this fatal ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... saved her own life by coming to us when I fired the warning shot. As to the sheep, it's too late to think about them now; we'll come to another reckoning in that matter later on. I'd hardly expect a horse-thief to do a trick like that." ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... whom I have met years and years ago,' said Mrs. Ogilvie. Her near-sighted eyes, with their trick of contracting slightly when she looked fixedly at anything, narrowed as she spoke, and the heavy lids closed ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... be the prince. The first of these was one Hervagaut, who, when discovered to be a tailor's son, was condemned in 1802 to four years' imprisonment. In 1818, Mathurin Bruneau, a shoemaker, tried the same trick; but failing, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. In short, no fewer than fifteen impostors have been enumerated; all of whom pretended to be the wretched young prince, returned from exile after escaping from the Temple. ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... take some risks. We can't fight that crowd in the open, they are too many for us. We'll have to outwit them and put the Indians on their guard without letting the convicts suspect that we have had a finger in the pie. It would be an easy trick to turn if it were not for that renegade Indian with them. I guess there isn't anything much that escapes those black, beady ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the spent salmon after they had been well played by the fishermen, and this training had come to his help here; so he had the greatest number of the finest fish and the largest, excepting, of course, this one monster of Sam's that had played him such a trick. ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... delightful anticipation. Unconscious of the attention he was attracting, he doffed his clothes and brought out something from his black bag which proved to be a night-shirt! If there was any compunction in regard to the trick intended for him, it instantly vanished. A sailor with ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... I don't believe—why would he come when there was danger, in case his trick worked, of the whole place being blown to ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... consulted the church records. "They might as well have had me confirmed," said Comte, grimly. And we can well guess that the action did not increase his regard for either his wife or the Church. The trick seems quite on a par with that of the astute colored gentleman who anxiously asks for love-powders at the corner drugstore; or the good wives who purchase harmless potions from red-dyed rogues to place in the husband's coffee to cure him of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... a barren period in English literary history. It was nearly two hundred years after Chaucer's death before any poet came, whose name can be written in the same line with his. He was followed at once by a number of imitators who caught the trick of his language and verse, but lacked the genius to make any fine use of them. The manner of a true poet may be learned, but his style, in the high sense of the word, remains his own secret. Some of the poems which have been attributed to Chaucer and printed in editions ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... I told her, in a stern voice, that if she played me such a trick again I would send her away. Instead of trying to soothe me with a kiss the little rebel burst out crying again. I sent her out of the room impatiently, and proceeded ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... have pleaded illness and escaped, others would have blundered on. But Raeburn, who never lost his presence of mind, just turned to the audience and said quietly: "Will some one have the goodness to tell me what I was saying? My memory has played me a trick." ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... we did not find them? It would be loss of time as well as goods. The only thing to do was to treat the incident with philosophy, comforting myself with the remote hope of some day meeting with the scoundrels and of making them pay dear for their knavish trick. This hope, I may say in parenthesis, was not a vain one, for a year later I met my Chinese culprit at Telok Anson and not long after, his Malay confederate at Penang, on both of which occasions I had the satisfaction—without troubling the legal authority to intercede ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... Rachel. Rachel, however, not being in the slightest degree a bibliophile, discerned no interest whatever in the title-page. She merely murmured with politeness, "Oh, yes! Bursley," while animadverting privately on the old man's odious trick of wetting his gloved thumb and leaving marks on ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... his reason and of his knowledge. Wherefor he bowed his brow groundwards and held his peace. But when the King beheld this his condition, he bade them slay him by smiting his neck without the city, and Nadan cried aloud, "O Haykar, O blackavice, what could have profited thee such trick and treason that thou do a deed like this by thy King?"[FN38] Now the name of the Sworder was Abu Sumayk the Pauper,[FN39] and the monarch bade him strike the neck of Haykar in front of the Minister's house-door and place his head at a distance of an hundred ells ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... me!" cried the captain, leaning forward and banging his hand down on the table, "with the old trick of a bill of lading lost in the post and a man in a gold-laced hat that came aboard one night and said he was a government official from the Arsenal come for his government stuff. And it wasn't government stuff, and he wasn't a government ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... said Dick, chuckling with delight at being completely understood. 