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More "Booby" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Speak out, you booby. Cornichon! Where did you find it? Let me see it—at once." All fire and imperiousness, she held out grasping fingers. He shook. And then carefully he drew from the inside pocket of his coat, the purse. She snatched it. Yes—it was her purse. And yet there was ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... protesting against the profane interruption to Mr. Crewe's speech, bent her head to enter Mr. Crewe's booby sleigh, which had his crest on the panel. Alice was hustled in next, but Victoria avoided his ready assistance and got in herself, Mr. Crewe getting ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... girl over there just last week and put her in the 'booby' house on bread and water for ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... her a simple little letter, telling her that he was leaving Ireland because he had suffered a great deal, and would write to her from New York, whereas he had written her the letter of a booby. And feeling he must do something to rectify his mistake, he went to his writing-table, but he had hardly put the pen to the paper when he heard a step on the gravel outside ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... all right it would not be a private wedding. What fools women are! And Fanny, whom I always thought so entirely able to take care of herself, turns out to be the greatest fool of all! This fellow's a booby, I believe, Mrs. Newt. I think I have heard even you make fun of him. But to be poor, too! To run away with a pauper-booby, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... two or three thousand years of this sport, I suppose Blackstick grew tired of it. Or perhaps she thought, 'What good am I doing by sending this Princess to sleep for a hundred years? by fixing a black pudding on to that booby's nose? by causing diamonds and pearls to drop from one little girl's mouth, and vipers and toads from another's? I begin to think I do as much harm as good by my performances. I might as well shut my incantations up, and allow things ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Go, booby; do you think I am a child?" his master retorted angrily. "I've my sword and can use it. I shall not be long. And do you hear, men, keep a ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... continued Mr. Silton, "there are two distinct sorts of what we call bashfulness; this, the awkwardness of a booby, which a few steps into the world will convert into the pertness of a coxcomb; that, a consciousness, which the most delicate feelings produce, and the most extensive knowledge ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... the angling clubs which encourage prize-taking offer booby consolations for the smallest fish, but I have known exceptions, especially at the holiday competitions by the seaside. The biggest fish are another matter altogether. Sooner or later the world is bound ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... quiet creature as a rule," said the horse—"very patient with people—don't make much fuss. But it was bad enough to have that vet giving me the wrong medicine. And when that red-faced booby started to monkey with me, I just ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... on brutish cunning, or midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and that the Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse character, who ambitiously claims to act the leader, under the unmanly disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat heros. The "Rebecca" seems no more than a living figure to give effect to the drama, as boys dress up an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... he passed along the gangway towards the bridge which he was about to mount to have a look at the standard compass and see what course the helmsman was steering, on his way from the poop, where I had noticed him talking with the skipper as I came up the booby-hatch from below. "Hullo, Haldane!" he cried, shouting almost in my ear, and giving me a playful dig in the ribs at the same time; this nearly knocked all the breath out of my body. "Is ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... have been in the Eton expedition, tell him, and to have heard a song (by-the-bye, I have forgotten that) sung in the thunderstorm, solos by Charley, chorus by the friends, describing the career of a booby who was plucked at college, every ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... yer great cowardly booby, will yer? So you thought you was coming hout to frighten a little lad, did ye? And you met with one of your hown size, did ye? Now will ye get hup and take it like a man, or shall I give it you ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... looking, overgrown young person. To get anything out of him I alternately prodded and fondled; he was a cross between a big booby and a sullen animal. ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... 4th we inspanned and continued our march for Booby, a large party of savages still following the wagons. Before proceeding far I was tempted by the beautiful appearance of the country to saddle horses, to hunt in the mountains westward of my course. I directed the wagons to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... wears Lady Booby's cast-off livery, is, I think, to the full as polite as Tom Jones in his fustian suit, or Captain Booth in regimentals. He has, like those heroes, large calves, broad shoulders, a high courage, and a handsome face. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... friend booby Grafton I'll e'en let you keep, Awake he can't hurt, and is still half asleep; Nor ever was dangerous, but to womankind, And his body's as impotent now ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... Blasco Nunez characterized the four judges of the Audience in a manner more concise than complimentary, - a boy, a madman, a booby, and a dunce! "Decia muchas veces Blasco Nunez, que le havian dado el Emperador, i su Consejo de Indias vn Moco, un Loco, un Necio, vn Tonto por Oidores, que asi lo havian hecho como ellos eran. Moco era Cepeda, i llamaba Loco a Juan Alvarez, i Necio a Tejada, que no sabia Latin." ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... piteous wretch, with his fatuous airs of sharpness, was exactly the kind of game that the bookmakers cared to fly at; he was cajoled and stimulated; he was trapped at every turn; the vultures flapped round him; and there was no strong, wise man to give the booby counsel or to drag him by main force from his fate. There was no pity for the boy's youth; he was a mark for every obscene bird of prey that haunts the Turf; respectable betting men gave him fair play, though they exacted their pound of flesh; the birds of Night gave him no fair ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... booby! He must fall in love, indeed! And now he's naught but sentimental looks And sentences, pronounced 'twixt breath and voice! And attitudes of tender languishment! Nor can I get from him the name of her Hath turned him from a stock into ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... danced airily, but with perfect modesty, to the sound of viols and the clanging of tambourines. It is needless to say that Passepartout watched these curious ceremonies with staring eyes and gaping mouth, and that his countenance was that of the greenest booby imaginable. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... that the Kremlin would brook no interference in its treatment of the Ukrainians, jokingly referred to the flying bread as a farce perpetrated by mad internationalists inhabiting Cloud Cuckoo Land, added contradictory references to airborne bread booby-trapped by Capitalist gangsters, and then fell moodily silent ...
— Bread Overhead • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... trees because they had no joints in their legs. The inhabitants, cunning fellows, sought out the favoured trees and sawed them nearly through; so that when the unfortunate elks settled themselves to sleep, the booby-traps came into operation. Having no joints in their legs, the poor beasts were unable to rise, and so became an easy prey to the savage Teuton. Herodotus, too, was somewhat credulous in the matter of animals; Sir John Mandeville was not always to be trusted; and ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... advised earnestly, "you'll get him out of London. He's restless. You may have noticed that yourself. He's spoiling for an adventure, and Dagger Rodwell is just the man to make use of him and then leave him high and dry—the booby for us to save our bacon with. I don't wish any harm to Mr. Bundercombe, sir—and that's straight! Until the day I met Mrs. Bundercombe at Liverpool I am free to confess that I was feeling sore against him. To-day that's all wiped out. We had a pleasant little time at the Ritz that afternoon, ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... header with it into a bog, out of which pony and boy rolled and struggled indiscriminately, boy none the worse, pony lamed for life. He played billiards with the Duke, and told the Duchess all his school adventures, practical jokes, fights, apple-pie beds, booby-traps, surreptitious ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... appears to expect equal oblivion on the part of his readers, of the fact that nearly two generations had passed. Henry is Joseph; Susan May is a much more elaborate and attractive Betty; the doctor's wife a vulgarised and repulsive Lady Booby; Ezekiel Daw, whom Scott admired, a dissenting Adams—the full force of the outrage of which variation Sir Walter perhaps did not feel. There are some good things in the story, but, as a whole, it is chiefly ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... of Maugerville. Others of the party were Daniel Leavitt, William McKeen, Elijah Estabrooks, Edward Burpee, Nathan Smith, John Pickard, Edmund Price, Amasa Coy, John Mitchell, Richard Parsons, Benjamin Booby and John Whitney. The rest of the party lived in Maugerville but their names are ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... and leave him to travel along the mire and beneath the clouds? For some weeks Summer was sulky—and sullenly scorned to shed a tear. His eyes were like ice. By-and-by, like a great school-boy, he began to whine and whimper—and when he found that would not do, he blubbered like the booby of the lowest form. Still the Sun would not look on him—or if he did, 'twas with a sudden and short half-smile half-scowl that froze the ingrate's blood. At last the Summer grew contrite, and the Sun forgiving, the one burst out into a flood of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the sheriff, "you're an idiot! This overgrown booby needs a horsewhipping, and that's the sort of an answer I'd like ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... The poor Booby frightned out of his Wits, jumped out of Bed, and, in his Shirt, sat down by my Bed-Side, pale and trembling, for the Moon shone, and I kept my Eyes wide open, and pretended to fix them in my Head. Mrs. Jervis apply'd Lavender ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... we find tedious people interrupting the course of our pleasures! You see me enraged on account of a splendid hunt, which a booby ... It is a story I ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... you have got my Lord of Cork.(530) He is, I know, a very worthy man, and though not a bright man, nor a man of the world, much less a good author, yet it must be comfortable to you now and then to see something besides travelling children, booby governors, and abandoned women of quality. You say, you have made my Lord Cork give up my Lord Bolingbroke: it is comical to see how he is given up here, since the best of his writings, his metaphysical divinity, have been published. While he betrayed and abused every man who trusted him, or ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... telegraph to the devil as to an old booby and a damned scheming young widow. I very much question if we shall do anything in the matter, even if we get there. But I suppose we ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... please.' Rous'd by the news, behold him now expand, Like beaten gold, and glitter o'er the land. Well stored with nods and sly approving winks, Now first with this and now with that he thinks; Howe'er opposing, still assents to each, And claps a dovetail to each booby's speech. At random thus for all, for none, he lives, Profusely lavish though he nothing gives; The world he roves as living but to show A friendless man without a single foe; From bad to good, to bad from good to run, And find a character ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... haven't spent a nickel on the play, you blundering booby," cried Mr. Bingle heartily. "That is still to come. I want ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... my dear. There is nothing so ungracious as a refusal, and no mark of high breeding so rare as the art of gracious acceptance. Any booby can give a present; but to receive a gift without churlish reticence or florid rapture is no easy accomplishment. I am always pleased to see you well-dressed, my love"—Diana winced as she remembered her shabby hat and threadbare gown at Foretdechene—"and ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... chance ever invented at which it is possible for both players to lose. Too often, after much sugar-coated deception, and many premeditated misdeals on both sides, one draws a blank and the other a booby. After patient angling in the matrimonial pool, one lands a stingaree and the other a bull-head. One expects to capture a demi-god who hits the earth only in high places; the other to wed a wingless angel who will make his Edenic bower one long-drawn sigh of ecstatic bliss. ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Wilmot would bring the tears into her eyes and she would wonder why it was she could not behave and make Mr. Wilmot like her as well as he did Julia. Then she would resolve not to make any more faces at that booby, Bill Jeffrey, for the girls to laugh at, nor to draw any more pictures on her slate of the Dame Sobriety, as she called Julia, and lastly, not to pin any more chalk rags on the boys' coats. But she ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... had two milk-white rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... ambition," replied Pigoult. "But we must first of all consult the Comte de Gondreville. Look, look!" he added; "see the attentions with which Simon is taking him that gilded booby, Beauvisage." ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... woman's ability to analyze the most subtile of human emotions. Mme. de La Fayette was, also, the first to elevate, in literature, the character of the husband who, until then, was a nonentity or a booby; she makes of him a hero—sympathetic, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... conceited, booby lord, and rejected lover of Imogen, though not very agreeable in itself, and at present obsolete, is drawn with great humour and knowledge of character. The description which Imogen gives of his unwelcome addresses to her— 'Whose love-suit ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... Torres Strait, which he called Endeavour Strait, discovered and named the Wallis Islands, situated in the middle of the south-west entrance to Booby Island, and Prince of Wales Island, and steered for the southern coast of New Guinea, which he followed until the 3rd of September without ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Harlowes took great pains, some time ago, to endeavour to get to the bottom of that story. But now the foolish devils are resolved to do something in it, if they can. My head is working to make this booby 'squire a plotter, and a clever fellow, in order to turn his plots to my advantage, supposing his sister shall aim to keep me at arm's length when in town, and to send me from her. But I will, in proper time, let thee see Joseph's letter, and what I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... as the "booby-trap" loaded with a millstone, which slays a hateful and despised tyrant, imposed by a foreign conqueror; evasion by secret passages, and concealment in underground vaults or earth-houses. The feigning of madness to escape death occurs, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... what a penitentiary's like? Did you ever hear the clang of a celldoor as the turnkey slammed it behind him and left you to think and stew and weep in a silence accented and made more wretched by a yellow electricbulb and the stink of corrosivesublimate? Back to the cityroom, you dabbling booby, you precious simpleton, addlepated dunce, and be thankful my boundless generosity permits you to draw a weekly paycheck at all and doesnt condemn you to labor forever unrewarded in the subterranean vaults where the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... we can protect Handlon," one of the sleuths ruminated, half to himself. "No judge would ever believe a word about this de-astralization business. The chances are we would all go to the booby hatch and Handlon would go to prison for ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... the core two kernels now I take, This on my cheek for Lubberkin is worn, And Booby Clod on t'other side is borne; But Booby Clod soon falls upon the ground, A certain token that his love's unsound; While Lubberkin sticks firmly to the last; Oh! were his lips to mine but ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... tight little body, with a face like a carrot! That's a beauty for my money! Honesty's stamped on his face, Mr. Tomlinson! I dare says" (and the officer grinned, for he had been a lad of the cross in his own day),—"I dare says, poor innocent booby, he knows none of the ways of Lunnun town; and if he has not as merry a life as some folks, mayhap he may have a longer. But a merry one forever for such lads as us, Mr. Pepper! I say, has you heard as how Bill Fang went to Scratchland [Scotland] and was stretched ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... desired time the sound of the bugle is heard and the skirmish is ended. The fort having captured the most flags gains the victory and each soldier should be awarded a suitable prize. The fort having the least number of flags may be given a booby prize in the shape of small toy drums for the ladies and toy fife or horn for the gentlemen. The "General" may then order the soldiers of this fort to serenade ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... the gunner's room; go and see what is the matter, but don't alarm any body, and come and make your report privately to me." In a short time he returned: "Sir, there 's nothing there, 'tis only the water washing up between the timbers that this booby has taken for a leak." "O, very well; go upon deck and see if you can keep any of the water from washing down below." "Sir, I have had four people constantly keeping the hatchways secure, but there is such a weight of water upon the deck that nobody can stand it when ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... to Paris to avoid being present at the great fete in honour of the peace. I know no sensation more painful than these public rejoicings in which the heart refuses to participate. We feel a sort of contempt for this booby people which comes to celebrate the yoke preparing for it: these dull victims dancing before the palace of their sacrificer: this first consul designated the father of the nation which he was about to devour: this mixture of stupidity on one side, and cunning on the other: the stale hypocrisy of ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... return to us again and again, as if seeking to solve the mystery of what strange beings were these that had invaded their retreat. In one rookery there were many varieties of these oceanic birds, and a species of booby that seems to be peculiar to Christmas Island. In size and colour they much resemble the ordinary gannet of our cold northern seas. Their plumage is of a wondrously bright snow white, with the exception of the primary and secondary feathers of the wings, and the retrices or tail ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... bobo" means much the same as our word "booby," therefore this was not a very soothing manner of beginning her information. To Isabelita's surprise, however, Timoteo answered only "Yes," and, coming in, put his one book carefully away, and then went forth for the cow, as he had been bidden. Isabelita stared after him. She had at ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... was no doubt sufficient for a light canoe, drawing some two inches of water. We therefore reluctantly turned away and resumed our uneasy coasting voyage, in the course of which we passed some nearly leafless trees, full of white patches, too large for flowers, which afterwards turned out to be booby-birds, who here find a resting-place. They are so numerous that it is hardly possible to walk beneath the trees ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... first to introduce it in Shannondale, she stood, flushed and triumphant, with the restored diamonds in her ears and at her throat, laughing merrily with the others at Judge St. Claire, who had won the booby prize—a little drum, as something he could beat—and who, with a perplexed look in his face, was staring at the thing as if he did ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... of Fairfield, the miller. An outlandish, ignorant booby, jealous of his sister, Patty, because she "could paint picturs and strum on the harpsicols." He was in love with Fanny, the gypsy, for which "feyther" was angry with him; but, "what argufies feyther's anger?" However, he treated Fanny ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... red, "If the booby thinks my money grows on every bush!... On top of the fact that my Indians are beginning to haggle over payments!" Fuming, and disregarding the excuses of Padre Irene, who tried to explain while he rubbed the tip of his ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... you owe all this!" she exclaimed, in an outburst of triumph. "If I hadn't looked after you, you would have been nicely taken in by the insurgents. You booby, it was Garconnet, Sicardot, and the others, that had got to be thrown to those ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... imperious guard; The GANDER;... spiteful, insolent, and bold, At the colt's footlock takes his daring hold: There, serpent-like, escapes a dreadful blow; And straight attacks a poor defenceless cow: Each booby goose th' unworthy strife enjoys, And hails his prowess with redoubled noise. Then back he stalks, of self-importance full, Seizes the shaggy foretop of the bull, Till whirl'd aloft he falls; a timely check, Enough to dislocate ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... piety's mighty strong in Spain." He swung on his heel abruptly, and strode back to the knot of men about his prisoner. "Here!" he shouted to them. "Bring him below." And he led the way down to the waist, and thence by the booby hatch to the gloom of the 'tween-decks, where the air was rank with the smell of tar and spun yarn. Going aft he threw open the door of the spacious wardroom, and went in followed by a dozen of the hands with the pinioned Spaniard. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Carry him all your poems to-morrow; there will be enough to make a volume. Massif will publish it at his own expense, and you will appear before the public in one month. You never will inveigle a second time that big booby of a Gaillard, who took a mere passing fancy for you. But no matter! I know your book, and it will be a success. You are launched. Forward, march! Truly, I am better than I thought, for your ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Field-Marshal?" said he one day—"in Karl's kingdom the shorter the service, the higher the distinction. If you and the Prince live long enough, I shall see you carry a musketoon yet, and not one of the latest pattern, either. You will be promoted down, like a booby who has been raised by chance to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... big and stout as father and mother put together, you can't find any expedient in your noddle? you can't plan any stratagem, invent any gallant intrigue to put matters straight? Fie! Plague on the booby! I wish I had had the two old fellows to bamboozle in former times; I should not have thought much of it; and I was no bigger than that, when I had given a hundred delicate proofs of ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... had sixty-eight questions which were booby- trapped in a couple of places to give us a cross check on the reliability of the reporter as an observer. We received quite a few questionnaires answered in such a way that it was obvious that the observer was drawing heavily ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... (d. 1742), actor, originally performed at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs. On 27 Oct. 1721 his name appears as Sir Epicure Mammon in the Alchemist at Drury Lane. Here he remained for eleven years, taking the parts of booby squires, fox-hunters, etc., proving himself what Victor calls 'a jolly facetious low comedian'. His good voice was serviceable in ballad opera and farce. On account of his 'natural timidity', according ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... a prodigious fellow! What do you think Booby says? He says that Foaming Fudge can do more than any man in Great Britain; that he had one day to plead in the King's Bench, spout at a tavern, speak in the House, and fight a duel; and that he found time for ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... and Anne and Colin, as they set the booby-trap for Pinkney. Very quiet as they watched Pinkney's innocent approach. The sponge caught him—with a delightful, squelching flump—full and fair on the top of ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... I hung about a few minutes for him, and then, as he didn't turn up, I left, and met that old booby just as I was coming out ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... know, cousin Wright, that I am in love, and never was I so happy or so miserable in my days. If I was not a farmer there would be some hopes for me; but, to be sure, it is not to be expected that such a lady as she is should think of a mere country booby; in which light, indeed, she was pleased to say, as I heard from good authority, she did not consider me; though my manners wanted polish. These were her own words. I shall spare nothing to please her, if possible, and am not wholly without hope, though I have a powerful rival; ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... asked me of whoever was old or ugly in the room. I made no sort of answer: and when he found that I was resolutely silent, and walked on as much as I could without observing him, he suddenly stamped his foot, and cried out in a passion, "Fool! idiot! booby!" ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... understand; you great booby," she said, "that I hate him just because he married me, because he bought me, in fact; because everything that he says and does, everything that he thinks, acts on my nerves? He exasperates me every moment by his stupidity, which you call his kindness; by his dullness, which you call his confidence, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... is Hardin, the hate of hell in his heart. A glass of neat brandy is tossed off. He throws himself heavily on the bed. The world is a torment to him now. "On to Sacramento" is his last thought. Money, in hoards and heaps, will drown this rich booby's vain interference. For, legislatures sell senatorial honors in California openly like cabbage in a huckster's ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... the usual way, and then I'll not deny that we had a trifle of a disagreement. But he seemed to simmer down all right, said he'd send along for you, and after a bit of time said you'd come, and wouldn't I walk through the house and see you myself. The crafty old fox had got his booby trap rigged in the mean time, and then I walked straight into it like the softest specimen of blame' fool ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... "I'll look at that wound of yours when I've seen to the door. No lock, of course." She pondered frowningly. "It's a childish thing at the best," she added thoughtfully; "but it may be a novelty in these parts. Have you ever arranged a booby ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... would ride there, and Dingley go in a coach. I have had no fit since my first, although sometimes my head is not quite in good order.—At night. I was this morning to visit Mr. Pratt, who is come over with poor, sick Lord Shelburne: they made me dine with them; and there I stayed, like a booby, till eight, looking over them at ombre, and then came home. Lord Shelburne's giddiness is turned into a colic, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... You ain't quite yourself, be ye? I knowed a feller once that thought he was the angel Gabriel and went around with a tin fish horn, tooting it at all hours of the day and night. But no graves opened for him and nobody was resurrected. They finally put him in the booby ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... he said coldly. "It took time to fix it the way it is. At a guess, the ship was booby-trapped at the time of its last overhaul. But it was arranged that the booby trap had to be set, the trigger cocked, by somebody doing something very simple at a different place and later on. We've been flying with that grenade in the ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... see nothing in all this to be frightened about," said Leopold, calmly. "That she has refused a booby who runs away for fear of a woman, only proves her to be a girl of character. I begin to think there will be something piquant in this adventure, and I prefer a lively young lady to ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... you say, benefactress? He's still a regular booby! What can you expect of him! He'll get wiser, then ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... which had come from Mr. Horsball, for Mr. Horsball had not been spiteful enough to call upon him. There came a knock at his door, and young Mr. Moggs was ushered into the room. Now Mr. Moggs was the son of Booby and Moggs, the well-known bootmakers of Old Bond Street; and the boots they had made for Ralph Newton had been infinite in number, as they had also, no doubt, been excellent in make and leather. But Booby and Moggs had of late wanted money, had written many letters, and ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... their heads,—and that, too, when on the point of death themselves, in articulo mortis, oh! it would be madness, waste, extravagance, impiety!—Thus worldlings feel and argue without knowing it; and while they fancy they are studying their own interest or that of some booby successor, their alter idem, are but the dupes and puppets of a favourite idea, a phantom, a prejudice, that must be kept up somewhere (no matter where), if it still plays before and haunts their imagination, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... feller-citizens contrive to du without,— Long 'z you suppose your votes can turn biled kebbage into brain, An' ary man thet's pop'lar's fit to drive a lightnin'-train,— Long 'z you believe democracy means I'm ez good ez you be, An' that a feller from the ranks can't be a knave or booby,— Long 'z Congress seems purvided, like yer street-cars an' yer 'busses, With ollers room for jes' one more o' your spiled-in-bakin' cusses, 290 Dough 'thout the emptins of a soul, an' yit with means about 'em ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... tattler screwed himself up to the widow insinuatingly, as if her understanding could only be seized at close quarters, "I make that observation, because poor Dick Boulby, your lamented husband—eh! poor Dick! You see, Missis, it ain't the tough ones last longest: he'd sing, 'I'm a Sea Booby,' to the song, 'I'm a green Mermaid:' poor Dick! 'a-shinin' upon the sea-deeps.' He kept the liquor from his head, but didn't mean it to stop down ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they have become the admiration of all for miles around. I told him he looked like a market gardener, collecting flowers from every place he went to. I dragged him away several times, and told him he would certainly be taken for a country booby, and scolded him for demeaning his rank with such ignoble pleasures, and what wise answer do ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Hermy was making a humourous allusion to Foljambe, who was the one person in Riseholme whom his two sisters seemed to hold in respect. Ursy had once set a booby-trap for Georgie, but the mixed biscuits and Brazil nuts had descended on Foljambe instead. On that occasion Foljambe, girt about in impenetrable calm, had behaved as if nothing had happened and trod on biscuits and ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... model. I will add that his eyes are very interesting, by turns grave, gentle, gay, or melancholy. I have nothing to say against his manners or his language; his address is excellent, and he is no booby—far from it. With all this there is something about him that shocks me—I scarcely know what—a mingling of two natures that I cannot explain. He might be said to resemble, according to circumstances, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... ago you would have walked over all our dead bodies, if necessary, to marry that noble booby. And you would have married him if it had not been for me! I would not permit you to wed him then, because you were in honor bound to Regulas Rothsay. I shall insist on your accepting him now, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... by the people in your kitchen. Your servants get saucy and negligent. If their newspaper calls you names, they need not be so particular about shutting doors softly or boiling potatoes. So you lose your temper, and come out in an article which you think is going to finish "Ananias," proving him a booby who doesn't know enough to understand even a lyceum-lecture, or else a person that tells lies. Now you think you've got him! Not so fast. "Ananias" keeps still and winks to "Shimei," and "Shimei" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... before he was eleven, and Archbishop Benson when scarcely older possessed a little oratory in which he conducted services and—a pleasant touch of the more secular boy—which he protected from a too inquisitive sister by means of a booby trap. It is rare that those marked for episcopal dignities go so far into the outer world as Archbishop Lang of York, who began as a barrister. This early predestination has always been the common episcopal experience. Archbishop Benson's early ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... and patriarchal simplicity—"Avarice and aversion from civilization." As it began to rain we entered a tavern, and ordered a fowl to be roasted, as the soup and stews of yester-even were not to my taste. A booby, with idiocy marked on his countenance, was lounging about the door, and when our mid-day meal was done I ordered the man to give him a glass of slivovitsa, as plum brandy is called. He then came forward, trembling, as if about to receive sentence of death, and taking off his greasy ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... in many of his dugouts, and by contraptions with objects lying amid the litter, he had left "booby traps" to blow our men to bits if they knocked a wire, or stirred an old boot, or picked up a fountain-pen, or walked too often over a board where beneath acid was eating through a metal plate to a high-explosive charge. I little ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... 'you never was caught out this way before in all your born days,' I says. She was fit to be tied. 'Laugh!' she says. 'You great booby!' 'Hat,' I says, 'I shall give up, I know I shall.' 'It's jest your ignorance,' she says. 'I know it,' I says, 'but I couldn't help it no more than if you had slid a knife into me.' And I out with another. 