'I couldn't resist one little bit of sheer swagger. It's a French trick, and you wouldn't understand; but it's got at by slewing round the head a trifle, and a tiny, tiny foreshortening of one side of the face from the angle of the chin to the top of the left ear. That, and deepening the ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... and now," she squawked. "It's a shame, a beastly shame. How dare you play me such a trick, Fred Obermuller? I never was treated so in my life—to have that dirty little wretch come tumbling on like that, without even so much as your telling me you'd made up all this new business for her! It's indecent, ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... heard of that, sir, I said, 'I give Reilly up for ingenuity.' No, sir, that was his own trick; but afther all it was a bad one, and tells aginst itself. Why, sir, neither I nor any of my men have the power of makin' ourselves invisible. Do you think, sir—I put it to your own common-sense—that if we had been there no one would have seen us? Wasn't the ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... "It's prob'ly all up with me. This quiet is the usual trick of the p'lice to throw you off the scent. They're playin' wi' me. They let me sim to run free, because they know they can 'aarve ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... childish tricks? and to-day, besides, there is a stranger knight with us in the cottage." All was silent without, only a suppressed laugh was audible, and the fisherman said as he returned: "You must pardon it in her, my honored guest, and perhaps many a naughty trick besides; but she means no harm by it. It is our foster-child, Undine, and she will not wean herself from this childishness, although she has already entered her eighteenth year. But, as I said, at heart she is ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... brought in that condition, for he intended to kill him. Now when they came and uncovered the bed, and found out the woman's contrivance, they told it to the king; and when her father complained of her that she had saved his enemy, and had put a trick upon himself, she invented this plausible defense for herself, and said, That when he had threatened to kill her, she lent him her assistance for his preservation, out of fear; for which her assistance ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... molest my contemplation? Is it your trick to make me ope the door, That so my sad decrees may fly away And all my study be to no effect? You are deceiv'd: for what I mean to do See here in bloody lines I have set down; And what is ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... some day, in consequence of researches made by the Marquise in the grand monde, she should find herself in possession of a son-in-law formed according to one of the types of which he had impressions. However, it was not credible that Madame de Brives would play her a trick. There were moments when Raymond almost wished she might—to see how Cousin Maria would ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... mother began emphatically, "that is so like you! Will you never get out of the habit of answering so? You are always in opposition, and it is too conceited of you at your age. I did hope they would have cured you of the trick at school; but no sooner do you get home, than you begin again as bad ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... husband in the midst of her labors did not forget his own, which consisted in providing her with interesting reading, and launching upon her delicate attentions, etc. Notice, he never informed his wife of the trick he had played on her; and if his fortune was recuperated, it was directly after the building of the wing, and the expenditure of enormous sums in making water-courses; but he assured her that the lake provided a water-power by which ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... literary enthusiasms had nothing offensive, but were as pretty and naive as a girl's love of flowers. Moreover, he approved of some personal attributes of hers: a low, gentle voice, tender long-lashed eyes; a trick of drooping shoulders, and of idle hands fallen into the lap, one in the other's palm; a serene repose of face; a light and eager laugh. There was nothing so novel in those traits, and in different combination he had seen them a thousand times; yet in her they strangely wrought upon ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... Byrne asked did he think they were ladies when first he set eyes on them, and Pat owned up that he thought it was some of the girls from Sudsville; it might even be Norah as one of them, coming home late from the laundresses' quarters, and trying to play him a trick. He owned to it that he grabbed the foremost, seeing at that moment no other, and thinking to win the forfeit of a kiss, and Byrne gravely assured him 'twas no shame in it, so long as ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... as his enthusiasm. "Are you going back to Mr. Sharon to help you?" she asked. "That trick he played me has destroyed my belief in him. He no more knows than I do who the thief ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... say, that Dido put a trick on the natives, by desiring to purchase of them, for her intended settlement, only so much land as an ox's hide would encompass. The request was thought too moderate to be denied. She then cut the hide into the smallest thongs; ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... original idea this shower-bath trick, and it answered very well, but then baths in Finland are an art, and Finland without its bath-houses would not be Finland at all, so I had the shower feeling like a plum pudding inside ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... were expelled from the turf because the latter had "pulled" his horse in such a clumsy and unmistakable way that the spectators could not fail to see it. This circumstance was without precedent in France, and yet how often has the trick, which in this case was exposed, been practised without any one being the wiser for it! It ought to be added that the betters make one claim that is altogether unreasonable, and that is—at least this is the only inference from their talk—that when they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... included quietly throwing the clown from her back in a way which had always won screams of laughter from the spectators and that the little act came at the moment when the clown touched a certain spot on her neck! All the young Lees had ridden Gypsy but had not happened to discover this little trick. But Keineth, just as she had safely passed the kitchen door and was galloping toward the shed, suddenly felt herself flying over Gypsy's head! Her fall was broken by a pile of sand which had been hauled up from the beach for the garden. Keineth was more ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... there is quite as good a reason for doing this as for starting early to avoid the heat of the day. These Far Western streams have a trick of rising suddenly; very rarely, to be sure, but frequently enough to cause commanding officers to be on their guard. A rainfall fifty or seventy-five miles up-stream might send down a volume of water that would make it impassable for several hours or several days, according ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... lord Cobham wrote to my lady Arabella, to know if he might come to speak with her, and gave her to understand, that there were some about the king that laboured to disgrace her; she doubted it was but a trick. But Brook saith his brother moved him to procure Arabella to write Letters to the king of Spain; but he saith, ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... request, she went over again the story of the abduction, telling everything save the matter of the ravished kisses. This she kept to herself. She did not quite know why, except that there was something she did not like about this Bucky O'Connor. He had a trick of narrowing his eyes and gloating over her, as a cat gloats over ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... motives are clear: these performances had nothing to do with the essence of his teaching. If it be true that he ever countenanced them, he soon saw his error. He did not want people to say that he was a conjurer who knew the Gandhara charm or any other trick. And though we have no warrant for doubting that he believed in the reality of the powers known as iddhi, it is equally certain that he did not consider them essential or ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... with what she was doing, as they were mighty hungry, and I advised her to do as she was bid. The brute with the beard has charge of her. Stingaree himself drove me into the middle of my own trap-door, made me give up my keys, and then went behind the counter and did the trick. He'd got it all down on paper, the ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile—her look—her way Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"— For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
... to go. He lingered for a while before he took his final leave, leaning against the door-post, and laughingly telling how he and some of his brother squires had made a figure of straw dressed in men's clothes, and had played a trick with it one night upon a watchman against ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... [wrote Emerson] can any advantage be taken of nature by a trick. The spirit of the world, the great calm presence of the Creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or of wine. The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste body.... The poet's habit of living should be set on so low a key that the common influences should ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... a fight. He had a light and springing carriage of the head, enough to set his forelock nodding; his eye roved like a sea-bird's; his lips often parted company, for his breath was eager. He had a trick of laughing to himself softly as he went about his business; or else he sang, as he was now singing. These qualities, little habits, affectations, whatever you choose to call them, sound immaterial, but they really point to the one thing that made him remarkable—the curious blend of opposites ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... stand,—had wound himself up to an even tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence of dialogue or person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of his rising with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous; for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on an eminence vastly above the audience, and he kept that sublime level to the end. He looked from his throne of elevated sentiment upon the under-world of spectators with a most sovran and becoming ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... Miss; maybe he bites," warned the anxious conductor. "I wager this is some boy's trick to stop the train. ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... by the room—following on the other strange effects produced on the other relatives of his dead brother—exercised no perplexing influence over the mind of this sensible man. 'Perhaps,' he reflected, 'my temperament is more imaginative than I supposed it to be—and this is a trick played on me by my own fancy? Or, perhaps, my friend is right; something is physically amiss with me? I don't feel ill, certainly. But that is no safe criterion sometimes. I am not going to sleep in that abominable room to-night—I can well wait till to-morrow to decide ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... He heard with astonishment, and then said: "There is some foul trick here. Have you the message?" She handed it to him. "It is the surgeon's writing, verily," he said; "but it is still a trick, for the sick man here is Rozel. I see it all. You and I forbidden to meet—it was a trick ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to him in marriage. After this Abu al-Hasan the Wag abode with his wife in eating and drinking and all delight of life, till whatso was with them went the way of money, when he said to her, "Harkye, O Nuzhat al-Fuad!" Said she, "At they service;" and he continued, "I have it in mind to play a trick on the Caliph[FN60] and thou shalt do the same with the Lady Zubaydah, and we will take of them at once, to begin with, two hundred dinars and two pieces of silk. She rejoined, "As thou willest, but what thinkest thou to do?" And he said, "We will feign ourselves dead ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... what they are up to," Clara Adams told her friends; "they want to get in with us and are being extra sweet. I know that is exactly their trick. Don't you girls pay any attention to them. Of course we could