'Come down into my cabin,' I says, 'and I will give you a little something in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... said Elliott. "It would be altogether too tame. I'd qualify for the booby prize without trying. But the rest of you may ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... Fielding thinking and provoked him to the composition of the first of his three great novels. Pamela is only remembered nowadays as Joseph's sister: the egregious Mr. B—- has hardly any existence save as Lady Booby's brother. 'Tis an ill wind that blows good to nobody. There are few more tedious or more unpleasant experiences than Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded. But you have but to remember that without it the race might never have heard ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... gentlemen, permit me to wish you health and happiness, and may you grow better and wiser in advancing years, bearing in mind that outward appearances are deceitful. You mistook me, from my dress, for a country booby; while I, from the same superficial cause, thought you were ladies and gentlemen. The mistake has been mutual." Just then Governor Caleb Strong entered and called to Mr. Whitman, who, turning to the dumfounded company, said: "I wish you a very ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... century, through all the ages of the past, and through the vast creation of the imaginable future. We spurn at the bounds of time and space; nor would the thought be less futile that imagines to imprison the mind within the limits of the body, than the attempt of the booby clown who is said within a thick hedge to have plotted to shut in ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... Tona was kept posted on all his adventures, and was immensely flattered at the boy's popularity and "social position." A bit too fond of brandy, yes—and what a pity!—but a regular fellow, quite different from that big good-natured booby of a Pascualet, who wouldn't say a word if a cart ran ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... at recess, which was often very inconvenient when Elizabeth and Rosie wanted to teeter by themselves or stay indoors and tell secrets. Then, too, John and the Pretender teased her unmercifully. They called her beau "Booby" Oliver and said he should have been a girl. She took his part valiantly, but she did wish he wouldn't say "papa" and "mamma," it made ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... the pin in her hat band, intending to restore it on the way home. But in the next cafe they stopped in she picked a fight and left him in a huff. Would you believe it, that guy had the nerve to come around the next day and declare that she had pinched the bauble and threaten to land her in the booby hatch ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... replied, obstinately, "because you say to yourself: 'This is a booby whom I shall persuade to do anything I wish, by telling him that I love him; he will believe it, and I will take him away to be hanged.' Come; there is only one word which will serve if ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Between Booby Island and Cape Wessel, which we passed in sight of on the 3rd, we had thick gloomy weather, with the wind between South and East-South-East; and, after rounding the Cape had some heavy rain, in which the mercury, having previously ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... O yes! O yes! By command of her Highness! Lost, stolen, or strayed, Gone to the dogs or mislaid, Her Highness' splendid ruby. Whoso finds it—wit or booby, Tinker, tailor, soldier, lord— Let him ask what he will, he ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... political bagman to Germany to bring back the ashes of Papa Victory, as the Prince de Joinville brought back the dead Emperor from St. Helena. Carnot I., after all, was simply a good war minister, who loomed into greatness only in comparison with the rogue Pache and the phenomenal booby Bouchotte who preceded him. He was certainly no better than his successor Petiet, and it was Petiet, not he, who finally "organised victory" by sending Moreau to the Rhine, and Bonaparte to Italy. Napoleon, who knew them both, made Petiet governor of Lombardy, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... (Wanders up the room.) I came because the Spirit of Revolt has crept into my School. A Secret Society has existed for weeks in the Lower Third! To-day it has come to my knowledge that a booby-trap was prepared for me by the hand of my own son, LAURITS, and I then discovered that a hair has been inserted in my cane by my daughter HILDA! The only way in which a right-minded Schoolmaster can combat this anarchic and subversive spirit is to start a newspaper, and I thought that you, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... on Richardson's "Pamela" (see Vol. VII), which appeared in 1740. He described it as "written in the manner of Cervantes," and in Parson Adams there is the same quaint blending of the humorous and the pathetic as in the Knight of La Mancha. Although such characters as Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop are admittedly ridiculous, Parson Adams remains an admirable study of a simple-minded clergyman of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and unease you too. The idiot! the patch! the slave! the booby! The property fit only to be beaten For your morning exercise? your football, or Th'unprofitable lump of flesh, your drudge, Can now anatomize you, and lay open All your black plots; level with the earth Your ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... "Well, booby," sneered the bird, "and under the grass is wet moss, which, if you make a hole in it, will fill with water. Why, I'd do it myself, in a moment, only your claws are better suited for the purpose than mine. Set about it ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... or something like that." He passed his hand rapidly over the photoelectric eye of the commo box. "Get me Major Slater," he said; and, a little later, "Major, get a platoon out to Long Island, to Chester Pelton's home; have the place searched for possible booby traps, and maintain guard there till further notice. You'll have no trouble with the servants, they're all in our pay. That platoon must not, repeat not, wear uniform or appear to have any connection with the Fraternities. Put another platoon in Pelton's store. ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... all about that! You know, madame, he's still a booby at heart. You've no idea how stupid that uniform makes them all! That's the way he goes on with his comrades; but if I turned him out, you would hear him sobbing on the stairs. Oh, I don't care a fig for you, my lad! Why, whenever ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... conventional aesthetic type would have many a surprise and many a shock. The jests often took the form of practical jokes, of which Morris, from his explosive temper, was chosen to be the butt, but which in the end he always shared and enjoyed. Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Faulkner would conspire to lay booby traps on the doors for him, would insult him with lively caricatures, and with relentless humour would send him to 'Coventry' for the duration of a dinner. Or he would have a sudden tempestuous outbreak in which chairs would collapse and door panels be kicked in and violent expletives would resound ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... our saddle horses and pack horses, we have another four-footed animal in our outfit—a large black dog of seeming little intelligence, to which we have given the name of "Booby." He is owned by "Nute," one of our colored boys, who avers that he is a very knowing dog, and will prove himself so before our journey is ended. The poor beast is becoming sore-footed, and his sufferings excite our sympathy, and we are trying to devise some kind of shoe ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... Elbridge, opening the door of the booby, and gently bundling Northwick into it. "I could come just's easy as not. I thought you'd ride better in the booby; it's a little mite chilly for the cutter." The stars seemed points of ice in the freezing sky; the broken snow clinked like charcoal around Elbridge's ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... the roundhouse was closed, so I did not fear the inmates would observe me entering the cabin. The break of the poop seemed clear of life. I scuttled on my hands and knees until I was past the booby-hatch; then I arose to my feet and flitted noiselessly to the cabin door. I opened it just wide enough to admit my body, and stepped into ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... when her Father was out of Humour, ask her Mamma, if she should reach down the Cap? These Caps, indeed, were of such Utility, that People of Sense never went without them; and it was common in the Country, when a Booby made his Appearance, and talked Nonsense, to say, he had no Cap in ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... are no more to pin on, the person who has succeeded in fastening the appendage the nearest to its natural dwelling place, receives a prize, and the player who has given the most eccentric position to the tail entrusted to his care, receives the "booby" prize, generally some gift of a nature to cause ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... the public cared for. The enthusiastic welcome given him by the Irish when he visited Dublin caused him to say in one of his letters, "Were it not from the chilling recollection that novelty is easily substituted for merit, I should think, like the booby in Steele's play,[392] that I had been kept back, and that there was something more about me than I had ever ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... brailed down; the captain puts his head out of the companion-way, looks at the cloud, comes up, and begins to walk the deck. The cloud spreads and comes on; the tub of yarns, the sail, and other matters, are thrown below, and the sky-light and booby-hatch put on, and the slide drawn over the forecastle. "Stand by the royal halyards''; and the man at the wheel keeps a good weather helm, so as not to be taken aback. The squall strikes her. If it ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... juvenile minds, and which can be trained by exercise and example, were, so to speak, the most popular virtues, early emulated among the youth. Stories of military exploits were repeated almost before boys left their mother's breast. Does a little booby cry for any ache? The mother scolds him in this fashion: "What a coward to cry for a trifling pain! What will you do when your arm is cut off in battle? What when you are called upon to commit harakiri?" We all know the pathetic fortitude of a famished little ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... ask you, you blundering booby," said my guardian, very sternly, "once more and for the last time, what the man you have brought here ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... of the geniuses. I was thirsty for music ... one of those moody whims of the olden days. Perhaps the presentiment that you were coming: the thought of those afternoons when you were upstairs, sitting like a booby in the corner, listening to me.... But don't jump to the conclusion, my dear deputy, that everything here is mere play—just chickens and the simple life. No, sir! I have turned my leisure to serious account. I have done big things to the house. You would never guess! A bathroom, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... prodigious fellow! What do you think Booby says? He says that Foaming Fudge can do more than any man in Great Britain; that he had one day to plead in the King's Bench, spout at a tavern, speak in the House, and fight a duel; and that he found time for everything but ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the sacks] But what was all the rest of that long name for? There was a lot more of it. Blops Booby or something. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... "Pay him, booby!" cried the stranger to his servant, without checking the speed of his horse; and the man, after throwing two or three silver pieces at the foot of mine host, ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... heart. A glass of neat brandy is tossed off. He throws himself heavily on the bed. The world is a torment to him now. "On to Sacramento" is his last thought. Money, in hoards and heaps, will drown this rich booby's vain interference. For, legislatures sell senatorial honors in California openly like cabbage in a huckster's ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... right it would not be a private wedding. What fools women are! And Fanny, whom I always thought so entirely able to take care of herself, turns out to be the greatest fool of all! This fellow's a booby, I believe, Mrs. Newt. I think I have heard even you make fun of him. But to be poor, too! To run away with a pauper-booby, by ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... be warned by a judgement so tragic, And wipe yourselves cleanly with all books of magic— Hark! hark! it is Dives! 'Hold your Bother, you Booby! I am burnt ashy white, and you ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... well-known Perry picture of a lion, a Dresden-china lamb or shepherdess, and a pussy-cat plate, pincushion, or paper weight are suggestions for first prizes, and four little tin horns painted green may be given as booby prizes to the four "greenhorns" ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... whoever was old or ugly in the room. I made no sort of answer: and when he found that I was resolutely silent, and walked on as much as I could without observing him, he suddenly stamped his foot, and cried out in a passion, "Fool! idiot! booby!" ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... of Sir Thomas Booby, with the affectionate and mournful behaviour of his widow, and the great ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... every other mean trick. Besides, he would stick his tongue out from the smallest kind of exertion. He had just been shipped in off the Montana cattle range and had never had a rope on him, unless it was when he was branded. Like a great over-grown booby of a boy, he was flabby in flesh, and he could not endure any sort of exertion without discomfort. At one time I became very nearly discouraged ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... distressing to lie at full length on the carpet, and declare oneself to be the length of a looby, and the breadth of a booby, but what was that as compared with sitting, blindfolded, on a chair, and guessing, among many kisses, which had been bestowed by "the girl he loved best?" As if he loved any of them! These pert and blowsy schoolgirls, with hideous voices, and arrogant curls, or crimped lion-manes ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... "The booby then told him the leading features of our plot, of which we had made no secret before him, as he was himself to have borne a part in it. True, he knew nothing of the alterations we had made at Paris in our original ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... deportment; while the English guests were overwhelmed with shame and confusion, and kept a most wary silence, for fear of being recognised by their countryman. As for our adventurer, he was inwardly transported with joy at sight of this curiosity. He considered him as a genuine, rich country booby, of the right English growth, fresh as imported; and his heart throbbed with rapture, when he heard Sir Stentor value himself upon the lining of his pockets. He foresaw, indeed, that the other knight would ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... loving remembrances to Watson. I should have liked him of all things to have been in the Eton expedition, tell him, and to have heard a song (by-the-bye, I have forgotten that) sung in the thunderstorm, solos by Charley, chorus by the friends, describing the career of a booby who was plucked ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... you know best," he said; "I daresay you are right. Okiok is a sharp fellow, and Ujarak is but a blundering booby after—" ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... mamma had forbidden him to play shinney, so he always stayed with the girls at recess, which was often very inconvenient when Elizabeth and Rosie wanted to teeter by themselves or stay indoors and tell secrets. Then, too, John and the Pretender teased her unmercifully. They called her beau "Booby" Oliver and said he should have been a girl. She took his part valiantly, but she did wish he wouldn't say "papa" and "mamma," it ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... the 26th, we caught another booby, so that Providence appeared to be relieving our wants in an extraordinary manner. The people were overjoyed at this addition to their dinner, which was distributed in the same manner as on the preceding evening; ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... round, and heard a blunt booby of a farmer speaking out his mind. She at once took him up—"You would not have thought it? You cannot comprehend what has come over Bourhope, or what he sees in that thin, yellow mite, Miss Hunter of Blackfaulds, even though she were ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... had written her about it, and, proud to be the first to introduce it in Shannondale, she stood, flushed and triumphant, with the restored diamonds in her ears and at her throat, laughing merrily with the others at Judge St. Claire, who had won the booby prize—a little drum, as something he could beat—and who, with a perplexed look in his face, was staring at the thing as if he did ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... so celebrated as I thought it was," returned Jack, quietly squeezing Peterkin's hat over his eyes; "but listen, you ignorant booby! and hear ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... here for twenty-four hours," he said, "and you're annoying me. I tell you, all this