let Jennie Ramsey in, because she lives on our street, but the others, we couldn't any more than we could Betty Lowndes or ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... question he could not hesitate what answer to give. Even this new jealousy, this jealousy of the Sicilian within him, could not trick him into the belief that Hermione had wanted ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... one mood to the other came with lightning rapidity. Appeal to him on some question of high politics, even at a moment of the most joyous relaxation, and his face gravened, his bearing changed; he pulled himself together with a trick of manner habitual to the end, and the 'boy' became the statesman before it seemed the last echoes of his laughter had died away. We all prophesied for him accession to the highest offices of the State; for though so far the offices which he had held had been of but minor rank, yet he ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... this, and seemed again to see it through the clear medium of the young girl's words. He had witnessed similar optical illusions in the deserts, also, which he described to her. Then he remembered a curious trick of refracted light he had once seen in the sunrise on Mount Washington, and suddenly he found himself asking Miss Denham if she were acquainted with the interior of New Hampshire. Flemming had put the interrogation without a shadow of design; ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of course, might wait for daylight, and by examining each low hanging branch, from the stream's source to the point where it disappeared into the cave, discover the one by which he had climbed out. But this would require time; moreover they would have to possess a knowledge of his trick—and Tusk flattered himself that no one knew his trick. He was immeasurably pleased, and would have tarried here in an enjoyable contemplation of his triumph, but there was another link of safety to be added: a stiff, heartbreaking climb still higher to a spur of rock where he had often before ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... I hope it keeps up," said Jolly Roger. "Now, look here, Cassidy! Let's make a man's bet of it. If you don't get me next time—if you fail, and I turn the trick on you ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... their silences, these torture-quickened youths found work to do—work that people could not understand. The people invariably thought there must be a trick about the giving—that the eager one wanted hidden results for self.... Invariably, they were prodigious workers, men of incredible energy. Thus they ground themselves fine; and invariably, too, they were men of exalted personal conduct, ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... and did the only sensible thing; but we-all must keep this trick a secret. If Sary gets hold of it, my reputation in Bear Forks, or Yellow Jacket Pass, is gone," confided Sam Brewster to his wife, as he glanced fearfully about ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... great plot against the coming of the Provincial; that I was to have no fear,—He would help me. I repeated this to the rector, and he told me that I must go by all means, though others were saying I ought not to go, that it was a trick of Satan to bring some evil upon me there, and that I ought to send ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... as appears most evidently from the circumstance that Rachel is the fair and the beloved wife of Jacob, whom alone in fact he wished to marry, and Leah the ugly and despised one who was imposed on him by a trick. /2. On the whole, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... "tig-tagging," as he had called it, of Essex and Waller, and quicken immediately the tramp of affairs. His belief all along had been that what was needed in England was an importation of Scottish impetuousness to animate the heavy English, and teach them the northern trick of carrying all things at the double with a hurrah and a yell. It was a sore affliction, therefore, to the good man that, from January 1643-4, on through February, March, April, May, and even June, the 21,000 Scots under Leslie ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... another—this time with the object of cutting out horses that graze loose on the plain towards Bulwaan. But they have to do now with Natal Carbineers, many of whom, like themselves, are veldt farmers, familiar with every trick of rounding up horses or oxen. In vain do the gunners of "Puffing Billy" throw percussion shells to drive the herd towards their lines. In vain are shrapnels timed to burst in a shower where Carbineers sweep round like Indian ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... meant by the charges of trickery and artifice I have yet to comprehend. It was no art in me to write a tale—it was no trick in Messrs. Smith & Elder to publish it. Where do the trickery ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... clever trick," cried the Iron Count. "But you shall find me ready to accommodate you when the ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... a shame," the Walrus said, "To play them such a trick. After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!" The Carpenter said nothing but "The ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... rounds there followed a completely enthralling display. On one side was perfectly trained orthodox, amateur boxing. On the other every clean trick and subterfuge of irreproachable ring-craft. Timing, footwork, feints, guarding and ducking; each subtlety of the art of defence was demonstrated ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the old trick of passionate speech; Natalie remembered the very words of old; but the man—she averted her head from the hideous spectacle. She was afraid to move or cry out, sure that Garth in his present mind would kill him if ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... empty. But for the present, the throne having other supports, they did not hurt that so much as they did the King; for the old barons, taking Dicotome's prodigality to such creatures so ill that they deposed him, got the trick of it, and never gave over setting up and pulling down their kings according to their various interests, and that faction of the White and Red, into which they have been thenceforth divided, till Panurgus, the eighteenth king ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... certain trick of movement, or only the quickened current of his blood that made Deep-water ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to a favourable opinion, and afterwards to believe implicitly in this opinion of their neighbour—who can do this conjuring trick so ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... feet long, and would then strike the ledge at the same dept that a shaft twelve feet deep would have reached! The Board were living on the "assessments." [N.B.