will end very badly. And you will have brought it upon yourself; for I have been extraordinarily patient with you. You think you are following me, you great booby, whereas it's I who am following you; and I know all that you know about me, here. I spared you yesterday, in MY COMMUNISTS' ROAD; but I warn you, seriously, don't let me catch you there again! Upon my word, you don't seem able to ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... many of his dugouts, and by contraptions with objects lying amid the litter, he had left "booby traps" to blow our men to bits if they knocked a wire, or stirred an old boot, or picked up a fountain-pen, or walked too often over a board where beneath acid was eating through a metal plate to a high-explosive charge. I little knew ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... at the bar the booby Bettesworth, Tho' half-a-crown outpays his sweat's worth, Who knows in law nor text nor margent, Calls ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... a fiddle, thanks to you and Ju—Mrs. Goring," replied Gordon, in a voice that rang with the pressure of clean, healthy lungs. "I want to do something. I'm infernally weary of this booby trap, playing hospital, and climbing trees to go to bed, and laying around like a pampered Sybarite. I'm coming out with you ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... beyond York Islands, and here the captain displayed the English colours, and called it New South Wales, firing three volleys in the name of the king of Great Britain. After we had left Booby Island in search of New Guinea, we came in sight of a small island, and some of the officers strongly urged the captain to send a party of men on shore to cut down the cocoanut-trees for the sake of the fruit. This, with equal wisdom and humanity, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... very red, "If the booby thinks my money grows on every bush!... On top of the fact that my Indians are beginning to haggle over payments!" Fuming, and disregarding the excuses of Padre Irene, who tried to explain while he rubbed the tip of his beak in ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... luncheon. While we were waiting for our filet to be prepared Indiman wrote a brief note and had it despatched by messenger; it was addressed, as he showed me, to Madame L. Hernandez,—Division Street. "I'm not going to have that booby upset the apple-cart for a second time," he said, savagely. "Now we shall have to wait for at least ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... great, big booby!" Ruth whispered to herself. Then her smile came back—that wistful, caressing smile—and she shook her head. "But he's Tom, and he always will be. Dear me! isn't he ever going to ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... "That booby!" the oldest brother would say whenever he saw Janko. And the second would snicker and repeat the ugly ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... would bring the tears into her eyes and she would wonder why it was she could not behave and make Mr. Wilmot like her as well as he did Julia. Then she would resolve not to make any more faces at that booby, Bill Jeffrey, for the girls to laugh at, nor to draw any more pictures on her slate of the Dame Sobriety, as she called Julia, and lastly, not to pin any more chalk rags on the boys' coats. But she was a dear lover of fun and her resolutions were soon for gotten. Her lessons, ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... the poor mother grew as yellow as a quince, and her appearance did not contradict the tongues of those who declared that Doctor Rouget was killing her by inches. The behavior of her booby of a son must have added to the misery of the poor woman so unjustly accused. Not restrained, possibly encouraged by his father, the young fellow, who was in every way stupid, paid her neither the attentions nor the respect which a son owes ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... intending to restore it on the way home. But in the next cafe they stopped in she picked a fight and left him in a huff. Would you believe it, that guy had the nerve to come around the next day and declare that she had pinched the bauble and threaten to land her in the booby hatch if she didn't ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... a lamp after lighting-up time. In particular, I recalled the statement of a pal of mine that in certain sections of the rural districts goats were accustomed to stray across the road to the extent of their chains, thereby forming about as sound a booby trap as one ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... people! (Wanders up the room.) I came because the Spirit of Revolt has crept into my School. A Secret Society has existed for weeks in the Lower Third! To-day it has come to my knowledge that a booby-trap was prepared for me by the hand of my own son, LAURITS, and I then discovered that a hair has been inserted in my cane by my daughter HILDA! The only way in which a right-minded Schoolmaster can combat ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... you shall believe him in this, O youth, by Bacchus, you will be like the sons of Hippocrates, and they will call you a booby. ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... is your fine Lord de Adhemar; a fool, a rattle-head, a booby; but he is handsome, and a jolly lover. Our queen likes handsome men, and everybody knows that she is one of the laughing kind, a merry fly, particularly since the carousals ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... panted the other, thrusting at the oars. "I don't spare spur when I'm ridin agin the French. I'm a man, and an Englishman—not a pink-faced, girl-eyed booby togged out in a cocked hat and a tin dagger, ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... had spoken it that what he wanted, hang it, was that she should let him off with all the honours—with all the appearance of virtue and sacrifice on his side. It was exactly as if he had broken out to her: "I say, you little booby, help me to be irreproachable, to be noble, and yet to have none of the beastly bore of it. There's only impropriety enough for one of us; so YOU must take it all. REPUDIATE your dear old daddy—in the face, ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... satisfactory a perception of a complete booby before in my life; and it caused me to feel kindly towards him, and yet impatient and exasperated on behalf of common-sense, which could not possibly tolerate that such an unimaginable donkey should exist. I laid his absurdity before him in the very plainest terms, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... or ate a man out of house and home, and that he was sick and ashamed of me. "Why can't you sing, you d—d French milksop? The d—d roulade-monger of a father of yours could sing fast enough, if he could do nothing else, confound him! Why can't you talk French, you infernal British booby? Why can't you hand round the tea and muffins, confound you! Why, twice Mrs. Glyn dropped her pocket-handkerchief and had to pick it up herself! What, 'at the other end of the room,' were you? Well, you should have skipped across the room, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... "I half believe the booby will have hysterics," thought Rachel, with curling lip. "Is this the man they praised so for his heroism? Does all his manhood depend upon his health? Now he hasn't the spirit of a sick kitten." Dreading a ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life, indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted—crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now; still he ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... up that girl over there just last week and put her in the 'booby' house on bread and ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... We all knew perfectly well that there never had been such a cat as Juno. Not that she was so fine-looking, or so expensive. She would never have taken a prize at a cat show, unless it might have been the booby prize. She was the very plainest kind of a brindled cat, and she wandered into our house from the street during her early kittenhood and calmly established herself in ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... my word! What in heaven's name is the matter with you all? Here has been that blundering booby William, pushed his father and me down-stairs, and Martha seems the only one that would care a farthing if we had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... revolts at the contemplation of those orgies of priestly brutality which have made the very name of this place redolent with a fragrance of scorched Christians, that we naturally assign it an immemorial antiquity. But a glance at the booby face of Philip III. on his round-bellied charger in the centre of the square will remind us that this place was built at the same time the Mayflower's passengers were laying the massive foundations of the great Republic. The Autos-da-Fe, the plays of Lope ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... one another." Thus to a dean some curate sloven Subscribes, "Dear sir, your brother loving." Thus all the footmen, shoeboys, porters, About St. James's, cry, "We courtiers." Thus Horace in the house will prate, "Sir, we, the ministers of state." Thus at the bar the booby Bettesworth,[1] Though half a crown o'erpays his sweat's worth; Who knows in law nor text nor margent, Calls Singleton[2] his brother sergeant. And thus fanatic saints, though neither in Doctrine nor discipline our brethren, Are brother Protestants and Christians, As much ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... Prince de Joinville brought back the dead Emperor from St. Helena. Carnot I., after all, was simply a good war minister, who loomed into greatness only in comparison with the rogue Pache and the phenomenal booby Bouchotte who preceded him. He was certainly no better than his successor Petiet, and it was Petiet, not he, who finally "organised victory" by sending Moreau to the Rhine, and Bonaparte to Italy. Napoleon, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... demolished the inhuman puppets of romanticism and rescued our literature from the clutches of booby idealists and sex-starved old maids. It has created visible and tangible human beings—after Balzac—and put them in accord with their surroundings. It has carried on the work, which romanticism began, of developing the language. Some of the naturalists have had the veritable gift of ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... visit was not to her. A moment later, while she was still agitated, she saw the Emperor burst into her room, holding the young Prince by the hand, and pushing him forward as he exclaimed: "Here, Madame, is your great booby of a son whom I'm bringing to you." Josephine burst into tears, and pressed ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... could have five, nay six, for the money; see that you do not overreach me, master. You are not the first man whom I have known to have fallen, even sometimes to the endangering, if not breaking, of his own neck, for endeavouring to rise all at once. A murrain seize thee for a blockheaded booby, cried the angry seller of sheep; by the worthy vow of Our Lady of Charroux, the worst in this flock is four times better than those which the Coraxians in Tuditania, a country of Spain, used to sell for ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... from the gallery, which renders an English play-house so uncomfortable, there is no end to their calling out and knocking with their sticks till the curtain is drawn up. I saw a miller's, or a baker's boy, thus, like a huge booby, leaning over the rails and knocking again and again on the outside, with all his might, so that he was seen by everybody, without being in the least ashamed or abashed. I sometimes heard, too, the people in the lower or middle gallery quarrelling with those of the upper ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... thousand years of this sport, I suppose Blackstick grew tired of it. Or perhaps she thought, "What good am I doing by sending this Princess to sleep for a hundred years? by fixing a black pudding on to that booby's nose? by causing diamonds and pearls to drop from one little girl's mouth, and vipers and toads from another's? I begin to think I do as much harm as good by my performances. I might as well shut my incantations up, and allow things to ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... their wealth; they might have been unknown else—you would die, madam, to see her and her equipage: I thought her horses were ashamed of their finery; they dragged on, as if they were all at plough, and a great bashful-look'd booby behind grasp'd the coach, as if ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... another name for necessity. I'm going to the theatre with Fred Rangely. He wrote an article for the Observer in favor of that great booby Stanton's having the statue. It was a very lukewarm plea, but I asked him to do it, and as ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... them. Good-breeding NEVER forgets that amour-propre is universal. When you read the story of the Archbishop and Gil Blas, you may laugh, if you will, at the poor old man's delusion; but don't forget that the youth was the greater fool of the two, and that his master served such a booby rightly in turning him ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... little surprise for the absent servants. He had made a neat and delightful booby trap over the kitchen door, and as soon as they heard the front door click open and knew the servants had come back, all four children hid in the cupboard under the stairs and listened with delight to the entrance—the tumble, the splash, the scuffle, ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... a similar weapon, the blade of which bore the syllables Biades. It seemed that Karl, even without the symbolic help of the daggers, had again found the complement of his own 'Alkibiadesian' individuality, this time in the young booby Hornstein, and it is very probable that the two, whilst in Sion, had imagined they were acting an 'Alkibiadesian' scene before Socrates. His comedy showed me that his artistic talent was fortunately far better than his society ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... village bridegroom to whom we sold it? and yet how you stormed at London when you thought it lost; what fine stories you told the king about the quicksand; and how churlish you looked, when you first began to suppose that this country booby ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... this. The daughter is said to be well-bred and beautiful; the son an awkward booby, reared up and ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... experienced before reaching New Holland. In the course of the night we were constantly wet with the sea, and exposed to cold and shiverings; and in the daytime we had no addition to our scanty allowance, save a booby and a small dolphin that we caught, the former on Friday the 5th, and the latter on Monday the 8th. Many of us were ill, and the men complained heavily. On Wednesday the 10th, after a very comfortless night, there was a visible alteration for the worse in many of the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... very quiet, Jerrold and Anne and Colin, as they set the booby-trap for Pinkney. Very quiet as they watched Pinkney's innocent approach. The sponge caught him—with a delightful, squelching flump—full and fair on the top of his ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... Coello with being faithless to his paternal duty, and called him a thoughtless booby. Instead of turning the ungrateful rascal out of the house, he, the dunce, had given him hopes of becoming her poor, dazzled, innocent daughter's husband. During the ensuing weeks, Senora Petra prepared Coello many bad days and still worse nights; ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was a great pile of you Gauls there, in which there were only you and three others worth taking, among them that great booby, your neighbor—you know, Pierce-Skin. The Cretan archers gave him to me for good measure[17] after the sale. That is the way with you Gauls. You fight so desperately that after a battle live captives are exceedingly rare, and consequently priceless. I simply ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... that I was a 'liberal booby with no talents whatsoever.' Once you, too, could not resist letting me know I was 'dishonorable.' Well! I should like to see what your talents and sense of honor will do for you now." This phrase Rakitin finished to himself in ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... get hold of liquids out there, that's the worst of it," the pilot went on. "But for that any booby could manage a ship. He's only got to keep well to the right of Mads Hansen's farm, and he's got a straight road before him. And the deuce of a fine road! Telegraph-wires and ditches and a row of poplars on each side—just improved by the local board. You've just got to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Booby-traps were beaten hollow, Hapless man stepped back in vain, Knowing what a trip would follow If he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... ha!" laughed the sentry, for he was one of those dull people who form their judgment from a person's clothes, without even looking in his eyes; and as the princess happened to be in rags, her request was amusing, and the booby thought himself quite clever for laughing at her ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... him. Suddenly the blaze in her violet eyes gave way to one of mirth. "Oh, you dear big booby!" she cried. "I was just testing you." And she clung to him, laughing. "You always beat me down—you always win. Bryce, dear, I'm the Laguna Grande Lumber Company—at least, I will be to-morrow, and I repeat for the last time that you ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... "down to the village, where you will find another couple; for you must not fancy that yours is the only wedding on which today's sun is to shine. A young clown, finding his time lag heavily in the house with an ugly old maid, for want of something better to do did what makes the booby think himself bound in honour to turn her into his wife. They must both be drest out by this time; so don't let us miss the sight; for doubtless it ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... she, loudly, 'open the door for your uncle; he is more fool than knave, and won't do you any harm.' The boy who had become a girl, obeyed. Master Nicholas entered the room and found in it a young maid whom he did not know, and his wife in bed. 