—This hint comes too late for the enlightenment of New York silver miners; they have already learned all about this neat trick by experience.] The Board had no desire to strike the ledge, knowing that it was as barren of silver as a curbstone. This reminiscence calls to mind Jim Townsend's tunnel. He had paid assessments on a mine called the "Daley" ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... trying the popular trick too! Well, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I think Edith Carey has a good chance myself. The kids are rather fond of her. Have you written your nominations yet, Mavis? Then come along, and we'll drop ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... from Umballa the Grand Trunk road leads through the civil lines and past the towering walls of ancient Kurnaul. Formerly on the banks of the river Jumna, Kurnaul is now removed several miles from that stream, owing to the wayward trick of Indian rivers carving out for themselves new channels during seasons of extraordinary flood. The city is old beyond the records of history, its name and fame glimmering faintly in the dim and distant perspective of ancient Hindostani legend and mythical tales. Within the last ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... I've not come here to crow. . . . I've come to tell you, as man to man, that I don't hold 'twas a pretty trick she played us over them two hundreds. You may see it different, and I hope you do. I don't bear her no grudge, you understand? . . . But if you've still a mind to her, and she've a mind to you, I stand out from this moment, and wish ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... quite sure of that, Mary; but I've played him one trick this morning for his own good, and if you won't help me to play another, e'en let it alone—all have their weak side,—that abstract idea of truth you ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... which is to be bestowed upon Florimell, but, when the moment comes to award it, Braggadocchio boldly produces a false Florimell, so exactly like the true one that they cannot be told apart. Sir Artegall, however, ruthlessly exposes the trick, whereupon the false Florimell vanishes, leaving nothing behind her save the wrongfully appropriated girdle, which reverts at last to its legitimate owner. Seeing this, Braggadocchio is about to sneak away, when Sir Guyon suddenly steps forward demanding the return of his stolen steed. Although ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... and he shall have a noble for that good shot. Swing the mainyard! Musketrymen, clear the enemy's tops of archers, and shoot down any that may attempt to take their places! Trim aft the head sheets! Swing the foreyard! Starboard gunners, reload your ordnance! We will try that trick again if they will but give us the chance. Now, larboard gunners, be ready, and let her ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... comes thundering forth, Let a barren face beware; For a trick it will find, with a razor of wind, To shave a face ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... goodby on both sides, Jack and his two dragoons rode off, and soon astonished the English vedettes by their appearance on the opposite bank of the river. A few words in English convinced the soldiers that it was no trick that was being played with them, and Jack rode across the ford and ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... you ask the question, you most audacious fellow? You've proved the ruin of the young man whom you brought hither for the Eunuch, while you were trying to put a trick upon us. ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... absence of that monstrous phraseology which distinguished his "Scourge of Villanie" and early plays. But, looking at the play as a whole, I should have very great hesitation in allowing it to be Marston's. My impression is that Chapman had the chief hand in it. The author's trick of moralising at every possible opportunity, his abundant use of similes more proper to epic than dramatic language, the absence of all womanly grace in the female characters,—these are points in which the present play may be compared with Chapman's ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... was more serious than most affairs of Merry Mount, where jest and delusion, trick and fantasy, kept up a continual carnival. The Lord and Lady of the May, though their titles must be laid down at sunset, were really and truly to be partners for the dance of life, beginning the measure ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he sold for his neighbors also. 'Tis the way they do, form a combine, and send an agent to England to get the best price. He will surely bear back with him a great sum. This the Senor knows; nor is it the first time he has done the trick, Manuel. Santa Maria! 'tis the easiest one of all. Then ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... his wife, "I am quite aware of Saouy's baseness, and that he is capable of playing you this malicious trick. But how can he or any one else know what takes place in this house? Even if you are suspected and the king accuses you, you have only to say that, after examining the slave, you did not find her worthy ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... 'tis she! You've nobody behind you!—No, she han't—Why now, nephew, you are right; I was afraid you'd have put a trick upon me.—You'd rather," repeated he to me, "have staid with Mrs. B.!—Yes, I warrant—But you shall be placed in better company, my dear child."