'Big booby,' said the latter to him, 'don't stand gaping at what you see, just as I had come to bed because had a stomach ache, I received a visit from Catherine, the daughter of my sister Jeanne de Palaiseau, with whom we quarrelled fifteen ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... expression of the puzzled child. No, not quite that expression as it always had been theretofore, but a modified form of it. To any self-centered, self-absorbed woman—there comes in her married life, unless she be married to a booby, a time, an hour, a moment even—for it can be narrowed down to a point—when she takes her first seeing look at the man upon whom she is dependent for protection, whether spiritual or material, or both. In her egotism and vanity she has been regarding ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... quiet affair. Not a soul drew my chair away from under me as I sat down, and during the meal nobody threw bread about. We talked gently of art and politics and things; and when the ladies left there was no booby trap waiting for them at the door. In a word, nothing to prepare me for ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... I haven't spent a nickel on the play, you blundering booby," cried Mr. Bingle heartily. "That is still to come. I want ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... Archbishop Benson when scarcely older possessed a little oratory in which he conducted services and—a pleasant touch of the more secular boy—which he protected from a too inquisitive sister by means of a booby trap. It is rare that those marked for episcopal dignities go so far into the outer world as Archbishop Lang of York, who began as a barrister. This early predestination has always been the common episcopal experience. Archbishop Benson's early attempts ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... publisher. He had read 'Le Tapage' and expects you. Carry him all your poems to-morrow; there will be enough to make a volume. Massif will publish it at his own expense, and you will appear before the public in one month. You never will inveigle a second time that big booby of a Gaillard, who took a mere passing fancy for you. But no matter! I know your book, and it will be a success. You are launched. Forward, march! Truly, I am better than I thought, for your ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... excelled his master; for once both heroes are described lamenting their lost loves: Briseis was taken away by force from the Grecians, Creusa was lost for ever to her husband. But Achilles went roaring along the salt sea-shore, and, like a booby, was complaining to his mother when he should have revenged his injury by arms: AEneas took a nobler course; for, having secured his father and his son, he repeated all his former dangers to have found his wife, if she had been above ground. And here your lordship may observe the address ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... that brig would make more than a couple of short stretches, at the most, before she would perceive the difference between Ontario and the old Atlantic. I once took her down into one of the large South American bays, and she behaved herself as awkwardly as a booby would in a church with the congregation in a hurry. And Jasper sails that boat? I must have a cruise with the lad, Magnet, before I quit you, just for the name of the thing. It would never do to say I got in sight of this ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... days of the fighting, Fred went out to test his machine with his mechanic. He taxied off down the aerodrome, which was a huge old Boche one that his squadron had moved forward to. As he was taxi-ing he hit a Boche booby trap, planted in the ground, and up went the machine and fell in flames. The mechanic was thrown clear, but not Fred. Poor Tom saw it all from the door of "Virtue Villa." Out he rushed straight into the flames to Fred. I ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... tie, "A mother, kept Achilles. Our life's spring "To them was given, the rest reserv'd for you. "Nor should I fear, even were this crime, I share "With such a man, of all defence deny'd. "Yet his disguise Ulysses' cunning found: "Ajax ne'er found Ulysses. Needs surprize "To hear th' abusing of his booby tongue, "When with like guilt he stigmatizes you? "Shames most that I this Palamedes brought, "Falsely accus'd your sentence to receive, "Or that you doom'd him so accus'd to die? "But Nauplius' son not ev'n defence could urge, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... fellow be such a booby, that he cannot reflect and compare, and take the case with all its circumstances together, I think his good papa or mamma should get him a wife to their own liking, as soon as possible; and the poorest ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... dignity, compose the air and address of a man of fashion; which is as unlike the affected attitudes and motions of a 'petit maitre', as it is to the awkward, negligent, clumsy, and slouching manner of a booby. ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... we saw them three miles off, and they were the only objects visible above water, on the portion of the Barrier within our view. From our entrance, we had a fine run, and found nothing to stop us for a minute (during daylight), till clear of Booby Island at the western end of the Straits, which we passed at 10 A. M. on the seventeenth day ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... yes! O yes! By command of her Highness! Lost, stolen, or strayed, Gone to the dogs or mislaid, Her Highness' splendid ruby. Whoso finds it—wit or booby, Tinker, tailor, soldier, lord— Let him ask what he will, he ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Cloten, the conceited, booby lord, and rejected lover of Imogen, though not very agreeable in itself, and at present obsolete, is drawn with much humour and quaint extravagance. The description which Imogen gives of his unwelcome addresses to her—"Whose love-suit hath been to me as fearful as a siege"—is enough ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... cap on the temple of that Chinese Mandarin, poking above yon clump of firs, with its bell furniture; he seems pondering on the aphorisms of Confucius, regardless of that booby faced conservatory, whose bald, rounded pate glitters in the sun. Ah! what have we here; a spruce masquerader in yellow straw hat, trying to look rural with as much success as a reed thatched summer house. Stand in this quiet nook ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... recovered her self from one Eye to another, 'till she was perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a Murrain to her, she cast her bewitching Eye upon me. I no sooner met it, but I bowed like a great surprized Booby; and knowing her Cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like a Captivated Calf as I was, Make way for the Defendant's Witnesses. This sudden Partiality made all the County immediately see the Sheriff also was become a Slave ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... afraid. I don't want to know anything, but I'm not the booby I may seem to you. When a woman has lived around this way for all these years, in with a gang of show folks—Bah! I don't want to ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... been in the family for the last five or six years, came staggering into the room. He had been caught by a booby-trap which Irene had placed just over his pantry door, and a shower of spiders and caterpillars and other offensive insects had fallen all over him. His face was deadly pale, and he declared that he had been ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... illustration of woman's ability to analyze the most subtile of human emotions. Mme. de La Fayette was, also, the first to elevate, in literature, the character of the husband who, until then, was a nonentity or a booby; she makes of him a hero—sympathetic, noble, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... as a rule," said the horse—"very patient with people—don't make much fuss. But it was bad enough to have that vet giving me the wrong medicine. And when that red-faced booby started to monkey with me, I just couldn't ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... do. You've almost hammered the doors off their hinges, you ... stupid. Didn't suppose we were supplied with doors at public expense, did you? What are you staring at me for, you ... booby? What are you after now? Who ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... N. fool, idiot, tomfool, wiseacre, simpleton, witling[obs3], dizzard[obs3], donkey, ass; ninny, ninnyhammer[obs3]; chowderhead[obs3], chucklehead[obs3]; dolt, booby, Tom Noddy, looby[obs3], hoddy-doddy[obs3], noddy, nonny, noodle, nizy[obs3], owl; goose, goosecap[obs3]; imbecile; gaby[obs3]; radoteur[obs3], nincompoop, badaud[obs3], zany; trifler, babbler; pretty fellow; natural, niais[obs3]. child, baby, infant, innocent, milksop, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... in particular western civilization, is a time-bomb, built to detonate and scatter its fragments far and wide. It is a type of booby trap in which humanity has been caught periodically and horribly mangled. Without exception, each civilization has contained the forces and equipment needed for its own annihilation. At no time reported by history has this formulation been more obvious than during the decades immediately ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... has endeavoured to purchase at so dear a rate. I have watched him in publick places. He sneaks in like a man that knows he is where he should not be; he is proud to catch the slightest salutation, and often claims it when it is not intended. Other men receive dignity from dress, but my booby looks always more meanly for his finery. Dear Mr. Idler, tell him what must at last become of a fop, whom pride will not suffer to be a trader, and whom long habits in a shop forbid ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... At length it occurred to him that the applicant might be Louis, whom he had sent with the message to the Porte Neuve: and he took the lamp and went to admit him, albeit reluctantly, for what did the booby mean by returning? It was late, and only to open at this hour might, in the light cast ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... is, and was able to see most of what occurred from the time when we were off the Tuskar Light until Captain Snaggs hailed the cook to come aft; for I was in and out of the cuddy and under the break of the poop all the while, except now that I went up the companion, and stood by the booby hatch over it, waiting for the captain to turn round, so that I could give ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... servants get saucy and negligent. If their newspaper calls you names, they need not be so particular about shutting doors softly or boiling potatoes. So you lose your temper, and come out in an article which you think is going to finish "Ananias," proving him a booby who doesn't know enough to understand even a lyceum-lecture, or else a person that tells lies. Now you think you've got him! Not so fast. "Ananias" keeps still and winks to "Shimei," and "Shimei" comes out in the paper which they take in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... my return to Paris to avoid being present at the great fete in honour of the peace. I know no sensation more painful than these public rejoicings in which the heart refuses to participate. We feel a sort of contempt for this booby people which comes to celebrate the yoke preparing for it: these dull victims dancing before the palace of their sacrificer: this first consul designated the father of the nation which he was about to devour: this mixture of stupidity on one side, and cunning ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... the least controvert the impression given by the German press of political powerlessness, of social ignorance and incompetence, and of boorish ignorance of the laws of common decency in international comment and controversy. A great scholar may be a booby in a drawing-room, and a lamentable failure as an adviser in matters political and social. "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place." Germany has put some astonishing failures to her credit through her belief ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... this booby monk a long list of books that he was to hunt out for him on the library shelves of the Abbey of Fulda, including in the catalogue the works of Tacitus; and as he wanted a copy of the latter in the very oldest writing ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... most dreadfully," the young lady rejoined, taking the proffered chair. "I want something for a booby prize for a backgammon tournament. I don't suppose anybody ever heard of a backgammon tournament before, but it's going to be great fun. We are doing it to take the conceit out of a young man we know, who declares that there's nothing in backgammon that he didn't learn the first time he played ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... was a burlesque upon Washington and the American army. It represented the commander-in-chief of the American army as an awkward lout, equipped with a huge wig, and a long, rusty sword, attended by a country booby as orderly sergeant, in a rustic garb, with an old fire-lock ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... organized than they thought," he said, running his hand through his thick, black hair, and throwing back his head. "Better than I thought myself.... I've always said fool employers were the best friends we organizers have. The placard that young booby slapped the men in the face with—that did it....That and his spying ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... Tourville, likewise prepare themselves. I have a great mind to contrive a method to send James Harlowe to travel for improvement. Never was there a booby 'squire that more wanted it. Contrive it, did I say? I have already contrived it; could I but put it in execution without being suspected to have a hand in it. This I am resolved upon; if I have not his sister, I will ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannot adequately express what pain it gave me to think that Estella should show any favor to a contemptible, clumsy, sulky booby, so very far below the average. To the present moment, I believe it to have been referable to some pure fire of generosity and disinterestedness in my love for her, that I could not endure the thought of her stooping to that ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... is taken by one of the most feeble noblemen in Great Britain, between persecution and the deprivation of political power; whereas, there is no more distinction between these two things than there is between him who makes the distinction and a booby. If I strip off the relic-covered jacket of a Catholic, and give him twenty stripes . . . I persecute; if I say, Everybody in the town where you live shall be a candidate for lucrative and honourable offices, but you, who are a ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... boy—always laughed when the guns were fired, while his mother stood on the ladder and held him on the top of the booby-hatch." ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... with the Essex she was boarded by a score of the Essex's men. Some stood guard at the hatches with weapons held ready, while an officer and the others of the crew went below for a hurried trip of inspection, searching them diligently for "booby traps," and ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... Sanin walked beside him. And Sanin speculated—Polozov's lips were glued together, again he snorted heavily, and waddled along in silence—Sanin speculated in what way had this booby succeeded in catching a rich and beautiful wife. He was not rich himself, nor distinguished, nor clever; at school he had passed for a dull, slow-witted boy, sleepy, and greedy, and had borne the nickname 'driveller.' ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... thou the Haver-mill bonack? Blind Booby can'st thou not see; Ise got it out of the Scotch-man's Wallet, As he lig lousing him under a Tree: Come fill up my Cup, come fill up my Can, Come Saddle my Horse, and call up my Man; Come open the Gates, and let me go ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... Highbury or Cranford there might be scandal about a young bachelor's very late visits to a pretty widow. But the adult portion of the population, at any rate, would hardly lay booby-traps to trip him in a river on ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... sigh of exasperation. "When you come to talk about women's feelings, Blake, you make me tired. You will never be anything but a great big booby in that respect as ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... "Get up, you booby! up with you now, you're fit for nothing but eating and sleeping. Stop your grumbling and come out of that buffalo robe or I'll pull it ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... to find in me a kindred soul: my master was ushered into the cabinet, and I was left with my new acquaintance, who were called "attaches," but whom I at once classed with the secretary-birds,[4] while here and there, I thought, was mingled among them a specimen of the booby, or Pelicanus Sula. Two of these mischievous creatures seemed to delight in tormenting me from mere idleness and ennui, which I bore for some time with great patience, as I saw the boobies pay them much respect. One was called Lord Charles, and the other the Hon. Mr. Henry. I learned ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... a supper," said Lucien to Blondet, hoping to rid himself of this mob, which threatened to increase, "it seems to me that you need not work up hyperbole and parable to attack an old friend as if he were a booby. To-morrow night at Lointier's——" he cried, seeing a woman come by, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... such ambition," replied Pigoult. "But we must first of all consult the Comte de Gondreville. Look, look!" he added; "see the attentions with which Simon is taking him that gilded booby, Beauvisage." ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... actor, originally performed at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs. On 27 Oct. 1721 his name appears as Sir Epicure Mammon in the Alchemist at Drury Lane. Here he remained for eleven years, taking the parts of booby squires, fox-hunters, etc., proving himself what Victor calls 'a jolly facetious low comedian'. His good voice was serviceable in ballad opera and farce. On account of his 'natural timidity', according to Davies, he was selected by Highmore, the patentee, ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... with perfect modesty, to the sound of viols and the clanging of tambourines. It is needless to say that Passepartout watched these curious ceremonies with staring eyes and gaping mouth, and that his countenance was that of the greenest booby imaginable. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... little body, with a face like a carrot! That's a beauty for my money! Honesty's stamped on his face, Mr. Tomlinson! I dare says" (and the officer grinned, for he had been a lad of the cross in his own day),—"I dare says, poor innocent booby, he knows none of the ways of Lunnun town; and if he has not as merry a life as some folks, mayhap he may have a longer. But a merry one forever for such lads as us, Mr. Pepper! I say, has you heard as how Bill Fang went to Scratchland [Scotland] and was ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I often ask myself if she is not the daughter of one of Madame de Meilhan's friends. With wonderful tact she immediately put herself in unison with her surroundings; women alone can quickly become acclimated in a higher sphere. A man badly brought up always remains a booby. Any danseuse taken from the foot-lights of the Opera by the caprice of a great lord, can be made a fine lady. Nature has doubtless provided for these sudden elevations of fortune by bestowing upon women ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... courtesies, and bows, when they accidentally DID meet. And just at the close of the second day, as the elegant Major Van Zandt was feeling himself fast becoming a drivelling idiot and an awkward country booby, the arrival of a courier from headquarters saved that gentleman ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... be a satire on Richardson's "Pamela" (see Vol. VII), which appeared in 1740. He described it as "written in the manner of Cervantes," and in Parson Adams there is the same quaint blending of the humorous and the pathetic as in the Knight of La Mancha. Although such characters as Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop are admittedly ridiculous, Parson Adams remains an admirable study of a simple-minded clergyman of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... with the holy-water sprinkler, that's what we'll do. "Don't butt in where you have no business to, you black-faced booby!" (The ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... flourished his sword, with a view to frighten us; but we refused to stir till we were ready, and some of our company called him a damned lobster backed ——, for wishing to drive us away before every one had his drink. The man was perplexed, and knew not what to do. At last the booby did what he ought to have done at first—forced the beer-seller to drive off his cart. But it is the fate of British officers of higher rank than this one, to think and act at last of that which they ought to have thought, and acted upon at first. They are no match ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... careless, the children irregular and dirty, and books, pencils, and slates largely missing. Nevertheless, he struggled hopefully on, and seemed to see at last some glimmering of dawn. The attendance was larger and the children were a shade cleaner this week. Even the booby class in reading showed a little comforting progress. So John settled himself with renewed patience ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the day of George Sand to the day of Selma Lagerlof she has always got into her character study a touch of superior aloofness, of ill-concealed derision. I can't recall a single masculine figure created by a woman who is not, at bottom, a booby. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... as "Old Put" should have become the subject of controversy. Too much is claimed for him by some disputants, and much too little is conceded to him by others. He was certainly as far from being a rustic booby as he was from being ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... crept downstairs like a mouse, and learned his lessons before breakfast. Lucy, on the other hand, got up so late that it was only by dressing hastily that she had time to prepare a thoroughly good booby-trap before she slid down the banisters just as the breakfast-bell rang. She was first in the room, so she was able to put a little salt in all the tea-cups before anyone else came in. Fresh tea was made, and Harry was blamed. Lucy said, 'I did it,' ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... characterized the four judges of the Audience in a manner more concise than complimentary, - a boy, a madman, a booby, and a dunce! "Decia muchas veces Blasco Nunez, que le havian dado el Emperador, i su Consejo de Indias vn Moco, un Loco, un Necio, vn Tonto por Oidores, que asi lo havian hecho como ellos eran. Moco era Cepeda, i llamaba Loco a Juan Alvarez, i ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... still protesting against the profane interruption to Mr. Crewe's speech, bent her head to enter Mr. Crewe's booby sleigh, which had his crest on the panel. Alice was hustled in next, but Victoria avoided his ready assistance and got in herself, Mr. Crewe getting in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Quite sufficient honor came of bending over one green baize, I the scribe with him the warrior,—guessed no penman dared to raise Shadow of objection should the honor stay but playing end More or less abruptly,—whether disinclined he grew to spend Practice strictly scientific on a booby born to stare At—not ask of—lace-and-ruffles if the hand they hide plays fair,— Anyhow, I marked a movement when he ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... at most, Tatita Sumichrast. It shall never be said that this great booby broke my head and then laughed at me, to the heart's delight of the parrots, who no doubt were the instigators ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... Forward lay the windlass and its tackle, with the chain and hemp cables, all very unpleasant to trip over; the foc'sle stovepipe, and the gurry-butts by the foc'sle hatch to hold the fish-livers. Aft of these the foreboom and booby of the main-hatch took all the space that was not needed for the pumps and dressing-pens. Then came the nests of dories lashed to ring-bolts by the quarter-deck; the house, with tubs and oddments lashed all around it; and, last, the sixty-foot main-boom in its crutch, ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... too easy to get hold of liquids out there, that's the worst of it," the pilot went on. "But for that any booby could manage a ship. He's only got to keep well to the right of Mads Hansen's farm, and he's got a straight road before him. And the deuce of a fine road! Telegraph-wires and ditches and a row of poplars on each side—just improved by the local board. You've ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Lady Booby's cast-off livery, is, I think, to the full as polite as Tom Jones in his fustian suit, or Captain Booth in regimentals. He has, like those heroes, large calves, broad shoulders, a high courage, and a handsome ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the way, if only He's no booby; for all a snowy maiden Chide imperious, and her hands around him Both in jealousy ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... charm, a small reproduction of the Barye lion, or the well-known Perry picture of a lion, a Dresden-china lamb or shepherdess, and a pussy-cat plate, pincushion, or paper weight are suggestions for first prizes, and four little tin horns painted green may be given as booby prizes to the four "greenhorns" ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... York, the Bramble, Asp, pinnace, and our second cutter, were engaged, under their respective officers, in the survey of Endeavour Strait and the Prince of Wales Channel, which they finished before we left, thus completing the survey of the Inner Route between Dunk and Booby Islands. Previous to leaving for that purpose, the pinnace had been sent to Booby Island, for letters in the post office there, and some of us had the good fortune to receive communications from our friends in Sydney, which had been left by vessels passing through. Most passing vessels heave-to ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... diamond—the epitome of common sense! Why, he was a half-witted, impertinent, overbearing booby, and his author longed to get him across his knee, and correct him in the good old way. But meantime the point of the young warrior's sword was getting unpleasantly near the left breast-pocket of the author's dressing gown (which he ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... really anything about it yet. And I'm afraid you can't know on this island. There isn't the company and there isn't the means. I can't even make you an apple-pie bed, when you sleep in a single blanket; and a booby-trap needs a door. And when there are only two people, and no one else to laugh, it's no fun to stick a cactus in a fellow's chair. Tuck, too! What do you know about tuck? What can you know about tuck when there's no shop for chocolate ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... at him the chamber utensil which she had just seized. "If it is the devil who has offended thee with his words," she said, "resent the insult with words likewise, jackass that thou art, but if I have offended thee myself, learn, stupid booby, that thou must respect me, and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... too? Do you take me for a fool, telling me that you are going away? 'I am going to start to-night!'" she said, mimicking his tones. "Stuff and nonsense! Would you talk like that if you were really going away from your Naqui? You would cry, like the booby ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... good hand at such things, and he did it so nicely, that the master did not see him, and neither of us saw the B on the other. When we went out to play, all the boys cried out, "B for blockhead, B for blunderbuss, B for booby," and so on, ever so many other names beginning with B, and kept pointing at us. At last, I saw Frank's mark, and he saw mine. I can tell you we were both angry enough. Now we want to be revenged on John Green, and have a capital plan. You see he will be on his guard, and we must be very ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... steamboats, to an open-air couch of balsam boughs in the Adirondack forests. My means of locomotion included a safety bicycle, an Adirondack canoe, the back of a horse, the omnipresent buggy, a bob-sleigh, a "cutter," a "booby," four-horse "stages," river, lake, and sea-going steamers, horse-cars, cable-cars, electric cars, mountain elevators, narrow-gauge railways, and the Vestibuled Limited Express from New York ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... "I've no idea how to set about it, but I'll try on one condition. There's one thing we haven't tried against them. Set up an atom-bomb booby-trap, and I'll sit on it. If they try to contact me, you can either listen in or try to blow them up, and ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... "Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to wish you health and happiness, and may you grow better and wiser in advancing years, bearing in mind that outward appearances are deceitful. You mistook me, from my dress, for a country booby; while I, from the same superficial cause, thought you were ladies and gentlemen. The mistake has been mutual." Just then Governor Caleb Strong entered and called to Mr. Whitman, who, turning to the dumfounded company, said: "I wish you ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... their novelty that the public cared for. The enthusiastic welcome given him by the Irish when he visited Dublin caused him to say in one of his letters, "Were it not from the chilling recollection that novelty is easily substituted for merit, I should think, like the booby in Steele's play,[392] that I had been kept back, and that there was something more about me than I had ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... resembling hay-cocks in shape and size: we saw them three miles off, and they were the only objects visible above water, on the portion of the Barrier within our view. From our entrance, we had a fine run, and found nothing to stop us for a minute (during daylight), till clear of Booby Island at the western end of the Straits, which we passed at 10 A. M. on the ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... it you did not come to the rehearsal, Booby Ivanitch?" the comic man began, panting and filling the room with fumes of vodka. "Where have ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... could make in the next ten years! We're going to have the enemy supply us with power we can't get in any other way. I can't decide, Arcot, whether you deserve a prize for ingenuity, or whether we should receive booby-prizes ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... with the rest of the crew. This roused my suspicions, although I said nothing; but I watched them very closely. One forenoon, as I was standing at the foot of the companion-ladder, concealed by the booby-hatch from the sight of those on deck, I heard our men talking over the side, and at last, as I remained concealed, that I might overhear the conversation, one of the slaver's men from the boat said, "To-night, at eight o'clock, we will come ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... be the first to introduce it in Shannondale, she stood, flushed and triumphant, with the restored diamonds in her ears and at her throat, laughing merrily with the others at Judge St. Claire, who had won the booby prize—a little drum, as something he could beat—and who, with a perplexed look in his face, was staring at the thing as if he did not quite get ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... such a booby as you used to be, Harry," the old lady admitted. "Your manners are considerably improved, and there was much room for improvement. You're growing a good deal like ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... you say to yourself: 'This is a booby whom I shall persuade to do anything I wish, by telling him that I love him; he will believe it, and I will take him away to be hanged.' Come; there is only one word which will serve if ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... character as "Old Put" should have become the subject of controversy. Too much is claimed for him by some disputants, and much too little is conceded to him by others. He was certainly as far from being a rustic booby as he was from ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... three thousand years of this sport, I suppose Blackstick grew tired of it. Or perhaps she thought, "What good am I doing by sending this Princess to sleep for a hundred years? by fixing a black pudding on to that booby's nose? by causing diamonds and pearls to drop from one little girl's mouth, and vipers and toads from another's? I begin to think I do as much harm as good by my performances. I might as well shut my incantations up, and allow things to take their ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... grenade," he said coldly. "It took time to fix it the way it is. At a guess, the ship was booby-trapped at the time of its last overhaul. But it was arranged that the booby trap had to be set, the trigger cocked, by somebody doing something very simple at a different place and later on. We've been flying with that grenade in the wheel well for two weeks. But it was out of ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... he examined the control room with care. At last, satisfied that no booby traps were set, he crossed to the control panel. He located the communicator controls, ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... He said: "Women are generally more competent to vote than their husbands, and sisters better fitted to be judges than their brothers, the mother more capable of wisely exercising the elective franchise than her booby son." ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... among us, and flourished his sword, with a view to frighten us; but we refused to stir till we were ready, and some of our company called him a damned lobster backed ——, for wishing to drive us away before every one had his drink. The man was perplexed, and knew not what to do. At last the booby did what he ought to have done at first—forced the beer-seller to drive off his cart. But it is the fate of British officers of higher rank than this one, to think and act at last of that which they ought to have thought, and acted upon at first. ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... comes, the pest and terror of the yard, His full-fledg'd progeny's imperious guard; The GANDER;... spiteful, insolent, and bold, At the colt's footlock takes his daring hold: There, serpent-like, escapes a dreadful blow; And straight attacks a poor defenceless cow: Each booby goose th' unworthy strife enjoys, And hails his prowess with redoubled noise. Then back he stalks, of self-importance full, Seizes the shaggy foretop of the bull, Till whirl'd aloft he falls; a timely check, Enough to dislocate his worthless neck: ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... would have walked over all our dead bodies, if necessary, to marry that noble booby. And you would have married him if it had not been for me! I would not permit you to wed him then, because you were in honor bound to Regulas Rothsay. I shall insist on your accepting him now, because poor Rothsay is in ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... execrable. After getting about four miles behind the old line the villages were not so shattered and at Henin Lietard some houses were almost intact; the coal mines, however, had been ruined, and into some canals had been turned. Booby traps were numerous, and special companies were hunting for them. Their presence gave us confidence in living in the houses chosen for billets; but a few days later, we afterwards heard, a number of these were blown up by mines with delayed action. We continued our march in the direction ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... 25 fathoms, sand, the island bearing North-West 1/2 West distant a mile and a quarter. In the afternoon I landed for an hour, passing many turtles on the water both going and returning. As usual the islet was covered with seabirds, only two species, however, of which were breeding. The Brown Booby (Sula fusca) and a large tern (Thalasseus pelecanoides) existed in about equal numbers; the latter, in one great colony, had laid their solitary large speckled eggs in a slight excavation in the sand, ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... master. You are not the first man whom I have known to have fallen, even sometimes to the endangering, if not breaking, of his own neck, for endeavouring to rise all at once. A murrain seize thee for a blockheaded booby, cried the angry seller of sheep; by the worthy vow of Our Lady of Charroux, the worst in this flock is four times better than those which the Coraxians in Tuditania, a country of Spain, used to sell for a gold talent each; and how much dost thou think, thou Hibernian ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... pity in Jennings' breast, so he ordered Dauss to the booby hatch for a spanking and sent Coveleski to ladle out the pitch stuff. The young southpaw was equally generous in intent and would surely have forced in enough runs to give the Sox the game, but two of the visitors absolutely refused to accept that kind of a gift and got out. They were ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... humbuggery. Marriage is, perhaps, the only game of chance ever invented at which it is possible for both players to lose. Too often, after much sugar-coated deception, and many premeditated misdeals on both sides, one draws a blank and the other a booby. After patient angling in the matrimonial pool, one lands a stingaree and the other a bull-head. One expects to capture a demi-god who hits the earth only in high places; the other to wed a wingless angel who will ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... yet parvenu,[327] in the house of a Parisian, himself a nouveau riche and novus homo, on whose property in Champagne his own father is a wine-farmer. He is early selected for the beginnings of Lady-Booby-like attentions by "Madame," while he, as far as he is capable of the proceeding, falls in love with one of Madame's maids, Genevieve. It does not appear that, if the lady's part of the matter had gone further, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... continually we find tedious people interrupting the course of our pleasures! You see me enraged on account of a splendid hunt, which a booby ... It is a story I must relate ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... some of whom turned to look again, and one or two to retrace their steps and follow her at a decorous distance. This caused him to quicken his own pace, with a new anxiety and a remorseful sense of wasted opportunity. What a booby he had been, not to have made more of his contiguity to this charming girl—to have been frightened at the naive decorum of her maidenly instincts! He reached her side, and raised his hat with a trepidation at her new-found ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Levy, returning the letter, "you must have written as cleverly as you talk, or the squire is a booby indeed." ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the roundhouse was closed, so I did not fear the inmates would observe me entering the cabin. The break of the poop seemed clear of life. I scuttled on my hands and knees until I was past the booby-hatch; then I arose to my feet and flitted noiselessly to the cabin door. I opened it just wide enough to admit my body, and stepped into ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... a savage satisfaction from saying it, he was tired of sitting there like a booby while they discussed him, but he did not get the reaction from them he had expected. The two men merely continued to look thoughtfully ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... on. Sanin walked beside him. And Sanin speculated—Polozov's lips were glued together, again he snorted heavily, and waddled along in silence—Sanin speculated in what way had this booby succeeded in catching a rich and beautiful wife. He was not rich himself, nor distinguished, nor clever; at school he had passed for a dull, slow-witted boy, sleepy, and greedy, and had borne the nickname 'driveller.' It ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... "Where does the sun rise?" "Please, sir, down in our meadow; I seed it yesterday!" "Hold your tongue, you dunce; where does the sun rise?" "I know—in the east!" "Right, and why does it rise in the east?" "Because the 'east makes everything rise." "Out, you booby!" ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... — N. fool, idiot, tomfool, wiseacre, simpleton, witling[obs3], dizzard[obs3], donkey, ass; ninny, ninnyhammer[obs3]; chowderhead[obs3], chucklehead[obs3]; dolt, booby, Tom Noddy, looby[obs3], hoddy-doddy[obs3], noddy, nonny, noodle, nizy[obs3], owl; goose, goosecap[obs3]; imbecile; gaby[obs3]; radoteur[obs3], nincompoop, badaud[obs3], zany; trifler, babbler; pretty fellow; natural, niais[obs3]. child, baby, infant, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... roundhead?—His father was positively the most dangerous man in all Scotland, cool, resolute, soliderly, and inflexible in his cursed principles. His son seems his very model; you cannot conceive the mischief he may do. I know mankind, Evandale—were he an insignificant, fanatical, country booby, do you think I would have refused such a trifle as his life to Lady Margaret and this family? But this is a lad of fire, zeal, and education—and these knaves want but such a leader to direct their blind enthusiastic hardiness. I mention this, not as refusing your request, but to make ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... farce entitled, "The Blockade of Boston," to be played on a given evening. It was a burlesque upon Washington and the American army. It represented the commander-in-chief of the American army as an awkward lout, equipped with a huge wig, and a long, rusty sword, attended by a country booby as orderly sergeant, in a rustic garb, with an old fire-lock seven ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... man could be so stupid? He never knew of my existence, this big, red booby. He never knew that I existed until—until his 'dream' had fled—with me! In a week we were in Paris, that dream-girl and I—in a month we had quarrelled. I always end these matters with a quarrel; it makes the complete finish. She struck me in the face—and I laughed. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... consisting of the mouth of hell, painted red and surmounted by a blue paradise starred with gold. An angel came down to play at dice with the devil for souls. In his excess of zeal, the angel cheated and the devil grew angry and called him a "big booby, a celestial fowl," and threatened to pull his feathers ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... ma'am, when I wanted to hug old Beppo, he told me to take my paws from the dog's neck; that I was a country bumpkin, and a big clumsy booby, and no brother of his; and the sooner I skedaddled home the better ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... girls at recess, which was often very inconvenient when Elizabeth and Rosie wanted to teeter by themselves or stay indoors and tell secrets. Then, too, John and the Pretender teased her unmercifully. They called her beau "Booby" Oliver and said he should have been a girl. She took his part valiantly, but she did wish he wouldn't say "papa" and "mamma," it made her ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... a simple little letter, telling her that he was leaving Ireland because he had suffered a great deal, and would write to her from New York, whereas he had written her the letter of a booby. And feeling he must do something to rectify his mistake, he went to his writing-table, but he had hardly put the pen to the paper when he heard a step on the gravel outside ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... saddle horses and pack horses, we have another four-footed animal in our outfit—a large black dog of seeming little intelligence, to which we have given the name of "Booby." He is owned by "Nute," one of our colored boys, who avers that he is a very knowing dog, and will prove himself so before our journey is ended. The poor beast is becoming sore-footed, and his sufferings ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... and Long is a very bad thing for Central High. We lost the game with Lumberport just because Billy wasn't at short; you all know that. I'm mighty glad the game with West High was called off for to-day. Without Billy Long, Central High is very likely to win the booby prize on the diamond ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... a German dug-out, but the enemy still occupied the "Z." The front line between there and Gommecourt was filled with deep dug-outs, all connected underground, so the Boche occupied one end, while 2nd Lieuts. Banwell and Barrett sat in the other, of the same tunnel. There were many booby traps, such as loose boards exploding a bomb when trodden on; trip wires at the bottom of dug-out steps bringing down the roof, and other such infernal machines. We were warned of ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... warned by a judgement so tragic, And wipe yourselves cleanly with all books of magic— Hark! hark! it is Dives! 'Hold your Bother, you Booby! I am burnt ashy white, and you yet are ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... despatches and secret codes began to be left about in conspicuous places, in rooms conveniently vacated for notoriously suspect plotters; when the Prime Minister began to bounce and prance and to lay booby traps, into which not his enemies but his incomparable secretary promptly blundered—it was then that things ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... welcome as a meal. I did not stop to consider whether I could have digested them. They would at all events have allayed the gnawing of hunger. I remembered reading of people suffering from hunger when navigating the ocean in open boats, and how much a flying-fish, or a booby, or a lump of rancid grease, had contributed to keep body and soul together. But neither booby nor flying-fish could I possibly obtain. I tried to think of all the various articles with which the ship was likely to be freighted. During my numerous visits to the quay alongside which she had been ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... Subscribes, "Dear sir, your brother loving." Thus all the footmen, shoeboys, porters, About St. James's, cry, "We courtiers." Thus Horace in the house will prate, "Sir, we, the ministers of state." Thus at the bar the booby Bettesworth,[1] Though half a crown o'erpays his sweat's worth; Who knows in law nor text nor margent, Calls Singleton[2] his brother sergeant. And thus fanatic saints, though neither in Doctrine nor discipline our brethren, Are brother Protestants and Christians, As ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the miller. An outlandish, ignorant booby, jealous of his sister, Patty, because she "could paint picturs and strum on the harpsicols." He was in love with Fanny, the gypsy, for which "feyther" was angry with him; but, "what argufies feyther's anger?" However, he treated Fanny like a brute, and she said of him, "He has a heart as hard as ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... exclamation of Lady Booby, when Joseph defends himself: 'YOUR VIRTUE! I shall never survive it!' etc., is another instance.—Joseph Andrews. Also that of Miss Mathews in her narrative to Booth: 'But such are the friendships ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... say, benefactress? He's still a regular booby! What can you expect of him! He'll get wiser, then it ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... matched, mother, eh?" said Allan, turning to his wife. "They're marra-to-bran, as folks say. Greta, he's a girt booby, isn't he?" ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... hold-over. Boozerine, in the raw state. From the Latin words alco and haul, meaning "he is soused to the booby hatches, haul him to the alcove." (See Lord Macaulay's ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... lessons at home and played all day at school! Sometimes a reprimand from Mr. Wilmot would bring the tears into her eyes and she would wonder why it was she could not behave and make Mr. Wilmot like her as well as he did Julia. Then she would resolve not to make any more faces at that booby, Bill Jeffrey, for the girls to laugh at, nor to draw any more pictures on her slate of the Dame Sobriety, as she called Julia, and lastly, not to pin any more chalk rags on the boys' coats. But she was a dear lover ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... kid, Charlie," laughed Phil. "The fellows have got the bloodsuckers on him. Ain't he the booby? Told me he was fifteen and he's bigger'n you are. Screams ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... buccaneer birds, from their marauding habits. Seldom or never do they condescend to fish for themselves, preferring to hover high in the blue, their tails opening and closing like a pair of scissors as they hang poised above the sea. Presently booby—like some honest housewife who has been a-marketing—comes flapping noisily home, her maw laden with fish for the chicks. Down comes the black watcher from above with a swoop like an eagle. Booby puts all she knows into ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... and Mowbray, and Tourville, likewise prepare themselves. I have a great mind to contrive a method to send James Harlowe to travel for improvement. Never was there a booby 'squire that more wanted it. Contrive it, did I say? I have already contrived it; could I but put it in execution without being suspected to have a hand in it. This I am resolved upon; if I have not his sister, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... vent to a sigh of exasperation. "When you come to talk about women's feelings, Blake, you make me tired. You will never be anything but a great big booby in that respect as ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... she went in. He crept downstairs like a mouse, and learned his lessons before breakfast. Lucy, on the other hand, got up so late that it was only by dressing hastily that she had time to prepare a thoroughly good booby-trap before she slid down the banisters just as the breakfast-bell rang. She was first in the room, so she was able to put a little salt in all the tea-cups before anyone else came in. Fresh tea was made, and Harry was blamed. Lucy ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... leave him to travel along the mire and beneath the clouds? For some weeks Summer was sulky—and sullenly scorned to shed a tear. His eyes were like ice. By-and-by, like a great school-boy, he began to whine and whimper—and when he found that would not do, he blubbered like the booby of the lowest form. Still the Sun would not look on him—or if he did, 'twas with a sudden and short half-smile half-scowl that froze the ingrate's blood. At last the Summer grew contrite, and the Sun forgiving, the one burst out into a flood of tears, the other into a flood of light. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... Massif, the publisher. He had read 'Le Tapage' and expects you. Carry him all your poems to-morrow; there will be enough to make a volume. Massif will publish it at his own expense, and you will appear before the public in one month. You never will inveigle a second time that big booby of a Gaillard, who took a mere passing fancy for you. But no matter! I know your book, and it will be a success. You are launched. Forward, march! Truly, I am better than I thought, for your success ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a parallel in a Gaelic tale in my collection, where the boy dated an event which was true by a fall of pancakes or something of the kind which was not true, and was not believed though he told the truth." [At p. 385, vol. II. of the Tales of the West Highlands a "half booby" is inveigled by his mother into dating his theft of some planks by ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... your fine Lord de Adhemar; a fool, a rattle-head, a booby; but he is handsome, and a jolly lover. Our queen likes handsome men, and everybody knows that she is one of the laughing kind, a merry fly, particularly since the carousals on the ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... Cloten, the conceited, booby lord, and rejected lover of Imogen, though not very agreeable in itself, and at present obsolete, is drawn with much humour and quaint extravagance. The description which Imogen gives of his unwelcome addresses to her—"Whose ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... closer to him. Suddenly the blaze in her violet eyes gave way to one of mirth. "Oh, you dear big booby!" she cried. "I was just testing you." And she clung to him, laughing. "You always beat me down—you always win. Bryce, dear, I'm the Laguna Grande Lumber Company—at least, I will be to-morrow, and I repeat for the ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... Filial piety's mighty strong in Spain." He swung on his heel abruptly, and strode back to the knot of men about his prisoner. "Here!" he shouted to them. "Bring him below." And he led the way down to the waist, and thence by the booby hatch to the gloom of the 'tween-decks, where the air was rank with the smell of tar and spun yarn. Going aft he threw open the door of the spacious wardroom, and went in followed by a dozen of the hands with the pinioned Spaniard. Every man aboard ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... a rage! Curse the fellow! He has countermined me; blown up my works! I might easily have foreseen it, had I not been a stupid booby. I could beat my thick scull against the wall! I have neither time nor patience to tell you what I mean; except that here he is, and here he will remain, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... insinuatingly, as if her understanding could only be seized at close quarters, "I make that observation, because poor Dick Boulby, your lamented husband—eh! poor Dick! You see, Missis, it ain't the tough ones last longest: he'd sing, 'I'm a Sea Booby,' to the song, 'I'm a green Mermaid:' poor Dick! 'a-shinin' upon the sea-deeps.' He kept the liquor from his head, but didn't mean it to stop down ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... neighbor? I saw him go out a little while ago. Besides, he doesn't listen, the big booby. And I tell you that ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... twenty-four hours," he said, "and you're annoying me. I tell you, all this will end very badly. And you will have brought it upon yourself; for I have been extraordinarily patient with you. You think you are following me, you great booby, whereas it's I who am following you; and I know all that you know about me, here. I spared you yesterday, in MY COMMUNISTS' ROAD; but I warn you, seriously, don't let me catch you there again! Upon my word, you don't seem able to take ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... puts his head out of the companion-way, looks at the cloud, comes up, and begins to walk the deck. The cloud spreads and comes on; the tub of yarns, the sail, and other matters, are thrown below, and the sky-light and booby-hatch put on, and the slide drawn over the forecastle. "Stand by the royal halyards''; and the man at the wheel keeps a good weather helm, so as not to be taken aback. The squall strikes her. If ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a Murrain to her, she cast her bewitching Eye upon me. I no sooner met it, but I bowed like a great surprized Booby; and knowing her Cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like a Captivated Calf as I was, Make way for the Defendant's Witnesses. This sudden Partiality made all the County immediately see the Sheriff also was become a Slave to the fine Widow. During ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... against the profane interruption to Mr. Crewe's speech, bent her head to enter Mr. Crewe's booby sleigh, which had his crest on the panel. Alice was hustled in next, but Victoria avoided his ready assistance and got in herself, Mr. Crewe ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life, indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted—crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... security, to set him up in business; and the devil of a ha-penny could I ever screw out of him beyond principal and legal interest at five per cent; and, now he's made his forten, he's ashamed of the name that made it for him—a mean-spirited, henpecked booby, that cast his name to the dogs to please a silly wife's vanity. He have my property! I rather calculate not! And so, having disposed of all they, I think I'll leave my estates to some of brother Thomas's sons. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... brutish cunning, or midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and that the Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse character, who ambitiously claims to act the leader, under the unmanly disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat heros. The "Rebecca" seems no more than a living figure to give effect to the drama, as boys dress ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... enough!" And while with all this paltry stuff She sits tormenting every guest, Nor gives her tongue one moment's rest, In phrases batter'd, stale, and trite, Which modern ladies call polite; You see the booby husband sit In admiration at her wit! But let me now a while survey Our madam o'er her evening tea; Surrounded with her noisy clans Of prudes, coquettes, and harridans, When, frighted at the clamorous crew, Away the God of Silence flew, And fair Discretion ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... You, big and stout as father and mother put together, you can't find any expedient in your noddle? you can't plan any stratagem, invent any gallant intrigue to put matters straight? Fie! Plague on the booby! I wish I had had the two old fellows to bamboozle in former times; I should not have thought much of it; and I was no bigger than that, when I had given a hundred delicate proofs ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere (Poquelin)
... it's sweeping mines (to which my fancy somewhat leans) Or hanging out with booby-traps for the skulking submarines, I'm here to do my blooming best and give the ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... assassins. The whole thing might prove to be a false alarm, an absurd scare, and then he, who based his whole life and his whole reputation on the theory that nothing ever could induce him to make himself ridiculous or to become bad form, might turn out to be the ludicrous hero of a country-house 'booby-trap.' To do him justice, he feared this result much more than the other. But he wanted to test himself—to find himself out. All this thinking had not as yet delayed his movements by a single step, but now he paused for one short second, and he felt his pulse. ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... are described lamenting their lost loves: Briseis was taken away by force from the Grecians, Creusa was lost for ever to her husband. But Achilles went roaring along the salt sea-shore, and, like a booby, was complaining to his mother when he should have revenged his injury by arms: AEneas took a nobler course; for, having secured his father and his son, he repeated all his former dangers to have found his wife, if she had been above ground. And here your lordship may observe the ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... window. Everything on a night like this, and to an uneasy conscience, menaced danger. At length it occurred to him that the applicant might be Louis, whom he had sent with the message to the Porte Neuve: and he took the lamp and went to admit him, albeit reluctantly, for what did the booby mean by returning? It was late, and only to open at this hour might, in the light cast ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... with the children every day, and their diligence in studying the A B C was beyond all praise. But they were terribly stupid. The children beat them easily, showing how true is the saying that 'youth is the time to learn.' The king was always booby, and Makarooroo ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... had become so great a man. His father had been singularly hard of belief. Not until the news of the defence of Arcot arrived in England was the old gentleman heard to growl out that, after all, the booby had something in him. His expressions of approbation became stronger and stronger as news arrived of one brilliant exploit after another; and he was at length immoderately fond ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the bridge which he was about to mount to have a look at the standard compass and see what course the helmsman was steering, on his way from the poop, where I had noticed him talking with the skipper as I came up the booby-hatch from below. "Hullo, Haldane!" he cried, shouting almost in my ear, and giving me a playful dig in the ribs at the same time; this nearly knocked all the breath out of my body. "Is that ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... mother grew as yellow as a quince, and her appearance did not contradict the tongues of those who declared that Doctor Rouget was killing her by inches. The behavior of her booby of a son must have added to the misery of the poor woman so unjustly accused. Not restrained, possibly encouraged by his father, the young fellow, who was in every way stupid, paid her neither the attentions nor ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... not often that the angling clubs which encourage prize-taking offer booby consolations for the smallest fish, but I have known exceptions, especially at the holiday competitions by the seaside. The biggest fish are another matter altogether. Sooner or later the world is bound to hear of them. And who dare say us nay? That man was ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... the person who has succeeded in fastening the appendage the nearest to its natural dwelling place, receives a prize, and the player who has given the most eccentric position to the tail entrusted to his care, receives the "booby" prize, generally some gift of a nature to cause a ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... good-will, by a lively desire to please, but of which each word is a douche of cold water; and then the hearty hand-shakes of rivals, of comrades, some very frank, others that communicate to you the weakness of their grasp; the pretentious great booby, at whose idiotic eulogy you must appear to be transported with gladness, and who, lest he should spoil you too much, accompanies it with "a few little reserves," and the other, who, while overwhelming you with compliments, demonstrates ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... there was Henry Meltham, Sir Hugh's younger son; rather good-looking, and a pleasant fellow to flirt with: but BEING a younger son, that is all he is good for; then there was young Mr. Green, rich enough, but of no family, and a great stupid fellow, a mere country booby! and then, our good rector, Mr. Hatfield: an HUMBLE admirer he ought to consider himself; but I fear he has forgotten to number humility among ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Rossbach produced a permanent effect on the French military, and on France, and was one of the causes of the Revolution. The disgrace was laid to the account of the French commander, the Prince de Soubise, who was a profligate, a coward, and a booby, and who neither knew war ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... appeared in 1740. He described it as "written in the manner of Cervantes," and in Parson Adams there is the same quaint blending of the humorous and the pathetic as in the Knight of La Mancha. Although such characters as Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop are admittedly ridiculous, Parson Adams remains an admirable study of a simple-minded clergyman ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... go up, I wear them," said Dick composedly. "Why not? It's a roomy suit, and I hate a great topper on my head; I've had enough of that here on Sundays. But it's slow up at your office. The chaps there aren't half up to any larks. I made a first-rate booby-trap, though, one day for an old yellow buffer who came in to see you. He was in a bait when he found the waste-paper ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... shall easily discover which of these two gentlemen is the champion. In the mean time, the first paper leads our suspicions more towards Izard than Adams, from the circumstance of style, and because he is quite booby enough not to see the injury he would do to the President by such ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... him at the top of his class, and it was curious to note the rapidity with which he gravitated to the inevitable bottom. The youth was given up by his teachers as an incorrigible dunce—one of them pronouncing him to be a "stupendous booby." Yet, slow though he was, this dunce had a sort of dull energy of purpose in him, which grew with his muscles and his manhood; and, strange to say, when he at length came to take part in the practical business ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... was lame, "or that?" And in this manner he asked me of whoever was old or ugly in the room. I made no sort of answer: and when he found that I was resolutely silent, and walked on as much as I could without observing him, he suddenly stamped his foot, and cried out in a passion, "Fool! idiot! booby!" ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... coaxed Dick, pushing them gently. "Dexter, I told you you'd be a booby in any fight where you couldn't have it all your own way. I was right about it. Get up, now—and make your fly-away while I'm still able to hold these two bulldogs in leash. ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... written to her for so long. On account of anonymous letters he received; because he thought that he no longer loved her. I instantly comprehended his object. I am frantic for her, when I think what a satisfied face the booby will take with him to Mexico! And that poor girl has been crying ever since this morning. I am pleased. I foresaw everything, we must hold ourselves proudly, especially when the man wants to draw back. He invents excuses, and the poor woman believes she is deserving ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... two kernels brown I take: This on my cheek for Lubberkin is worn, And Booby Clod on t'other side is borne; But Booby Clod soon drops upon the ground, A certain token that his love's unsound; While Lubberkin sticks firmly to the last. Oh! were his lips to mine ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... gleaming, as he set his great body against the leash, and gave evidence of a sincere desire to make free lunch of the Bannister youths. As Buster Brown afterward stated, "Neither one would take the booby prize at a beauty show, but at that, the bulldog had a better chance than Bildad!" T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., let it be recorded, could not have qualified as a judge, since his undivided attention was awarded to ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Inc., into full operation. He fought savagely against personal publicity, but he worked himself half to death. He spent hours every day in frenzied haggling, and in the cynical examination of deftly booby-trapped business proposals. His lawyers insisted that he needed an office—he did—and presently he had four secretaries and there developed an entire hierarchy of persons under him. One day his chief secretary told him commiseratingly ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... dumb looking, overgrown young person. To get anything out of him I alternately prodded and fondled; he was a cross between a big booby and ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... the impression given by the German press of political powerlessness, of social ignorance and incompetence, and of boorish ignorance of the laws of common decency in international comment and controversy. A great scholar may be a booby in a drawing-room, and a lamentable failure as an adviser in matters political and social. "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place." Germany has put some astonishing failures to her credit through ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... "What a good-natured booby, fool, idiot, I am!" he cried, with a scornful laugh. "No, it is she who has been false and untruthful, she who must acknowledge it, she who is bound to give me, once for all, full explanation. Yes, it is she who must bend, and then she may have ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... want an idea most dreadfully," the young lady rejoined, taking the proffered chair. "I want something for a booby prize for a backgammon tournament. I don't suppose anybody ever heard of a backgammon tournament before, but it's going to be great fun. We are doing it to take the conceit out of a young man we know, who declares that there's nothing in backgammon that he didn't learn the first time he ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... was called to the Bar, I'd an appetite fresh and hearty, But I was, as many young barristers are, An impecunious party. I'd a swallow-tail coat of a beautiful blue - A brief which was brought by a booby - A couple of shirts and a collar or two, And a ring ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... rise for the purpose"—— On hearing the sound of his voice, the lady president rushed to the edge of the platform, and glaring on the upright figure, which shook like an aspen beneath her fiery eyes, exclaimed, in thundering accents, "What are you standing there for, you booby-faced, blubber-chopped baboon in boots?" ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... Wilson's flaming bills of "Dancing at the Old Bailey," which are so profusely stuck up about the city, are said to have occasioned several awkward jokes and blunders; among others related, is that of a great unintellectual Yorkshire booby, who, after staring at the bills with his mouth open, and his saucer eyes nearly starting out of his head with astonishment, exclaimed, "Dang the buttons on't, I zee'd urn dangling all of a row last Wednesday at ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the bar the booby Bettesworth, Tho' half-a-crown outpays his sweat's worth, Who knows in law nor text nor margent, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
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