—"Sister," said Mr. B., "will you take that chair; for Pamela does not choose to give my uncle disgust, who so seldom comes to see us." My ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... majestic heights of Peter's genius and, taking the chance of his temporary absence, slew Albert with a simple trick. There was only Mark Brendon to prevent it; and Jenny, having reserved her final and irresistible appeal for some such vital occasion, found no difficulty in absorbing all Marco's limited intelligence, while awakening ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... seen through the distant kitchen door—the sulky glow of the fire under the black ashes of the burnt manuscript—the glimmering of the tulips and the moon-daisies and narcissi in the bowls and jugs and jars—these did not so trick and bewilder his eyes that he would not know his Own! It was he, not she, who had been delaying the shadowy Bridal; he hung his head for a moment in mute acknowledgment; then he bent his eyes on the deceiving, puzzling gloom again. He ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... dress he wore showed his upright muscular figure to advantage. Every movement he made had a swift grace that reminded one irresistibly of a tiger, with its suggestion of reserve force. His close-cropped hair and a drooping moustache were prematurely grey. He had a trick of looking at one through half-closed eyelids that gave the totally erroneous impression that he was half asleep. The face was square, the chin dogged, the lips, half-hidden by the moustache, thin and tightly pressed together. He was the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... "An you had had as much raiding as we borderers, you would have learned the trick of quiet cattle droving. I doubt if ever you had need ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roisterers of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... the old war songs in the streets. They can get word-drunk, and make crowds, and invade privacy in the genuine old-fashioned way; and they'll do the voting trick as often as you ask ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... and in some retired spot or another sank into oblivion; but Chichikov put a brave face upon the matter, for, in spite of the authorities' best efforts to smell out his gains, he had contrived to conceal a portion of them, and also resorted to every subtle trick of intellect which could possibly be employed by an experienced man of the world who has a wide knowledge of his fellows. Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness of demeanour, by moving oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the occasional insertion of a ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... first became suspicious, and then resented the imputation that they were not in fit condition for such a task. I recommend, therefore, that you allow them to divide the money to-night. It will allay their fear that some trick is to be played upon them, and if you hint at intoxication, they are likely to get out of hand. As it does not matter when the money is distributed, I counsel you to humor them to-night, and postpone ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... which carried his audience instantly into the Spanish heat of old California, in "The Rose of the Rancho;" and the moving scenery which took the onlooker from the foot-hills of the Sierras to the cabin of "The Girl of the Golden West" was a "trick" well worth ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... very sharp, weren't you? You thought you did your little trick so cleverly that no one would find you out, but your kind ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... only after a long and often bitter fight, and in that fight she exhibited forensic and tactical talents of a truly admirable order. There was no weakness of man that she did not penetrate and take advantage of. There was no trick that she did not put to effective use. There was no device so bold and inordinate ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... these also were worshiped, and a virtue was supposed to exist in these, just as magicians imagine that a virtue exists in images of the heavenly bodies carved at a particular time. In a certain monastery we [some of us] have seen a statue of the blessed Virgin, which moved automatically by a trick [within by a string], so as to seem either to turn away from [those who did not make a large offering] or nod to those ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... all indignantly, 'Fool, for thou hast, men say, the strength of ten, Canst thou not trust the limbs thy God hath given, But must, to make the terror of thee more, Trick thyself out in ghastly imageries Of that which Life hath done with, and the clod, Less dull than thou, will hide with mantling flowers As if for pity?' But he spake no word; Which set the horror higher: a maiden swooned; The Lady Lyonors wrung her hands and wept, ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... once upon a time was putting through a deal in which the telephone company was interested, and they transferred his wire to another branch, and he finished up his business before the other side got on to the trick. To this day you'll notice that his telephone is 'Spring,' though every other 'phone in the ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... strong, determined, finely cut features illumined by a cheery smile. He had squared things with himself while he had been dressing: "Hard lines, Henry, isn't it?" he had asked of himself, a trick of his when he faced any disaster like the present. "Better get Ruth off somewhere, Henry, don't you think so? Yes, get her off to-morrow. The little girl can't stand everything, plucky as she is." It was this last thought of his daughter that had sent the cheery smile careering ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... trick, Mr. Auctioneer," he declared. "Shan't come here any more! Shan't buy anything! Ought to ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... crop out, (I call myself a half-Paralytic these days, and reverently bless the Lord it is no worse,) between some of the lines—but I get my share of fun and healthy hours, and shall try to indicate them. (The trick is, I find, to tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman |
