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More "Fib" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scowled now. "Then you told him a tremendous fib. I meant a deal of it. Well, he'll get his deserts yet, if he gets you, you deceiving minx. I told him one thing that was true enough, anyway"—he smiled broadly again—"I told him Mary was worth half a ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... "It's odd! It's impossible you could have known! I'll tell you why, Rip! I wanted to try you. You fib well at long range, but you don't do at close quarters and single combat. You're good behind walls, but not worth a shot in the open. I just see what you're fit for. You're staunch—that I am certain of. You always were. Lead the way to one of the parks—down ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... up, declaring it to be the most fun they had had "in a coon's age," which was really a boys' bravery fib, and finally the machine drew up within a hundred and fifty feet ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... mean time, there are but dark news from the Havannah; the Gazette, who would not fib for the world, says, we have lost but four officers; the World, who is not quite so scrupulous, says, our loss is heavy.—But what shocking notice to those who have Harry Conways there! The Gazette breaks off with saying, that they were ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... Drop so clear, Pip and Trip and Skip that were To Mab, their sovereign, ever dear, Her special maids of honour; Fib and Tib and Pink and Pin, Tick and Quick and Jill and Jin, Tit and Nit and Wap and Win, The train that ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... her: "Is it to watch the roses that you have put on the gown which matches your eyes, you sly one?"... "And the lilies in your hair, sweet? Is it to shelter them from the rain that you wear them?"... "Fie, Tata! Can you not fib yet ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... was nothing to detect Pomona Road along - None faked a cly, nor cracked a crib, Nor prigged a wipe, nor told a fib,— Minds cultivated and select Slip rarely ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... break, Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack: Pit, box, and gallery in convulsions hurl'd, Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world. Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: 90 Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain, The creature's at his dirty work again, Throned in the centre of his thin designs, Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines! Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer, Lost the arch'd eyebrow, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... and Angela gasped. Betty had never been known to shed a tear. As for weeks of them, that was a bit extravagant. But the fib had the desired effect. The new girl turned her large, drenched gray eyes on Betty and studied ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... against this proposed arrangement, saying that we could walk, which was a fib, for I do not think that I could have done a mile; but Stella would not listen, she would not even let me carry my elephant gun, but took it herself. So we mounted with some difficulty, and Hendrika took up the sleeping Tota in ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... not read what follows, because it's a fib"; and she ran her eyes over several lines. "In spite of my prayers, I must go. 'You are no longer a boy,' my father said, 'you must think of the future. You have to learn things your own country cannot teach you, if you would be ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the declaration would be a pure fib, or anything like it. The man had no conscience, and he was almost incomparably selfish, but he was capable of loving, and he did love. That is to say, he was inflamed by this girl's beauty and longed to possess it. It is a low species ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... knoweth not to the full, even whilst he is asleep. This will be a very summary abbreviation of our labour, if we but hearken unto him a little upon the serious debate and canvassing of this my perplexity. That is, answered Epistemon, a gullery too evident, a plain abuse and fib too fabulous. I will not go, not I; I ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... is one of the mistakes of unwise femininity. All dyes containing either mercury or lead are very dangerous. But why should women dye their hair? Goodness only knows. One might as well ask why women fib about their age, or why women shop three hours just to buy a pair of dress shields. There are some questions of life which we are destined never to solve. There is nothing lovelier than white hair. Combine with it a fine complexion and a pair of animated brown eyes and you have as picturesque ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... warming up to a man who can lie like that. Talk about Chatterton's Rowley deception, Macpherson's Ossian fraud, or Locke's moon hoax! Compared with this tremendous fib they are as but the stilly whisper of a hearth-stone cricket to the shrill trumpeting of a wounded elephant-the piping of a sick cocksparrow to the brazen clang ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... kind gentleman and saint, whose name was Nicholas, restored these three children to life. It is said that once he lost his temper, and struck with his fist a gentleman named Arius; but the story-teller does not believe this, for he thinks it is a fib, made up long afterward. How could a saint lose his ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... upon their playthings when they should mind their books; said grace before they eat, their prayers before they went to bed, and as soon as they rose; were always clean and neat; would not tell a fib for the world, and were above doing any thing that required one; that God blessed them more and more, and blessed their papa and mamma, and their uncles and aunts, and cousins, for their sakes. "And there was a happy family, my dear loves!-No one idle; all prettily employed; the Masters at ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... asked questions and I couldn't quite fib to him, and yet I couldn't see why he should expect me to tell him all about you. And so"—she paused and the little half-smile was ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... I can see that. And yet, you ought to be. You must have married that girl your mother picked for you. You doubtless have children.... Don't try to fib to me, just to seem more... what shall I say ... more interesting! I can see it from the looks of you. You are the pater familias all over. I am never mistaken in such things!... Well, why aren't ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... quite red: what would her mother say if she brought Wolfgang with her? No, that would really not do, this was just the day when their room had not been tidied. And she had told a fib too: there were no herrings, only onion sauce with the potatoes ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... a nuisance, on our last day! But I forgot, I asked her to come. If she stays very long, just tell a little fib, won't you, and say ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... part, which brought Aunt Polly to her feet before I had time to slip back to bed; and the only plea that my guiltiness could make her kind remonstrance on my being up in the cold, was the very natural and very wicked fib, that I heard her move and thought she might want something. Unsuspecting old lady! May her ashes at least rest in peace! How she caught me in her arms, kissed and carried me to bed, tucking in the blankets so effectually that all ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... those were beautiful rifles too. But look here: I could see a way out of the difficulty, only you are so scrupulous. One mustn't tell a diplomatic fib." ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... years, and has, as they pretend, the names of the said knights in Saxon characters, and yet such as no man can read), all this story I see so little ground to give the least credit to that I look upon it, and it shall please you, to be no better than a fib. ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... say thirty years, mind, though she could have added somewhat to the figure without risking a fib. She said something else, a something that didn't sound exactly like a blessing; and, in a sudden fit of rage, started from her seat, sprang across the room, tore the offending Saint from the nail from ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... dull. I saw R. once or twice but I always looked the other way. Father asked what was wrong between me and the Warths and R., so that our great friendship had been broken off. Of course I had to fib, for it was absolutely impossible to tell the truth. I said that R. found fault with everything I did, my writing, my reading aloud. (That's quite true, he did that once) and Father said: Well, well, you'll make it up when you say goodbye to-morrow. ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... him two hours ago, when he asked me from his room, that Lorna had returned and was asleep. He believed me. I had to fib to save him from breaking his dear old daddy heart. Is she ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... interrupting me, "I didn't mean that way. I meant that when you try to fib you always do it so badly that one sees right through you. Now, acknowledge that you wouldn't ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... says she'll punish, She must do it, or she tells A fib, as Sister Annie Told "a story" 'bout the bells; And if mamma tells a fib, Then surely children will, And what a fearful thing, Our home with fibs ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... a pretty word," said Rhoda, pursing her lips. "Say a fib, next time.—Nonsense! Not a bit of it, Phoebe. We had been upstairs since we ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... to accept this fib, departed. After which the bell rang again. The usher then assumed his most gracious expression of face. By natural affinity, the lucky ones had gathered in a group at one end of the room. Though they had never seen one another ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... out loud, 'Lluella, that is your pencil and you know it!' And I had to say—right off, 'It isn't, and I didn't!' Now, what could I have said else? But it was an awful fib, ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... accordingly with Andrew Swift, and the two men were at their wits' end; they did not understand, and knew not what to prescribe for the case, so desperate it seemed. But Jessie said, "Take him in for a partner, Silas. Let him stand for Company. You and I are one; so the sign, as it goes, is a fib, you know." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... little gal, I told ye a fib the day ye fust come. I did have a dinner, though it war a terrible ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... maiden name, she had not blushed as she answered the question with a falsehood. When, unfortunately, the name of her first husband had in some way made itself known to Clara, she had been ready again with some prepared fib. And when she had recognized William Belton, she had thought that the danger to herself of having any one near her who might know her quite justified her in endeavouring to create ill-will between Clara and her cousin. 'Self-preservation ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... very sorry, Nat, but evidences are against you, and your old fault makes us more ready to doubt you than we should be if we could trust you as we do some of the boys, who never fib. But mind, my child, I do not charge you with this theft; I shall not punish you for it till I am perfectly sure, nor ask any thing more about it. I shall leave it for you to settle with your own conscience. If you are guilty, come ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... keep it secret—I wouldn't have minded telling him a fib about a little thing. But he made it ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... the house-mouse to confirm the truth of her fib. But the house-mouse could not take her eyes off the black rat, who had lain down in the ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... "I thought one more fib among so many couldn't matter, so I said you were. Heaven forgive me. By-the-by, are you really Dutch, or is that another—figure ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... petition is only for a modest prevarication—the cultivation of a reasonable misapprehension to attain a justifiable end. Consider the position analogous to that of one of Her Majesty's Ministers catechized by an impertinent demagogue. No fibs, you know—only what a truthful person tells instead of a fib! ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... from a family near by, named her "Rose Featherstone" and taken her to and from the kindergarten daily, a distance of at least half a mile of crowded streets. The affair was purely one of innocent romance. Emma Abby Googins never told a fib or committed the slightest fault or folly save that of burying her name, assuming a more distinguished one, and introducing a sister to me who had no claim to the Googins blood. Her mother was thoroughly ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... became easier in each succeeding examination for me not only to assist "Red," but absolutely to do his work. It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction. I knew boys at school who were too honorable to tell a fib even when one would have been just the right thing, but could not resist the temptation to assist or receive assistance in an examination. I have long considered it the highest proof of honesty in a man to hand his street-car fare to the ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... practical jokes of which I was so fond, and from which even my own father was not exempt. Kind reader, indulge the garrulity of age, and allow me to recount one of these. There are a few who will remember it; for they have laughed at it for fifty years. I never knew my father to tell a fib but upon one occasion in my life. Under the circumstances, I am sure the kindly nature will, at least, allow it to be ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... flimflam, cajolery, flattery; Judas kiss; perfidy &c (bad faith) 940; il volto sciolto i pensieri stretti [It]. unfairness &c (dishonesty) 940; artfulness &c (cunning) 702; misstatement &c (error) 495. V. be false &c adj., be a liar &c 548; speak falsely &c adv.; tell a lie &c 546; lie, fib; lie like a trooper; swear false, forswear, perjure oneself, bear false witness. misstate, misquote, miscite^, misreport, misrepresent; belie, falsify, pervert, distort; put a false construction upon &c (misinterpret); prevaricate, equivocate, quibble; palter, palter to the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... maliciously. "Think it over. Possibly you have not stopped to think as yet. When you know the truth yourself, you will be the better qualified to fib about it. Also, you will ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... good company, a text By no vain annotations vexed Which call from students sore perplexed The patience of a Job; And, page by page, a first-rate crib, Neither too faithful nor too glib— That, without fulsomeness or fib, Is what we get ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... not yet learned to lie, but he might then have made his first assay had he had a fib at his tongue's end; as he had not, he gloomed ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... sorry, Nat, but evidences are against you, and your old fault makes us more ready to doubt you than we should be if we could trust you as we do some of the boys, who never fib. But mind, my child, I do not charge you with this theft; I shall not punish you for it till I am perfectly sure, nor ask any thing more about it. I shall leave it for you to settle with your own ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Senate the outcome could hardly be in doubt. He had learned also of the other misfortunes which had befallen Judge Rossmore and he understood now the reason for Shirley's grave face on the dock and her little fib about summering on Long Island. The news had been a shock to him, for, apart from the fact that the judge was Shirley's father, he admired him immensely as a man. Of his perfect innocence there could, of course, be no question: these charges of bribery had simply been trumped up by his enemies ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... to be absent a year or eighteen months; if I prolong my travels it shall be in the way you proposed. I will then take my place in polite society, call upon you to pay all expenses, and fib on my own account to any extent required by that world of fiction which is peopled by ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... called a Busybody. The Busybody is always anxious after something about Somebody. He'll keep company with Anybody to find out Everybody's business; and is only at a loss when this head stops his pursuit, and Nobody will give him an answer. It is from these four heads the fib of each day is fabricated. Suspicion begets the morning whisper, the gossip Report circulates it as a secret, wide-mouthed Wonder gives Credulity credit for it, and Self-interest authenticates that, as Anybody may be set ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... France would not accede to it. Since she knew that the matter was already arranged and settled with the French court, this was a downright lie, though the queen probably regarded it as a venial fib, or as diplomacy. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... and drank every drop to punish herself for her fib, for she was not in the least thirsty, and to drink a fairly large cupful of water when you are not thirsty is somewhat of an ordeal. Yet the memory of that draught was to be very pleasant to Rosemary. In after years it seemed to her that there was something sacramental about it. Perhaps this ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... so pale then?' said she, smiling with delight at my emotion. 'Is it anger at poor me for telling such a fib? Well, I only "tell the tale as 'twas told to me:" I don't vouch for the truth of it; but at the same time, I don't see what reason Sarah should have for deceiving me, or her informant for deceiving her; and that ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... I saw her punish her child for denying that she had committed some piece of mischief of which she was guilty. The mother's excuse to herself probably was that the child told a lie, she, a "society fib." Perhaps the smaller sinner had no reputation ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... crew and THEIR captain. I know I hire a worthy, clean, agreeable, and conscientious male or female hypocrite, at so many guineas a year, to do so and so for me. Were he other than hypocrite I would send him about his business. Don't let my displeasure be too fierce with him for a fib or two on his ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to stand up and fib each other about (saying nothing of the practice), why let them do it; or if two dogs worry each other to death for a bone, or two cocks meet and contend for the sovereignty of a dunghill. In these last two ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... good girl, and wrote me a letter. If Burney said she would write, she told you a fib. She writes nothing to me. She can write home fast enough. I have a good mind not to tell her that Dr. Bernard, to whom I had recommended her novel, speaks of it with great commendation, and that the copy which she lent ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... her own part in the ceremony in order to perform pirouettes and pigeon-wings (so to speak) before the backgammon-player of the tropics. "If Aunt Lyddy forgets, after all," said Jane, anxiously, "and does mention Florida, why, I've told a fib for nothing." Jane had informed Mrs. Rhodes that the Bateses had lost their youngest child at Jacksonville, and so could not bear the slightest mention of the South; though she knew perfectly well that the youngest ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... red: what would her mother say if she brought Wolfgang with her? No, that would really not do, this was just the day when their room had not been tidied. And she had told a fib too: there were no herrings, only onion sauce with ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... tell this fib that the landlord was quite taken in by it. "Very well, friend," said he, "you may stop here till your ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... hastily—for you are at a disadvantage with ghosts and with Toms when you stoop—and pick it up and hurl it promiscuously in the direction of the footsteps, and quaver, in a voice that belied its message, "Go away, Tom Hamon! I can see you,"—which was a little white fib born of the black urgency of the situation;—"and I'm not the least bit afraid,"—which was ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew; Destroy his fib or sophistry in vain, The creature's at his foolish work again, Throned in the centre of his thin designs, Proud of a vast ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... been salted down to keep till sold. The kind gentleman and saint, whose name was Nicholas, restored these three children to life. It is said that once he lost his temper, and struck with his fist a gentleman named Arius; but the story-teller does not believe this, for he thinks it is a fib, made up long afterward. How could a saint lose his ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... you, Captain Chinks," exclaimed he; but what he said was rather complimentary than strictly true—a society fib. ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... "it is not to be. I have fought your battle, and won it. But I have had to make such promises to your father, and—woe is me!—to your mother, as will damn me forever if you do not help me to keep them. I can fib to your father and not care a snap, but lie to ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... that he had read some parts of these volumes. This he asserts with an air of truth that commands belief; he told the same tale to Cardinal Orsini, and to many more, and to all in the very same words, so that I think this is no fib of his. What more do you want? This statement of his, and his serious countenance, cause me to give some credence to him. For it is a very good thing to be misled in a matter of this kind, out of which coin can be made to such an amount as to be absolutely incredible. Therefore I have ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... talk about my being seen in a Staten Island beer garden with Bern Cameron, don't believe one word of it—we didn't go in at all, the place was too smelly. And that fib about his giving me a diamond ring,—deny it please, as I have never shown it to a soul—So you can ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... At the squares. At trump. At the cows. At the prick and spare not. At the lottery. At the hundred. At the chance or mumchance. At the peeny. At three dice or maniest bleaks. At the unfortunate woman. At the tables. At the fib. At nivinivinack. At the pass ten. At the lurch. At one-and-thirty. At doublets or queen's game. At post and pair, or even and At the faily. sequence. At the French trictrac. At three hundred. At the long tables or ferkeering. At the unlucky man. At ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... When I asked him whether he knew where it was hidden, he told a weak lie, but told the truth openly by the look of his eyes. He was like a little girl who pauses and blushes and confesses all the truth before she half murmurs her naughty fib. Who can be really angry with the child who lies after that unwilling fashion? I had to be severe upon him till all was made clear; but I pitied him from the bottom ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... You ought to have said that I sang better than I danced, and the fib would have pleased me immensely; we women like to hear ourselves praised for accomplishments we don't possess. No, my dear, rule art out of the cast and substitute advertisement. Did you notice a dowdy creature who was lunching with two men on your right? She wore a brown ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... good Eastern quibble infinitely more dangerous than an honest downright lie. The consciousness that the falsehood is part fact applies a salve to conscience and supplies a force lacking in the mere fib. When an Egyptian lies to you look straight in his eyes and he will most often betray himself either by boggling or by a look ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the world that it costs me from Thirty to Forty Thousand!" [1717: Forster, i. 213.] So that here is the Majesty of Prussia, who beyond all men abhors lies, giving orders to tell one? Alas, yes; a kind of lie, or fib (white fib, or even GRAY), the pinch of Thrift compelling! But what a window into the artless inner-man of his Majesty, even that GRAY fib;—not done by oneself, but ordered to be done by the servant, as if ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... me?.. Why, that was a galejade a fib... Among us Taras-conese you ought surely to know what ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... bear, "he tells a fib. That ring was put in his nose to be fastened to a chain. He was held a slave by the man who, he says, treated him so finely. He was made to dance through fear of being touched up with a red-hot iron. In short, he is ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... from heaven to smuggle the bread out of capable workmen's mouths. All this is Pagan, and arose thus. The Trojans had Oriental imaginations, and feigned that their Palladium, a wooden statue three cubits long, fell down from heaven. The Greeks took this fib home among the spoils of Troy, and soon it rained statues on all the Grecian cities, and their Latin apes. And one of these Palladia gave St. Paul trouble at Ephesus; 'twas a statue of Diana that fell down from ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... again with all one's bones," Quoth Giles, "I hope you fib: I trusted, when I went to Heaven, To go ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... Miss Ashton,—and there is no such thing as keeping anything away from her, for you know how she hates what she calls a 'prevarication,'—that I just had my choice, to drink that nasty stuff, or to betray the Demosthenic Club, or to tell a fib, and have my walking-ticket given me, so I opened my mouth wide, and swallowed one swallow, then was going to turn away my head, but Miss Palmer held the tumbler tight to my lips, as I have seen people do to children ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... by the throat and asking him in trenchant tones, 'Have you spoken to her?' The Baby found it convenient to be able to give a truthful negative, not that he would have minded fibbing in the least, but in this case the fib would certainly have been detected; he could not expect his goddess to enter into any clandestine ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... refused to give up, declaring it to be the most fun they had had "in a coon's age," which was really a boys' bravery fib, and finally the machine drew up within a hundred and ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... now. Walk straight with regard to Mr. Townsend; that's all I ask. It is highly probable you have been corresponding with him for the last three weeks—perhaps even seeing him. I don't ask you—you needn't tell me." He had a moral conviction that she would contrive to tell a fib about the matter, which it would disgust him to listen to. "Whatever you have done, stop doing it. That's ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... then fortune has smiled, and she wants her baby back again; but on going to the hospital, says, that they informed her that her daughter has been just "put apprentice" in the very house before which she tells the story—part of it as great a fib as ever was told; for children once inside the walls of that "noble charity," never know who left them there; and any attempt to find each other out, by parent or child, is punished with the instant withdrawal of the omnipotent protection of the awful "governors." This lady, who ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... a little fib on Lina's part. She had thought that the letter or, rather, the fact that it had been written to Miss Madeline, funny. The Rev. Cecil Thorne was Miss Madeline's pastor. He was a handsome, scholarly man of middle age, and Lina had seen a good deal of him during ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was not exempt. Kind reader, indulge the garrulity of age, and allow me to recount one of these. There are a few who will remember it; for they have laughed at it for fifty years. I never knew my father to tell a fib but upon one occasion in my life. Under the circumstances, I am sure the kindly nature will, at least, allow it ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... want me to say 'yes'," she laughed. "I'd like to tell a white fib, to please you. But no, I am not quite surprised, for my sister wrote that you might come, and why. What a pity you had this long journey for nothing. My Kabyle maid, Mouni, has just gone to her home, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... others sat to him; and so he left the island, with a replenished purse, and from that time became a portrait-painter. If the poor fellow had been the veriest dauber, you, Eusebius, would have sat to him twenty times over, and have told all the country round quite as great a fib as he did the governor, that he was a very Raffaelle in outline, and Titian in coloring. And what shall the "recording angel" do? Poor fellow! he had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... knows it from his own experience or from hearsay. The mountain is the boast of the villagers as if it were a work of theirs and one is not so sure, however high one may esteem the plain-spokenness and reputation for truth-telling of the natives, whether they do not fib, now and then, to the honor and glory of their mountain. Besides being the wonder of the valley, the mountain affords actual profit; for whenever a company of tourists arrives to ascend the mountain the natives serve as guides; and to have been a guide, to have experienced this or that, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... with such appetite as I have never seen in England or France, nor (assuredly) in Padua, where there is no zest, but much decorum, in the practice of religion. To see her in church was, as it were, to see a child in her mother's lap—able to laugh, to play, to sulk and pout, ah, and to tell a fib, being so sure of forgiveness! No secret too childish to be kept back, no trouble too light; the mustiness of the season's oil, the shocking price of potherbs, the delinquency of the milliner's apprentice who had spoiled a breadth of silk. She could grumble at her husband, or impart and expect heaven ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... a good girl, and wrote me a letter; if Burney said she would write, she told you a fib. She writes nothing to me. She can write home fast enough. I have a good mind not to let her know that Dr. Bernard, to whom I had recommended her novel, speaks of it with great commendation, and that the copy which she lent me, has been read by Dr. Lawrence ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... venture so far it was not likely that her absence from the festivity would be reported. Besides, if it were she would not greatly care. She was determined to assert her independence, and if she stooped to fib about the Hepburn picnic it was chiefly from the secretive instinct that made her dread the profanation of her happiness. Whenever she was with Lucius Harney she would have liked some impenetrable mountain mist ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... foul epithets he had bestowed on the prisoner.] This is not a place for parlor talk. I had chosen the English words that conveyed my meaning most distinctly. It was all very well for the prisoner's counsel to smooth things over; but was I, instead of calling him a liar, to say, he told a fib? When I call him a thief and a felon, do I go beyond the charge of the grand jury in the indictment? If this is stepping over the limits of propriety, in all similar cases I shall do the same. I do not intend to blackguard the prisoner,—I do not delight in using ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... one more fib among so many couldn't matter, so I said you were. Heaven forgive me. By-the-by, are you really Dutch, or is that another—figure ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... a finger) Now, don't tell a big fib! I know somebody won't like that. O just wait till I see Molly! (Slily) Account for yourself this very ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... not a word to his wife as to this new proposition, and when she asked him what tidings their old friend had brought as to the state of affairs, he almost told a fib in his anxiety to escape from her persecution. "He is in some doubt what he means to do himself," said the Duke. The Duchess asked many questions, but got no satisfactory reply to any of them. Nor did Mrs. Finn learn anything from her husband, whom, however, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... her maiden name, she had not blushed as she answered the question with a falsehood. When, unfortunately, the name of her first husband had in some way made itself known to Clara, she had been ready again with some prepared fib. And when she had recognized William Belton, she had thought that the danger to herself of having any one near her who might know her quite justified her in endeavouring to create ill-will between Clara ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... the same fib, which delighted father Roland. He had hitched his line round a row-lock, and folding his arms ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... rate, I know it became easier in each succeeding examination for me not only to assist "Red," but absolutely to do his work. It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction. I knew boys at school who were too honorable to tell a fib even when one would have been just the right thing, but could not resist the temptation to assist or receive assistance in an examination. I have long considered it the highest proof of honesty in a man to hand his street-car fare to the ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... about the school bounds at the time, or I should never have allowed you! And on the way you asked me if I had hurt myself in falling. I told you "No"; but that was a fib, for my hip was growing weak even then. It's by reason of my hip that I have to lie here. But in those days there was no one else to take the dancing classes, and it would never have done to confess. And—and that was all. I only met you once after that—it was in the post ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... yourself as well as you can, and AFTERWARDS read the rest of this note, which I have consequently pinned down. I find, to my surprise, whenever I act thus my platysma contracts. Does yours? (N.B.—See what a man will do for science; I began this note with a horrid fib, namely, that I want you to attend to a new point. (The point was doubtless described as a new one, to avoid the possibility of Dr. Ogle's attention being directed to the platysma, a muscle which had been the subject of discussion in other letters.)) I will ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... to shield Mother from criticism, as well as to spare Miss Day's feelings. But to have done it so clumsily as this! To have had to wince under Miss Day's scepticism! It was only a wonder the governess had not there and then taxed her with the fib. For who believed in old nurses nowadays? They were a stock property, borrowed on the spur of the moment from readings in THE FAMILY HERALD, from Tennyson's LADY CLARE. Why on earth had such a far-fetched excuse leapt to her tongue? Why ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... have my turn. You do not believe in Rumtunshid? Then why should farmer Buttercup be called on to believe in the communion of the saints? What does he believe about it? Or why should you make little Flora Buttercup tell such a huge fib as to say, that she believes in ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... "What a fib, Aunt Bettie," laughed Ruth. "You know you've been talking about him ever since we got off the train, and besides, you called him 'Bob,' ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... said John, who understood at once and who was willing to fib in a good cause. "I saw her watching through a window a fine big fellow, exactly your size, age and appearance, and with the same name. I said something about his being a hulking hostler and she turned ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... wholesome frame of mind for the young. Since she chose to regard him as a hopeless liar, when dread of pain drove him to his first untruth he naturally developed into a liar, but an economical and self-contained one, never throwing away the least unnecessary fib, and never hesitating at the blackest, were it only plausible, that might make his life a little easier. The treatment taught him at least the power of living alone,—a power that was of service to him when he went to a public school and the boys laughed at his ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... time. there are but dark news from the Havannah; the Gazette, who would not fib for the world, says, we have lost but four officers; the World, who is not quite so scrupulous, says, our loss is heavy. But whit shocking notice to those who have Harry Conways there! The Gazette breaks off with saying, that they were to storm ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... questions, either, dear brethren, for, as you know, you rather like to fib to us, and sometimes we are able to find it out, and then we never believe you ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... essential thing just now. Walk straight with regard to Mr. Townsend; that's all I ask. It is highly probable you have been corresponding with him for the last three weeks—perhaps even seeing him. I don't ask you—you needn't tell me." He had a moral conviction that she would contrive to tell a fib about the matter, which it would disgust him to listen to. "Whatever you have done, stop doing ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... men searching for you ever since. One of them called to interview you at San Pasqual, for, like T. Morgan Carey, they had traced you that far. He came into the eating-house and asked me if I knew anybody in town by the name of Robert McGraw. I told him I did not—which wasn't a fib because you weren't in town at the time. You were in bed at the Hat Ranch. An engineer was with him and while they were at luncheon I overheard them discussing your water-right. The engineer declared that the known feature alone made the location worth a million dollars. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... of the mistakes of unwise femininity. All dyes containing either mercury or lead are very dangerous. But why should women dye their hair? Goodness only knows. One might as well ask why women fib about their age, or why women shop three hours just to buy a pair of dress shields. There are some questions of life which we are destined never to solve. There is nothing lovelier than white hair. Combine with it a fine complexion and ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... "It was no fib at all." And as her eyes widened, "You merely said that we hadn't been married yet. We haven't you know," ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... of a hen, (what a goose!) then over he went splash into the water himself. The question was not now whether the hen could swim, but whether he could; he floundered round and round, and screeched like a little bedlamite, and was just thinking of the last fib he told, when his brother Zedekiah came along ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... casually, told a few of the girls at school that "in June I'm going abroad with my godmother, Mrs. Cornelius Drinkwater—you know her mother was a second cousin to the Marquis of Balencourt and the family has a beautiful chateau near Nice. Of course we'll stay there part of the time——" A very little fib like that, Isobel had decided, could hurt no one! She had lain awake at night, staring into the half-darkness of her room, picturing herself sauntering beside Aunt Maria through long hotel corridors, to the Opera, to the little French ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... Avendano tell this fib that the landlord was quite taken in by it. "Very well, friend," said he, "you may stop here till your ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... being compelled to accept this fib, departed. After which the bell rang again. The usher then assumed his most gracious expression of face. By natural affinity, the lucky ones had gathered in a group at one end of the room. Though they had never seen one another ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... pa gwine whop him fo' tellin' a fib 'bout dey ain' no ghosts whin yiver'body know' dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she tek' note de hair ob li'l' black Mose's head am plumb white, an' she tek' note li'l' black Mose's face am de color ob wood-ash, ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... and I did not dye. Of corse you cant help bein a girl insted of a boy and thats al-rite because Heloise and Myra-Louise and Nelly the girl next dore and pretty nerely every body wood ruther be a boy than a girl, but you were the limit to fib about it and you have put me in a auful queer posishun, so no more ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... "I didn't mean that way. I meant that when you try to fib you always do it so badly that one sees right through you. Now, acknowledge that you wouldn't ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... perhaps, when the elders are yawning And rafters grow pale overhead With the day, there shall come with its dawning Some thought of that sentence unsaid. Be it this, be it that—'I forget,' or 'Was joking'—whatever the fem- -inine fib, you'll have made me your debtor And come,—you will ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I only guessed. You weren't a real lightkeeper, that was plain. And you weren't used to washing dishes or doing housework—that," with the irrepressible curl of the corners of her lips, "was just as plain. When you told me that fib about meeting my brother here last summer I was sure you had met him somewhere, probably at college. So in my next letter to him I described you as well as I could, mentioned that you were as good or a better swimmer than he, and asked for particulars. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... clean, agreeable, and conscientious male or female hypocrite, at so many guineas a year, to do so and so for me. Were he other than hypocrite I would send him about his business. Don't let my displeasure be too fierce with him for a fib or two on ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... conscientious," said Priscilla in the stately, it-has-nothing-to-do-with-you sort of tone she found most effectual with the Countess; but she added a request under her breath that the lieber Gott might forgive her, for she knew she had told a fib. ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... [Mayakin speaks of Sweden, meaning Switzerland.—Translator's note.] The doctor scoffed at me all day yesterday with this Sweden. The public education, says he, in Sweden, and everything else there is first-class! But what is Sweden, anyway? It may be that Sweden is but a fib, is but used as an example, and that there is no education whatever or any of the other things there. And then, we don't live for the sake of Sweden, and Sweden cannot put us to test. We have to make our lip according to our own last. Isn't ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... suddenly invested with a stronger attraction than ever; for a little competition will always make us more eager, and the star of our desire much brighter. He explained, with a laugh, as they sat down, that he had just been admiring the free, easy chirography on the envelope; which same was a fib of first degree, ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... the ten decades of Titus Livy, and that he had read some parts of these volumes. This he asserts with an air of truth that commands belief; he told the same tale to Cardinal Orsini, and to many more, and to all in the very same words, so that I think this is no fib of his. What more do you want? This statement of his, and his serious countenance, cause me to give some credence to him. For it is a very good thing to be misled in a matter of this kind, out of which coin can be made to such an amount ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... The doctor scowled now. "Then you told him a tremendous fib. I meant a deal of it. Well, he'll get his deserts yet, if he gets you, you deceiving minx. I told him one thing that was true enough, anyway"—he smiled broadly again—"I told him Mary was worth half a ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... was a failure. "He knows it isn't true," muttered the lad. "Serve me right for telling lies. It was only my fun, Fred," he cried hastily, to make honest confession of his fib. "But don't go on like that. Come out now, and let's get back. It ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... tight gray curls on his head, and deep dimples in his cheeks. If anyone had told me that he was not an English admiral I should have known it was a fib. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... nothing; I had not time to make up my mind to tell the truth. I was taken by surprise; and you know one's first impulse is to fib—about THAT." ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... hours ago, when he asked me from his room, that Lorna had returned and was asleep. He believed me. I had to fib to save him from breaking his dear old daddy heart. Is ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... what am I to say? You would not wish me to tell a fib. I don't like Mrs. Harold Smith—at least, what I hear of her; for it has not been my fortune to meet her since her marriage. It may be conceited; but to own the truth, I think that Mr. Robarts would be better off with us at Framley ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... at ease, my friend. The Squire has sent me a large supply. I am to divide with you," which was as near to a fib as the young clergyman ever got in his ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... 9th current, which I am this moment honoured with, is a deep reproach to me for ungrateful neglect. I will tell you the real truth, for I am miserably awkward at a fib—I wished to have written to Dr. Moore before I wrote to you; but, though every day since I received yours of December 30th, the idea, the wish to write to him has constantly pressed on my thoughts, yet I could not for my soul set about it. I know his fame and character, and I am one of "the sons ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... got through somehow. Caroline "was glad to see them" (an unmitigated fib), hoped they were well, hoped Mrs. Sykes's cough was better (Mrs. Sykes had had a cough for the last twenty years), hoped the Misses Sykes had left their sisters at home well; to which inquiry the Misses Sykes, sitting on three chairs opposite the music-stool, whereon Caroline had undesignedly ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... I don't know why 'tis, but they hate to be reminded of it, and, when we came here, papa told us never to say anything bad about the town, as if we didn't like it, for we'd get everybody down on us. We did like it, though, so we didn't have to fib. But now you're here you'd better just keep still about anything that strikes you funny, when you're off with the boys. Then you can come back and talk it over with me, when they aren't round, if you want to; I don't mind; only don't let Howard hear you, for he'd tell the Everetts. See? That's ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... obliged to submit to be called the "marquis." The harmless fib was due to the rank of the little countess; she could not have driven through the streets of Paris in the same ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... secret—I wouldn't have minded telling him a fib about a little thing. But he made it ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... him that he might write at his ease in one of these rooms, as he could not then hear the door knock, or hear himself denied to be at home, which was sure to make him call out and convict the poor maid in a fib. Here, I said, he might be almost really not at home. So I put in an old grate, and made him a fire in the largest of these garrets, and carried in one table, and one chair, and bid him write away, and consider himself as much alone as if ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... am to harsh language, I am quite prepared to hear my 'poetic rendering' branded as a 'falsehood' and a 'fib.' The vituperation is unmerited, for poetry or ideality, and untruth are assuredly very different things. The one may vivify, while the other, kills. When St. John extends the notion of a soul to 'souls washed in the blood ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... old man would not say my lord); "but the cob's lame, and I can't take Mirah without my lady's leave." "Never mind. I'm going such a little way. Mamma never says anything when I go a little way." Was it a lie, or only a fib? This question of casuistry gave Geoff great trouble afterwards; for (he said to himself) it was only a little way, nothing at all, though mamma of course thought otherwise, and was deceived. "You'll be very careful, Master Geoff," said the old man. Black had his own reasons for not desiring ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... "and inquire very, very carefully concerning whatever business you go into. If I had known what the life of a False Hare really was, I doubt if I should have ever—But, dear me, this will never do—you're getting me into mischief! I've hardly done so much as a fib ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... throat and asking him in trenchant tones, 'Have you spoken to her?' The Baby found it convenient to be able to give a truthful negative, not that he would have minded fibbing in the least, but in this case the fib would certainly have been detected; he could not expect his goddess to enter into any clandestine ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... a fib! You know I'm not. But I'm going to be good this time—so that you shall have something nice to remember me by." Dinah's voice quivered still, ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... an axcuse she was afther makin,' an' she was lookin' that he'd be sayin' somethin' about the young Kings an' was afther dodgin' as long as she cud. So whin he shpoke so crass, she riz up aff the sate, for it was a fib she was tellin', an' she didn't shwape the kitchen at all, an' that was done be wan av the maids, an' gev a sigh, an' wint in the ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... o' that," said the farmer. "No doubt I had business at the mill,—lots to do at the mill." Nor did he think that the fib he was telling was at all incompatible with the Holy Sacrament in which he had ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... and Drop so clear, Pip and Trip and Skip that were To Mab, their sovereign, ever dear, Her special maids of honour; Fib and Tib and Pink and Pin, Tick and Quick and Jill and Jin, Tit and Nit and Wap and Win, The ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... her punish her child for denying that she had committed some piece of mischief of which she was guilty. The mother's excuse to herself probably was that the child told a lie, she, a "society fib." Perhaps the smaller sinner had no reputation for breeding ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... inclined to neglect her own part in the ceremony in order to perform pirouettes and pigeon-wings (so to speak) before the backgammon-player of the tropics. "If Aunt Lyddy forgets, after all," said Jane, anxiously, "and does mention Florida, why, I've told a fib for nothing." Jane had informed Mrs. Rhodes that the Bateses had lost their youngest child at Jacksonville, and so could not bear the slightest mention of the South; though she knew perfectly well that the youngest child of the Bateses was a lusty youth of eighteen, with strong hopes of becoming ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... version of the Harlowe family. Felipe does not know why I left, and he will never know. If he asks, I shall contrive to find some colorable pretext, probably that you were jealous of me! Forgive me this little conventional fib. ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... is charmed with her," said Pen, telling almost the first fib which he has told in ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this morning openly of whom he intended to bring with him into the Cabinet." Truth demands that the chronicler should say that this was a positive fib. Mr. Bonteen, no doubt, had talked largely and with indiscretion, but had made no such boast as that of which the Duchess accused him. "Mr. Gresham will get astray if he doesn't allow some one ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... and you've told a fib, which only makes things worse." He smiled complacently at having beaten her in argument, and Myra thought she had never met such an insufferable boy ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... three, blacks! Now I wonder what that little chap would like—here's a drum, a box of tools, a knife, a menagerie. If he hadn't played truant from school that day, and then told a fib about it, ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... the Harvester. "You are yet too close Heaven to fib like that, Ruth. What have I done to indicate that I don't ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... not. (Aloud.) Indeed? The great mind act again? Run in the same channel, and all that? Glad to see you. (Aside.) May the saints forgive me that fib! But this fellow must be got ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... smuggle the bread out of capable workmen's mouths. All this is Pagan, and arose thus. The Trojans had Oriental imaginations, and feigned that their Palladium, a wooden statue three cubits long, fell down from heaven. The Greeks took this fib home among the spoils of Troy, and soon it rained statues on all the Grecian cities, and their Latin apes. And one of these Palladia gave St. Paul trouble at Ephesus; 'twas a statue of Diana that fell down from ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... his pistol to our luncheon menu. Do, do save us from the Casino pet, dear Miss Grant. I've been holding an awful aunt of George's over the young man's head, saying she may arrive at any minute. But you know how things you fib about do have a way of happening, as a punishment, and I feel she may drop down on us if the room ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... lifted her hands to heaven, but could not speak. "In fact," said Alfred, hesitating (for he was a wretched hand at a fib), "he saw him not a fortnight ago on board ship. But that is not all, mamma, the sailor says he has ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... me to see whether his fib had taken me in. I replied, with an air of the utmost conviction, "That is putting it mildly. Paris, in July, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... me stay at home all the blessed day, and sending Captain Ussher all the way back to Mohill, and he having come over here by engagement to walk with me,"—this was a fib of Feemy's,—"and all to ask me where I got ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... proud of fine clothes; let not their heads run upon their playthings when they should mind their books; said grace before they eat, their prayers before they went to bed, and as soon as they rose; were always clean and neat; would not tell a fib for the world, and were above doing any thing that required one; that God blessed them more and more, and blessed their papa and mamma, and their uncles and aunts, and cousins, for their sakes. "And there was a happy family, my dear loves!-No one idle; ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... a regret; not even the perfunctory "have written" with which it is usual to soften such blows. She didn't want him, and had taken the shortest way to tell him so. Even in his first moment of exasperation it struck him as characteristic that she should not have padded her postponement with a fib. Certainly her moral ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... inference placed the Irish Catholics on a lower moral plane than the Aborigines, by reason of their priests keeping them in ignorance. This misconception had acquired all the solidity of fact before it reached me; consequently, my explanation was received as a well-meant fib. Anyway, these details will give you some idea of Rory, in his natural state ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... if this were an imperfect recollection or only a perfect fib, and she quite understood my unuttered comment on her measure of such things. But if she could forget Neil Paraday's beauties she could of course forget my rudeness, and three days later she invited me, by telegraph, to join the party at Prestidge. This time she might indeed ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... him on a desert island in mid-ocean on a rock raised ten thousand feet above the earth; and there he is, and will be, till the Red Man gives him back his power for the happiness of France. These others say he's dead. Ha, dead! 'Tis easy to see they don't know Him. They tell that fib to catch the people, and feel safe in their hovel of a government. Listen! the truth at the bottom of it all is that his friends have left him alone on the desert isle to fulfil a prophecy, for I forgot to say that his name, ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... and for some time he had considered what answer he should make to it. To deny was impossible. It would be easy to convict him of a fib, for the fact of the question being asked was sufficient to say there was proof that the button was his. He must, then, confess the truth, grave as it ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... stiff, like one struck by a blow—in came the others from the window. Meg, in fact, could not keep Cecile d'Aubepine back any longer from hindering such shocking impropriety as out tete-a-tete. We overheard her saving her little girl from corruption by a frightful French fib that the gentleman in black was Mademoiselle de ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... near by, named her "Rose Featherstone" and taken her to and from the kindergarten daily, a distance of at least half a mile of crowded streets. The affair was purely one of innocent romance. Emma Abby Googins never told a fib or committed the slightest fault or folly save that of burying her name, assuming a more distinguished one, and introducing a sister to me who had no claim to the Googins blood. Her mother was thoroughly mystified by the occurrence and I no less so, but Emma Abby simply opened her blue eyes ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Hannah," she wailed, half laughing, half crying; "that wretched little fib-teller of a clock ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... This fib had the effect of making Antonio think that his son should go to Milan and enjoy the favors in which Valentine basked. "You must go to-morrow," he decreed. Proteus was dismayed. "Give me time to ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... odd! It's impossible you could have known! I'll tell you why, Rip! I wanted to try you. You fib well at long range, but you don't do at close quarters and single combat. You're good behind walls, but not worth a shot in the open. I just see what you're fit for. You're staunch—that I am certain of. You always were. Lead the way to one of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... effusive air of welcome. It had never been fashionable or even allowable not to be at home when one was at home in Banbridge. When Banbridge ladies went abroad calling, in the coach, much was exacted. Mrs. Morris could never have held up her social head again had she fibbed, or bidden the maid fib—that is, if it ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... when you stoop—and pick it up and hurl it promiscuously in the direction of the footsteps, and quaver, in a voice that belied its message, "Go away, Tom Hamon! I can see you,"—which was a little white fib born of the black urgency of the situation;—"and I'm not the least bit afraid,"—which ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... and bouncing, that I tho't he would have broke his cage and devoured us all; and the gentleman tittered forsooth; but I'll go to death upon it, I will, that my lady is as good a firchin, as the child unborn; and, therefore, either the gentleman told a fib, or the lion oft to be set in the stocks for bearing false witness agin his neighbour; for the commandment sayeth, Thou shalt not bear false witness ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... of them; the prettiest little dears one ever saw. The eldest is just about thirteen." This was a fib, because Mrs. Carroll knew that the eldest boy was sixteen; but what did it signify? "Amelia is so warmly ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... he was thunderstruck at the admiral's request would not convey the slightest idea of Tom's mental condition when he found himself in such a dilemma. He could have bitten off his tongue for its having got him into such a scrape, by telling the fib about the monkey in the first instance; but it was too late now, for the admiral had turned to leave the cabin, and the marine was at the door, besides others, who would hear any explanation he ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... you put it in that way," said Vancouver. "But I suppose it is not a very bad fib to say one's country is the greatest on earth. I am sure you English say it quite as often and as loudly as we do, and, you see, we cannot both be ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... of mind to hide this very small discovery, sliding over it some quite trivial remark; and presently Mrs. Carkeek regained her composure. But I own I felt disappointed in her. It seemed such a paltry thing to be disingenuous over. She had deliberately acted a fib before me; and why? Merely because she preferred the kitchen to the pantry tap. It was childish. 'But servants are all the same,' I told myself. 'I must take Mrs. Carkeek as she is; and, after ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... showed her that she guessed wrong here and there, and smiled at her prejudices; and Miss Clarendon smiled again, and admitted that she was prejudiced, "but every body is; only some show and tell, and others smile and fib. I wish that word fib was banished from English language, and white lie drummed out after it. Things by their right names and we should all do much better. Truth must be told, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... just ought to have seen the scared look that came over her face," Bristles admitted. "She looked all around as if she was afraid that Corny'd be popping up, and then shook her head again and again, saying the pin wasn't hers. But, Fred, I know the poor little girl was telling a fib, because she was afraid if she owned up to the old piece of fake jewelry that she seemed to value so much, it might get somebody in a peck of trouble; and we know who that is, ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... hot and glaring here! Chrissy and I cannot imagine how you can ride and play tennis in such heat; but perhaps it is cooler in the country. Now, remember, I mean what I say, and that I don't want you one bit. At least that is a fib in one way, because I always want my Betty; but I am quite happy to think you are enjoying yourself, and cheering up that poor girl—she must be very miserable. Write to me soon again. I do love your letters. I always keep them under my pillow and read them in the morning. ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... thrust, for after all I had seen something that looked very like a ghost, startled me, and before I could invent any soothing and appropriate fib, Nombe appeared, saying that she had come to lead Heda to her sleeping-place. After this further conversation was impossible since, although Nombe knew but few words of English, she was a great thought-reader and I feared to speak of anything secret ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... to lie, but he might then have made his first assay had he had a fib at his tongue's end; as he had not, he gloomed deeper, and ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... are you! I can see that. And yet, you ought to be. You must have married that girl your mother picked for you. You doubtless have children.... Don't try to fib to me, just to seem more... what shall I say ... more interesting! I can see it from the looks of you. You are the pater familias all over. I am never mistaken in such things!... Well, why aren't you happy? You have all the requisites for a personage of note, and you will shortly be one. I'll ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... keep till sold. The kind gentleman and saint, whose name was Nicholas, restored these three children to life. It is said that once he lost his temper, and struck with his fist a gentleman named Arius; but the story-teller does not believe this, for he thinks it is a fib, made up long afterward. How could a saint ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... don't believe you! all a fib! better speak out: come, fit I should know; a'n't you my own ward? to be sure, almost of age, but not quite, so what's that ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... no! I've had some acquaintance with Margaret, and, with all her nonsense, I believe she's honest. Besides, what interest could she have to be otherwise? To be sure, she didn't give me the true reason for the incognito; but that's nothing; she's just the woman to tell a useless fib, and reserve the truth for important occasions only—or ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... what follows, because it's a fib"; and she ran her eyes over several lines. "In spite of my prayers, I must go. 'You are no longer a boy,' my father said, 'you must think of the future. You have to learn things your own country cannot teach you, if you would be useful to ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... I see she is in a fury with you; and really it is too ridiculous. You told a fib; that is the mighty matter, I do believe. No, it isn't; for you have told her a hundred, no doubt, and she liked you all the better; but this time you have been naughty enough to be found out, and she is romantic, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... answered as patiently as I could, 'I suppose a fib more or less will make but little difference in your lifetime. While you are at it, however, you may as well ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... not suppose that the declaration would be a pure fib, or anything like it. The man had no conscience, and he was almost incomparably selfish, but he was capable of loving, and he did love. That is to say, he was inflamed by this girl's beauty and longed to possess it. It is a low ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... glancing round for inspiration (in other words for some harmless, necessary fib) I saw that Brigit and Monny had arrived on the scene. They had been pacing the deck, arm in arm; and now, arrested by Mrs. East's question, they hovered near, awaiting my answer with vague curiosity. A twinkle in Biddy's eyes, which I caught, rattled me completely. I missed all the easiest ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... him fo' tellin' a fib 'bout dey ain' no ghosts whin yiver'body know' dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she tek' note de hair ob li'l' black Mose's head am plumb white, an' she tek' note li'l' black Mose's face am de color ob wood-ash, so she jes retch' ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... saw her punish her child for denying that she had committed some piece of mischief of which she was guilty. The mother's excuse to herself probably was that the child told a lie, she, a "society fib." Perhaps the smaller sinner had no reputation for ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... hadn't done anything of the kind, so this was a really whopping fib. But Elizabeth Ann didn't care if it was. It made her feel less ashamed, though she did not know why. She took another mouthful of pop-corn and stroked Eleanor's back. Uncle Henry got up and stretched. "It's time to go to bed, folks," he said. As ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... that time became a portrait-painter. If the poor fellow had been the veriest dauber, you, Eusebius, would have sat to him twenty times over, and have told all the country round quite as great a fib as he did the governor, that he was a very Raffaelle in outline, and Titian in coloring. And what shall the "recording angel" do? Poor fellow! he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... told him two hours ago, when he asked me from his room, that Lorna had returned and was asleep. He believed me. I had to fib to save him from breaking his dear old daddy heart. Is ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... Why, that was a galejade a fib... Among us Taras-conese you ought surely to know ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... manifestly for the interest of Austria, that she was fearful that France would not accede to it. Since she knew that the matter was already arranged and settled with the French court, this was a downright lie, though the queen probably regarded it as a venial fib, or ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Boku-den. 'O monk,' demanded the man, as Boku-den was clad like a Zen monk, 'what school of swordsmanship do you belong to?' Well, mine is the Conquering-enemy-without-fighting-school.' 'Don't tell a fib, old monk. If you could conquer the enemy without fighting, what then is your sword for?' 'My sword is not to kill, but to save,' said Boku-den, making use of Zen phrases; 'my art is transmitted from mind to mind.' 'Now then, come, monk,' challenged the man, 'let ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... soften such blows. She didn't want him, and had taken the shortest way to tell him so. Even in his first moment of exasperation it struck him as characteristic that she should not have padded her postponement with a fib. Certainly her moral ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... on a lower moral plane than the Aborigines, by reason of their priests keeping them in ignorance. This misconception had acquired all the solidity of fact before it reached me; consequently, my explanation was received as a well-meant fib. Anyway, these details will give you some idea of Rory, in his natural ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... was a little fib on Lina's part. She had thought that the letter or, rather, the fact that it had been written to Miss Madeline, funny. The Rev. Cecil Thorne was Miss Madeline's pastor. He was a handsome, scholarly man of middle age, and Lina had seen a good deal of him during her summer ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... know how much of the tale, as it was now told to her, might be true and how much false. After a certain fashion she and Lizzie Eustace called themselves friends. But she did not believe her friend to be honest, and was aware that in some matters her friend would condescend—to fib. Lizzie's poetry, and romance, and high feelings, had never had the ring of true soundness in Lucy's ears. But her imagination was not strong enough to soar to the altitude of the lies which Lizzie was now telling. She did believe that the property ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... morning shall find you a dancer In Christ Church or Trinity hall. And perhaps, when the elders are yawning And rafters grow pale overhead With the day, there shall come with its dawning Some thought of that sentence unsaid. Be it this, be it that—'I forget,' or 'Was joking'—whatever the fem- -inine fib, you'll have made me your debtor And come,—you will ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... for, like T. Morgan Carey, they had traced you that far. He came into the eating-house and asked me if I knew anybody in town by the name of Robert McGraw. I told him I did not—which wasn't a fib because you weren't in town at the time. You were in bed at the Hat Ranch. An engineer was with him and while they were at luncheon I overheard them discussing your water-right. The engineer declared that the known ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... drank every drop to punish herself for her fib, for she was not in the least thirsty, and to drink a fairly large cupful of water when you are not thirsty is somewhat of an ordeal. Yet the memory of that draught was to be very pleasant to Rosemary. In after years it seemed to her that there ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 'That's a perfectly—jet black—fib!' cried Polly, who was now thoroughly angry; 'and I don't think it is very polite of you to attack the whole party, and say they haven't been nice to you, when they've done everything in ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... named her "Rose Featherstone" and taken her to and from the kindergarten daily, a distance of at least half a mile of crowded streets. The affair was purely one of innocent romance. Emma Abby Googins never told a fib or committed the slightest fault or folly save that of burying her name, assuming a more distinguished one, and introducing a sister to me who had no claim to the Googins blood. Her mother was thoroughly mystified by the occurrence and I no less so, but Emma Abby simply opened her blue eyes ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... splash into the water himself. The question was not now whether the hen could swim, but whether he could; he floundered round and round, and screeched like a little bedlamite, and was just thinking of the last fib he told, when his brother Zedekiah came along ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... that her determination gained strength; she was surprised at her own mendacity when she explained the utter impossibility of leaving the office, and told a circumstantial fib about a title that had to be closed with people from out of town. The more she talked the more panicky she became at thought of being for hours alone with this forceful, this magnetic, this overwhelming person. Strange, in view of the fact that she had been looking forward ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... feet. Some of the lady visitors are Beautiful Swimmers, and their Divers Charms excite universal admiration. Many of these fair Amphitrites are so constantly in or on the water that it would hardly be a Fib to call them Amphibious. Their husbands and brothers are, I regret to say, not so much On the Water, preferring something a trifle stronger semi-occasionally, if ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... invite him to tell a lie in order to avoid a scolding. Nothing is more unfortunate, nothing is more easy for an ordinarily good, but misunderstood man, than the tendency to fib about little things, if he feels in his heart that his wife will scold,—that she will fail to see the point. It wounds his self-respect to have to do so, yet he selects the minor evil as he sees it, he sacrifices his manhood in the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... accept this fib, departed. After which the bell rang again. The usher then assumed his most gracious expression of face. By natural affinity, the lucky ones had gathered in a group at one end of the room. Though they had never seen one another ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... the Band of Hope picnic at Hepburn, and as no one else from North Dormer intended to venture so far it was not likely that her absence from the festivity would be reported. Besides, if it were she would not greatly care. She was determined to assert her independence, and if she stooped to fib about the Hepburn picnic it was chiefly from the secretive instinct that made her dread the profanation of her happiness. Whenever she was with Lucius Harney she would have liked some impenetrable mountain ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... Suleiman-bin-Daoud, and clung there, fanning himself. Suleiman-bin-Daoud bent his head and whispered very softly, 'Little man, you know that all your stamping wouldn't bend one blade of grass. What made you tell that awful fib to your wife?—for ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... dead in the news, and the paleness of my looks, seem'd to make it a doubt whether I was not the ghost of my real self departed. But when I spoke, their wonder eas'd itself by an applause; which convinc'd me they were then satisfied that my friend Mist had told a fib of me. Now, if simply to have shown myself in broad life, and about my business, after he had notoriously reported me dead, can be called a reply, it was the only one which his paper while alive ever ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... interruptions of friends who were more at leisure than himself, I persuaded him that he might write at his ease in one of these rooms, as he could not then hear the door knock, or hear himself denied to be at home, which was sure to make him call out and convict the poor maid in a fib. Here, I said, he might be almost really not at home. So I put in an old grate, and made him a fire in the largest of these garrets, and carried in one table, and one chair, and bid him write away, and consider himself as much alone as if he were in a new lodging in the midst of Salisbury ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... is nothing; I had not time to make up my mind to tell the truth. I was taken by surprise; and you know one's first impulse is to fib—about THAT." ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... word of fib and not a grain of truth. Well, you would beat Jones if you went at his game, but I do think it a good idea to wire Nat Phillips. I'll go and do so at once," he added, feeling in his pocket to make sure he had with him change enough ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... one was "the Gimblet," another "Crack Crib," a third, the "Magician," a fourth, "Cherry coloured Jowl." The tallest of the present company was called (as I before said) "Spider-shanks," and the shortest "Fib Fakescrew;" Job himself was honoured by the venerabile nomen of "Guinea Pig." At last Job explained the cause of my appearance; viz. his wish to pacify Dawson's conscience by dressing up one of the pals, whom the sinner ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not blushed as she answered the question with a falsehood. When, unfortunately, the name of her first husband had in some way made itself known to Clara, she had been ready again with some prepared fib. And when she had recognized William Belton, she had thought that the danger to herself of having any one near her who might know her quite justified her in endeavouring to create ill-will between ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... Kind reader, indulge the garrulity of age, and allow me to recount one of these. There are a few who will remember it; for they have laughed at it for fifty years. I never knew my father to tell a fib but upon one occasion in my life. Under the circumstances, I am sure the kindly nature will, at least, allow it ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... much—I didn't stay out long." She raised a kindling face to him. "And what do you think I've been doing? While you were sitting in your stuffy old theatre, worrying about the money I was spending (oh, you needn't fib—I know you were!) I was saving you hundreds and thousands. I've saved you the ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... gifts are brought out with many a shamefaced: "It looks awful little, but 't was the best I could do for the money. You see I spent more on the children than I lotted to," and many a cheerful fib of: "Why, that's exactly what I've been wishing for." Some poor fools, that have never learned and never will learn that the truest word ever spoken is: "It is more blessed to give than to receive," make their husbands ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... 'That's a fib. The duchess and I were well "acquaint" when Duke did not stand quite so high in favour. But I am thankful for my part, you two people have given up mischief and settled down. Sit still among your baskets, child; ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... It's impossible you could have known! I'll tell you why, Rip! I wanted to try you. You fib well at long range, but you don't do at close quarters and single combat. You're good behind walls, but not worth a shot in the open. I just see what you're fit for. You're staunch—that I am certain of. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... round thee break, 85 Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack: Pit, Box, and gall'ry in convulsions hurl'd, Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world. Who shames a Scribbler? break one cobweb thro', He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: 90 Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain, The creature's at his dirty work again, Thron'd in the centre of his thin designs, Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines! Whom have I hurt? has Poet yet, or Peer, 95 Lost the arch'd eye-brow, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... help warming up to a man who can lie like that. Talk about Chatterton's Rowley deception, Macpherson's Ossian fraud, or Locke's moon hoax! Compared with this tremendous fib they are as but the stilly whisper of a hearth-stone cricket to the shrill trumpeting of a wounded elephant-the piping of a sick cocksparrow to the brazen clang of a donkey ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... hear any talk about my being seen in a Staten Island beer garden with Bern Cameron, don't believe one word of it—we didn't go in at all, the place was too smelly. And that fib about his giving me a diamond ring,—deny it please, as I have never shown it to a soul—So you can see how people ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... names of the said knights in Saxon characters, and yet such as no man can read), all this story I see so little ground to give the least credit to that I look upon it, and it shall please you, to be no better than a fib. ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... wavering ascent from oblivion to recollection. Why had not Diana come to her, she asked herself, and asked her husband; who, as usual, was absolutely unable to say. Under compulsory squeezing, he would have answered, that she did not come because she could not fib so easily to her bosom friend: and this he thought, notwithstanding his personal experience of Diana's generosity. But he had other personal experiences of her sex, and her sex plucked at the bright ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... him sin jig it lid rim tin rig is sip fix dig bib bit tip six fig jib hit nip din big rib sit lip pin pig fib ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... struck by a blow—in came the others from the window. Meg, in fact, could not keep Cecile d'Aubepine back any longer from hindering such shocking impropriety as out tete-a-tete. We overheard her saving her little girl from corruption by a frightful French fib that the gentleman in black was ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the note which the case contained, and Maria had it still on her heart! It was then, at the start which Harry gave, as she was leaning on his arm—at the sudden movement as if he would drop hers—that Lady Maria felt her first pang of remorse that she had told a fib, or rather, that she was found out in telling a fib, which is a far more cogent reason for repentance. Heaven help us! if some people were to do penance for telling lies, would they ever be out ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Inez would be indulgent in a good many ways; but when she sees that blue image on my arm, she'll look black enough. And what am I to say to her? I told her, she was the first sweetheart I ever had; as you know, Ned, a little bit of a fib. Only a white one; for the Chilena was but a mere fancy, gone out of my mind long ago; as, no doubt, I am out of hers. The question is, how's her picture to be got out of my skin? ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... pleaded fatigue, and retired. Once in the seclusion of their room they forgot all about their innocent fib, and there was not a trace of weariness in their manner. While Burt was staring at his dismal, tangled fortune, seeing no solution of his difficulties, a fateful conference relating to him was taking place. Amy did not look like a ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... I forgot!" exclaimed the Marquis, looking about; "queer cove, doocid touchy, looks as if he might fib though. Ah, there he is! talking to the rough-looking customer over yonder;" and he pointed to Barnabas, who stood with his coat thrown open, and the objectionable neckcloth in full evidence. The Viscount looked, started, uttered a "view hallo," and, striding ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... "Don't fib, Judith, dear," she answered. And, for Marcia, she was very grave. "I know you have a glass in your room. ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... volto sciolto i pensieri stretti [It]. unfairness &c (dishonesty) 940; artfulness &c (cunning) 702; misstatement &c (error) 495. V. be false &c adj., be a liar &c 548; speak falsely &c adv.; tell a lie &c 546; lie, fib; lie like a trooper; swear false, forswear, perjure oneself, bear false witness. misstate, misquote, miscite^, misreport, misrepresent; belie, falsify, pervert, distort; put a false construction upon &c (misinterpret); prevaricate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew; Destroy his fib or sophistry in vain, The creature's at his foolish work again, Throned in the centre of his thin designs, Proud of a ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... reasoning on false grounds. You forget that it is almost as important for you to self your manufactures to America as to get cotton from it. And articles in the Times, and speeches from your first statesmen, show that you really believe the enormous fib so generally current, that the South consumes the very great majority of all our imports. 'The South is where the North makes all ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... fair to fib about her lovers. However, I thought he looked at you, Christina, not exactly as if he were ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... more fib among so many couldn't matter, so I said you were. Heaven forgive me. By-the-by, are you really Dutch, or is ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... he never plays with the pup any more. He's different. And you're different and mother's different. I don't want to live with mother. That was a fib I told you the other day about the cut on my head. I didn't fall and hurt it. It was mother She threw her clothes ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... nothing but a sham!—A live dishonesty! A jackdaw in peacock's feathers!—I am sorry, Letty, your own sense of truth and uprightness should not prevent even the passing desire to act such a lie. Your fine dress would be just a fine fib—yourself would be but a walking fib. I have been taking too much for granted with you: I must bring you no more novels. A volume or two of ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... reassured. Sadie was a conscientious little girl. Miss Jenny said so. Miss Jenny was conscientious, too. Right at the beginning she told them how she hated a story, fib-story she meant. ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... is awfully afraid of their telling stories because of Richard—-the eldest, you know. He does it dreadfully. I remember nurse used to tell us not to fib like Dick White. Maura said he used to tell his father stories about being late and getting money, and their mother never let him be punished. He was her pet. And Maura remembers being carried in to see poor Captain White just before he died, when ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mouths. All this is Pagan, and arose thus. The Trojans had Oriental imaginations, and feigned that their Palladium, a wooden statue three cubits long, fell down from heaven. The Greeks took this fib home among the spoils of Troy, and soon it rained statues on all the Grecian cities, and their Latin apes. And one of these Palladia gave St. Paul trouble at Ephesus; 'twas a statue of Diana that fell down from Jupiter: credat qui ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... corporal's stripe, given as a reward and an incentive, would be to me a talisman. I decided that I'd keep it in a place where I could rush to look at it whenever I needed encouragement to go on being a soldier. If I wanted to sneak myself out of trouble with a fib, or be snappish to Father or cattish to Di, or say "damn," or bang a door in a rage, it seemed to me that I should only have to think of that little triangle of black cloth and gilt braid to be suddenly as good as gold, all the way ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Some womanly fib preserved my father from a shock on leaving Janet's house. She left it herself at the same time that she drove him to Lady Sampleman's, and I found him there soon after she had gone to her bridesmaids. A letter was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... chess. At the beast. At Reynard the fox. At the rifle. At the squares. At trump. At the cows. At the prick and spare not. At the lottery. At the hundred. At the chance or mumchance. At the peeny. At three dice or maniest bleaks. At the unfortunate woman. At the tables. At the fib. At nivinivinack. At the pass ten. At the lurch. At one-and-thirty. At doublets or queen's game. At post and pair, or even and At the faily. sequence. At the French trictrac. At three hundred. At the long tables or ferkeering. At the unlucky man. At feldown. At the last couple in hell. At tod's ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... worthy, clean, agreeable, and conscientious male or female hypocrite, at so many guineas a year, to do so and so for me. Were he other than hypocrite I would send him about his business. Don't let my displeasure be too fierce with him for a fib or ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at a fib as little as some historians, I might easily tell you who won the prizes at this shooting on Palmerstown Green. But the truth is, I don't know; my granduncle could have told me, for he had a marvellous memory, but he died, a pleasant old gentleman of four-score ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... did not seem at all put out by the threatening language of his questioner. "I should be telling a fib," answered he calmly, "if I were to tell you that, being in my own room and hearing you quarrelling, I did not hear every word of what ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... scolded within an inch of his young life. And the fact that David maintained tenaciously that he had never swerved from the slow monowheel lane didn't bother his parents a bit. They were acquainted with another small-boy frailty. Small boys, on occasion, are inclined to fib. ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... exactly, but either nine or eleven. She didn't tell me to say she was glad to see you, because she doesn't know whether she is or not, and she wouldn't for the world expose herself to telling a fib. She is very honest, is Olive Chancellor; she is full of rectitude. Nobody tells fibs in Boston; I don't know what to make of them all. Well, I am very glad to see you, at ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... Roy, aloud; and then to himself, "Oh, what an awful fib." Then he wrinkled up his brows dismally, and began to think of old Ben polishing the armour and swords; but the next moment his face smoothed out stiffly, and he grew red in his efforts to keep from laughing aloud, for Master Pawson commenced jerking and snatching from the strings a ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... cashier was livid, haggard, distracted, and as soon as Reine had joined Mathieu's children, and could not hear what he said, he implored the young man to come with him. In a gasp he told the dreadful truth—Valerie was dying. Her daughter believed her to be in the country, but that was a mere fib devised to quiet the girl. Valerie was elsewhere, in Paris, and he, Morange, had a cab waiting below, but lacked the strength to go back to her alone, so poignant was his ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... defeat my intentions with respect to you; but it shall not be. You must see Lord Cullamore; you must corroborate my assertions to him; you must save me from shame and dishonor or dread the consequences. A paltry sacrifice, indeed, to tell a fib to a doting old peer, who thinks no one in the world honest or honorable ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... across the indignant dominie, "I told a fib about you this morning, but quite innocently. I said you would not be ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... questions and I couldn't quite fib to him, and yet I couldn't see why he should expect me to tell him all about you. And so"—she paused and the little ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... not exactly a fib on the part of the professor because he was thinking of it. But it did not include the whole truth, because he had already tried it, tried it very successfully only a few moments before. First he had made sure that he was alone in the room and then he had proceeded with the trial. Very cautiously ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... as far as possible. It will do me so much good. Will you do this for me? It is the only favor I ask." I told him I would only be too glad to do so if it would aid him in the moment when life shrinks from the shadow of death, but told him I thought he would not die—another little fib on my part. However, that did no harm, for I failed to convince him he would live. About 1 o'clock A. M. a couple of nights after this, one of the watchers came to my cot and said Bob wanted to see me immediately. I felt his time had come. Hastily dressing, I went ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... The Bard with many an artless fib Had in imagination fenced him, Disproved the arguments of Squib,[4] And all that Grooms[5] could ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... piller. On one occasion, wishing to indooce her lover to foller her example, she stepped into the flame to encourage him—something went wrong with the works, and she was instantly redooced to a cinder. I fortunately 'appened to be near at the time (you will escuse a little wild fib from a showman, I'm sure!) I 'appened to be porsin by, and was thus enabled to secure the ashes of the Wonderful She, which—(draws hangings and reveals a shallow metal Urn suspended in the centre of scene), are now before ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... am I to say? You would not wish me to tell a fib. I don't like Mrs. Harold Smith—at least, what I hear of her; for it has not been my fortune to meet her since her marriage. It may be conceited; but to own the truth, I think that Mr. Robarts would be better off with us at Framley ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... had read some parts of these volumes. This he asserts with an air of truth that commands belief; he told the same tale to Cardinal Orsini, and to many more, and to all in the very same words, so that I think this is no fib of his. What more do you want? This statement of his, and his serious countenance, cause me to give some credence to him. For it is a very good thing to be misled in a matter of this kind, out of which coin can be made to such an amount as to be absolutely ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... many questions, either, dear brethren, for, as you know, you rather like to fib to us, and sometimes we are able to find it out, and then we never believe you ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... the school bounds at the time, or I should never have allowed you! And on the way you asked me if I had hurt myself in falling. I told you "No"; but that was a fib, for my hip was growing weak even then. It's by reason of my hip that I have to lie here. But in those days there was no one else to take the dancing classes, and it would never have done to confess. And—and ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... heath, surely I may have my turn. You do not believe in Rumtunshid? Then why should farmer Buttercup be called on to believe in the communion of the saints? What does he believe about it? Or why should you make little Flora Buttercup tell such a huge fib as to say, that she believes in the resurrection ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Dick had begun all wrong, and, manlike, demanded her confidence before she had made up her mind to own she had any to bestow; therefore nothing came of it but vexation of spirit; for it is a well-known fact that, on some subjects, if boys will tease, girls will fib, and both maintain that it is right. So Dolly whetted her feminine weapon, and ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... that he was going to Bolton Street that evening, but he could find no alternative. "I believe I shall see her this evening," he said, simply venturing to mitigate the evil of making the communication by rendering it falsely doubtful. There are men who fib with so bad a grace and with so little tact that they might as well not fib at all. They not only never arrive at success, but never ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... add his pistol to our luncheon menu. Do, do save us from the Casino pet, dear Miss Grant. I've been holding an awful aunt of George's over the young man's head, saying she may arrive at any minute. But you know how things you fib about do have a way of happening, as a punishment, and I feel she may drop down on us if ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... should scream. If he asked to see the telegram, she was prepared to say that she had torn it up, as an excuse not to show it to Basil, on second thoughts the affair appearing to be Somerled's business. Somerled did not, however, make the request, and Aline was spared an extra fib, at ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to whom we owe so much, will be most welcome to the half of any movables of mine that he can recover from the Abbot Maldon," and she paused, for the fib stuck in her throat. Moreover, she knew herself to be the colour ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... broke at my feet. It was food—dry bread and a bologna skin with a little meat in the end. He stopped and told me how hard it was to find food for a dog in which he was interested. But that was a fib. With all his faults Gibb never maintained ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... ought to have seen the scared look that came over her face," Bristles admitted. "She looked all around as if she was afraid that Corny'd be popping up, and then shook her head again and again, saying the pin wasn't hers. But, Fred, I know the poor little girl was telling a fib, because she was afraid if she owned up to the old piece of fake jewelry that she seemed to value so much, it might get somebody in a peck of trouble; and we know who that ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... at the admiral's request would not convey the slightest idea of Tom's mental condition when he found himself in such a dilemma. He could have bitten off his tongue for its having got him into such a scrape, by telling the fib about the monkey in the first instance; but it was too late now, for the admiral had turned to leave the cabin, and the marine was at the door, besides others, who would hear any ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... Clements Devereaux, and one afternoon Carrie told the principal she had a headache, and I asked if I could go home with her and read her the assignments for next day (they called the lessons 'assignments' there), and they thought I was such a meek little country mouse that I wouldn't ever fib, and so they let us go, and what do you think we did? She had tickets for 'The Two Orphans' at the stock company. (You've never seen 'The Two Orphans,' have you? It's perfectly splendid. I used to weep my eyes out over it.) And afterward we went and ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... up the receiver before I could question him further. I think it cured Kennedy, temporarily of asking me to fib for him over the telephone. He was as anxious as I to see Carton, now, and plunged into the remaining ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... he could forgive the big fellow the fib. He knew well enough that Dade Morgan was getting his money from Richard Starbright, who, in order to earn anything, was working like a dog on a newspaper. The fact that he was helping Morgan along Starbright ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... this proposed arrangement, saying that we could walk, which was a fib, for I do not think that I could have done a mile; but Stella would not listen, she would not even let me carry my elephant gun, but took it herself. So we mounted with some difficulty, and Hendrika took up the sleeping Tota ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... so good. Never a fib since last I gave him the ox-reim end to taste. Never a lump of sugar or a cookie or a plum pilfered—he would take them as bold as brass before your face if you didn't give. He said the night-prayer regularly. For the morning, Lord, Thou knowest boys want to be up and at mischief as soon as they ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... in my thoughts, and with a resolution growing ever stronger and stronger within me. I will not tell her! I will never tell any one. I, that have hitherto bungled and blundered over the whitest fib, will wade knee-deep in falsehoods, before I will ever let any one guess the disgrace that has happened to me. Oh that, by long silence, I could wipe it out of my own heart—out of the book of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... mother to tell me fibs about her age," said Helen, generously (it is always interesting to observe the transformation of a lie into a fib). "And I shall write and tell her she's a horrid mean thing. I shall write ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... ever, and a tiny bit alarming too—what have you been doing with, or to, or by yourself?—Treating her—the impressive young person, I mean—with proper respect. But it was such a chance. I learnt that you were alone"—A fib, alas! on Henrietta's part.—"And I couldn't resist coming. I so longed to have you, like this, all to myself. What an eternity since we met!—For me a wearing, ageing eternity. The duties of a sick-room are so horribly anxious, yet so deadening in their repetition of ignoble ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... afraid," she said, lowering her eyes as she uttered the fib, "that you would not come ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... seen a lion in the park. No amount of persuasion or reasoning could make her vary her statement one hairbreadth. That night, when she slipped down on her knees to say her prayers, her mother said, "Polly, ask God to forgive you for that fib." ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... saint, whose name was Nicholas, restored these three children to life. It is said that once he lost his temper, and struck with his fist a gentleman named Arius; but the story-teller does not believe this, for he thinks it is a fib, made up long afterward. How could a saint ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... "Then he is more fortunate than I am, for I have never heard of him or what he is." This, I am sorry to say, was a fib, for it will be remembered that Mameena had mentioned him in the hut as one of her suitors, but among natives one must keep up one's dignity somehow. "Friend Umbezi," I went on, "I have come to bid you farewell, as I am ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... to be reminded of it, and, when we came here, papa told us never to say anything bad about the town, as if we didn't like it, for we'd get everybody down on us. We did like it, though, so we didn't have to fib. But now you're here you'd better just keep still about anything that strikes you funny, when you're off with the boys. Then you can come back and talk it over with me, when they aren't round, ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... he phrases it, as seen above, literally 'unto death,' and therefore bound by the strongest ties to keep his secret, if secret there were. Besides, Ben can be convicted of at least one unqualified fib on the subject. Hear how he describes Droeshout's print of Shakspeare, prefixed to the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... after that very few words passed between her and the sinner. A dead silence best befitted the occasion;—as, when a child soils her best frock, we put her in the corner with a scolding; but when she tells a fib we quell her little soul within her by a terrible quiescence. To be eloquently indignant without a word is within the compass of the thoughtfully stolid. It was thus that Lady Frances was at first treated by her stepmother. She was, however, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Then he began talking. Patience could not have told what he said. Her mind was entirely full of what she had to say. Somehow she stammered out the story: how she had been afraid to go to Nancy Gookin's, and how she had lost the sixpence her uncle had given her, and how Martha had said she told a fib. Patience trembled and gasped out the words, and curtesied, once in a while, when the ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... black suit of cloaths; Madame la Baroness in much the same colour, wrapt up in a tattered black silk capuchin; and I knew not which to admire most, their folly or their impudence; for surely never did an adventurer set out with less capabilities about him; his whole story was so flagrant a fib, that in spite of the very respectable certificates of My Lord Mayor, John Wilkes, and Mr. Alderman Bull, I was obliged to tell him plainly, that I did not believe him to be a gentleman, nor his wife to be a relation of the ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... print, good company, a text By no vain annotations vexed Which call from students sore perplexed The patience of a Job; And, page by page, a first-rate crib, Neither too faithful nor too glib— That, without fulsomeness or fib, Is what we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... talk and say afterwards that they knew it all along. She saw that she must still make engagements which did not include her betrothed; she must meet the archnesses of her little world with blank looks above the music in her heart, with many evasions, and even, perhaps, a harmless fib or two. Nevertheless, the lovers secured many hours all to themselves. Shut from public view in Mr. Heth's study, and more especially in long motor rides down unfrequented by-lanes they were deep in the absorptions ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Aborigines, by reason of their priests keeping them in ignorance. This misconception had acquired all the solidity of fact before it reached me; consequently, my explanation was received as a well-meant fib. Anyway, these details will give you some idea of Rory, in his natural state as ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... you've told a fib, which only makes things worse." He smiled complacently at having beaten her in argument, and Myra thought she had never met such an insufferable ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... are reasoning on false grounds. You forget that it is almost as important for you to self your manufactures to America as to get cotton from it. And articles in the Times, and speeches from your first statesmen, show that you really believe the enormous fib so generally current, that the South consumes the very great majority of all our imports. 'The South is where the North makes all ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... interposed, and said that you were suffering, whether you knew it or not, you would have played the martyr all the evening to a sort of a—a—what shall I call it?—it must out—a sort of fashionable fib. You may answer, perhaps, that you did not like to make a fuss, or seem squeamish, or discompose the company; and so, from timidity, you said 'the thing that was not.' Very true; but this is the very thing I want you to guard against; I want ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... not have told what he said. Her mind was entirely full of what she had to say. Somehow she stammered out the story: how she had been afraid to go to Nancy Gookin's, and how she had lost the sixpence her uncle had given her, and how Martha had said she told a fib. Patience trembled and gasped out the words, and curtesied, once in a while, ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... son, I don't believe you eveh done it at all. You neveh so much as told a fib in yo' life. You ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... was so fond, and from which even my own father was not exempt. Kind reader, indulge the garrulity of age, and allow me to recount one of these. There are a few who will remember it; for they have laughed at it for fifty years. I never knew my father to tell a fib but upon one occasion in my life. Under the circumstances, I am sure the kindly nature will, at least, allow it to be ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... many an artless fib Had in imagination fenced him, Disproved the arguments of Squib,[4] And all that Grooms[5] could ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... one else from North Dormer intended to venture so far it was not likely that her absence from the festivity would be reported. Besides, if it were she would not greatly care. She was determined to assert her independence, and if she stooped to fib about the Hepburn picnic it was chiefly from the secretive instinct that made her dread the profanation of her happiness. Whenever she was with Lucius Harney she would have liked some impenetrable mountain mist ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... nonsensical tradition of their quarrel, his hearty friend and boon-companion, with 'blind affection,' as he phrases it, as seen above, literally 'unto death,' and therefore bound by the strongest ties to keep his secret, if secret there were. Besides, Ben can be convicted of at least one unqualified fib on the subject. Hear how he describes Droeshout's print of Shakspeare, prefixed to the first folio ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... me name, because, if you want to know, because I'm a natural born liar and I fib ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... the ship That he did not chance to own; Told this grievance o'er and o'er, Knowing that she knew before; Told her how he dwelt alone. Lady Minnow, for reply, Cut him off with "So do I!" But she reddened at the fib; Servitors had she, ad lib. Town of Dae by the sea, In her youth who speaks no truth Ne'er shall young and ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... that such a treaty was so manifestly for the interest of Austria, that she was fearful that France would not accede to it. Since she knew that the matter was already arranged and settled with the French court, this was a downright lie, though the queen probably regarded it as a venial fib, or as diplomacy. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... to fib for me," she said. "You know the way the men stick together.... Well, the women have to do it, too.... At dinner yesterday," she continued, "Wally happened to ask me where I was going that evening, and I told him I was coming over to ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... ease, my friend. The Squire has sent me a large supply. I am to divide with you," which was as near to a fib as the young clergyman ever ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... me to say 'yes'," she laughed. "I'd like to tell a white fib, to please you. But no, I am not quite surprised, for my sister wrote that you might come, and why. What a pity you had this long journey for nothing. My Kabyle maid, Mouni, has just gone to her home, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Cecilia had done. Helen showed her that she guessed wrong here and there, and smiled at her prejudices; and Miss Clarendon smiled again, and admitted that she was prejudiced, "but every body is; only some show and tell, and others smile and fib. I wish that word fib was banished from English language, and white lie drummed out after it. Things by their right names and we should all do much better. Truth must be ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... raised ten thousand feet above the earth; and there he is, and will be, till the Red Man gives him back his power for the happiness of France. These others say he's dead. Ha, dead! 'Tis easy to see they don't know Him. They tell that fib to catch the people, and feel safe in their hovel of a government. Listen! the truth at the bottom of it all is that his friends have left him alone on the desert isle to fulfil a prophecy, for I forgot to say that his name, Napoleon, ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... years, mind, though she could have added somewhat to the figure without risking a fib. She said something else, a something that didn't sound exactly like a blessing; and, in a sudden fit of rage, started from her seat, sprang across the room, tore the offending Saint from the nail from which he had dangled for such long years, and, without further ceremony, flung him out through ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... dwarfs tell a monstrous fib, when they pretend that Kvasir, the inventor of poetry, has been suffocated by his own wisdom. Nevertheless, the little fellows showed thereby that they were not short of intelligence; for it is almost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... Now, mind your promise. We shall have to fib. You had better say nothing. Let me speak for you; ladies fib ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... on the very day I had been dead in the news, and the paleness of my looks, seem'd to make it a doubt whether I was not the ghost of my real self departed. But when I spoke, their wonder eas'd itself by an applause; which convinc'd me they were then satisfied that my friend Mist had told a fib of me. Now, if simply to have shown myself in broad life, and about my business, after he had notoriously reported me dead, can be called a reply, it was the only one which his paper while ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... my teeth and bark like a dog, just like they do you.—But I came to see you about—(to the slave girl) get out of here, get out of my sight, you trouble maker, you're all ears and tongue and nothing else, all you do is to sit around Koritto—dear, now please don't tell me a fib, who stitched that red ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... see Emeline yesterday. I saw her in the parlour, and asked her to excuse Emeline, as she was a little indisposed. It is true, I had to fib a little. But that was better than a renewal of an acquaintance that ought now to cease. She seemed a little hurt, but I ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... out and kill that rooster at the first opportunity. I want Keyser to have one thing less to fib about. He has too ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... said. "I knew he came and I guessed what 'twas about. Poor fellow, 'twill be dreadful hard for him, too. He was here this mornin' and I said Frances had been called away sudden and wouldn't be back to-day. And I said you would be away all day, too, Hosy. It was a fib, I guess, but I can't help it if it was. You mustn't see him now and you mustn't talk with me either. You must clear off that tray the first thing. We'll have our talk to-morrow, maybe. We'll—we'll see the course plainer then, perhaps. Now be a good boy and mind me. You ARE my boy, you know, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... was going to Bolton Street that evening, but he could find no alternative. "I believe I shall see her this evening," he said, simply venturing to mitigate the evil of making the communication by rendering it falsely doubtful. There are men who fib with so bad a grace and with so little tact that they might as well not fib at all. They not only never arrive at success, but never even venture to ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... here, on the heath, surely I may have my turn. You do not believe in Rumtunshid? Then why should farmer Buttercup be called on to believe in the communion of the saints? What does he believe about it? Or why should you make little Flora Buttercup tell such a huge fib as to say, that she believes in the resurrection ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Sister Grethel coaxed and scolded, Sir Kasimir reproved, the housemother offered comfits, and Christina's soft voice was worst of all, for the child, probably taking her for Our Lady herself, began to gasp forth a general confession. "I will never do so again! Yes, it was a fib, but Mother Hildegard gave me a bit of marchpane not to tell—" Here the lay sister took strong measures for closing the little mouth, and Christina drew back, recommending that the child should be left gradually ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beat. Fib the cove's quarron in the rumpad for the lour in his bung; beat the fellow in the highway for the money in his purse. CANT.—A fib is also ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... Margaret, and, with all her nonsense, I believe she's honest. Besides, what interest could she have to be otherwise? To be sure, she didn't give me the true reason for the incognito; but that's nothing; she's just the woman to tell a useless fib, and reserve the truth for important occasions ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the letters he had given Claudius had been the real means of his success; but as Margaret only asked about the telegram, he was perfectly safe in denying any knowledge of it. Not that such a consideration would have prevented his meeting her question with a little fib, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... as quick as wink on him. "Smokin'!" says he; "I warn't a smokin'." "O, my!" says constable, "how you talk, man! I won't say you lie, 'cause it aint polite, but it's very like the way I talk when I fib. Didn't I see you with my own eyes?" "No," says Sassy, "you didn't. It don't do always to believe your own eyes, they can't be depended on more than other people's. I never trust mine, I can assure you. I own I had ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... name was Nicholas, restored these three children to life. It is said that once he lost his temper, and struck with his fist a gentleman named Arius; but the story-teller does not believe this, for he thinks it is a fib, made up long afterward. How could a ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... with tight gray curls on his head, and deep dimples in his cheeks. If anyone had told me that he was not an English admiral I should have known it was a fib. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... would her mother say if she brought Wolfgang with her? No, that would really not do, this was just the day when their room had not been tidied. And she had told a fib too: there were no herrings, only onion sauce with ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... it is fair to fib about her lovers. However, I thought he looked at you, Christina, not exactly as if ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... bed-clothes. Once was I caught by a sudden cough on my part, which brought Aunt Polly to her feet before I had time to slip back to bed; and the only plea that my guiltiness could make her kind remonstrance on my being up in the cold, was the very natural and very wicked fib, that I heard her move and thought she might want something. Unsuspecting old lady! May her ashes at least rest in peace! How she caught me in her arms, kissed and carried me to bed, tucking in the blankets so effectually that all attempts to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... time, there are but dark news from the Havannah; the Gazette, who would not fib for the world, says, we have lost but four officers; the World, who is not quite so scrupulous, says, our loss is heavy.—But what shocking notice to those who have Harry Conways there! The Gazette ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... seen that Bud's little fiction in the hearing of Ben was not the proper thing, and, as it turned out, Bud was mighty sorry for his apparently innocent fib before the end of the day, or the dawning ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... seem at all put out by the threatening language of his questioner. "I should be telling a fib," answered he calmly, "if I were to tell you that, being in my own room and hearing you quarrelling, I did not hear every word of ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... (bad faith) 940; il volto sciolto i pensieri stretti [It]. unfairness &c (dishonesty) 940; artfulness &c (cunning) 702; misstatement &c (error) 495. V. be false &c adj., be a liar &c 548; speak falsely &c adv.; tell a lie &c 546; lie, fib; lie like a trooper; swear false, forswear, perjure oneself, bear false witness. misstate, misquote, miscite^, misreport, misrepresent; belie, falsify, pervert, distort; put a false construction upon &c (misinterpret); prevaricate, equivocate, quibble; palter, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of Peace (her nickname on board) preening herself in clothes which would have made the Queen of Sheba "look like thirty cents," I was weak enough to breathe the desired words of admiration. "Gorgeous" was, I think, my adjective; and it was no fib. ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... most unmusical people," Sally responded, in a swift aside. "Even truthful people will fib valiantly, where music is concerned, and go into raptures, when they have hard work to suppress their yawns. It was a sorry day for music, when ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... follows, because it's a fib"; and she ran her eyes over several lines. "In spite of my prayers, I must go. 'You are no longer a boy,' my father said, 'you must think of the future. You have to learn things your own country cannot teach you, if you would be ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... fear—you, or any one!' I answered, a little piqued that she should have drawn any such impression from my appearance. I may have been uttering a fib of magnificent proportions at the moment, but one has a right to deny cowardice to the last gasp, whatever else he ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... give up, declaring it to be the most fun they had had "in a coon's age," which was really a boys' bravery fib, and finally the machine drew up within a hundred and fifty feet ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... had ever existed. "The devil take my luck!" I muttered, grinding my teeth with impotent anger; for it seemed such hard lines, just when I had succeeded in getting into favor, to go and spoil it all in that unhappy way. Now that I had become acquainted with their style of singing, the supposed fib, about which there had been such a pother, seemed a very venial offense compared with my attempt to lead the singing. Nevertheless, when the concert was over, not a word was said on the subject by any one, though I had quite expected to be taken at once to the ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... La Biglesse played Tartuffe to the life. Being at table, she happened to tell a fib about some trifle or other, which I noticed, and told her of it; she cast her eyes to the ground, and with a very demure air, "Yes, indeed, madam," said she, "I am the greatest liar in the world; I am very much obliged to you for telling me of it. "We all burst out a-laughing, for it ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... was savagely ironic with her, and trampled hobnailed on her timid opinions. But then Agnes didn't know how to treat him, Polly soon saw that: she was nervous and fluttery—evasive, too; and once during lunch even told a deliberate fib. Slight as was her acquaintance with him, Polly felt sure this want of courage must displease him; for there was something very simple and direct about ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... you had lived at Westhaven you would have found out that to be so particular is the way to make those girls fib,' said Mrs. Morton. ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whispered—right out loud, 'Lluella, that is your pencil and you know it!' And I had to say—right off, 'It isn't, and I didn't!' Now, what could I have said else? But it was an awful fib, I s'pose." ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... as a party issue, and the Republicans being in control in the Senate the outcome could hardly be in doubt. He had learned also of the other misfortunes which had befallen Judge Rossmore and he understood now the reason for Shirley's grave face on the dock and her little fib about summering on Long Island. The news had been a shock to him, for, apart from the fact that the judge was Shirley's father, he admired him immensely as a man. Of his perfect innocence there could, of course, ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... us rig you out; you recollect you stated that you were going home for your outfit, and now I'll give you one, that you may have one fib ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... purchase was made, and it was objected to him that he had borrowed the money from a client, then Cicero, instigated by the unexpected charge, denied the loan, and denied also that he was going to buy the house. But when he had bought it and the fib was thrown in his teeth, he laughed heartily, and asked whether men had so lost their senses as not to be aware that a prudent father of a family would deny an intended purchase rather than raise the price of the ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... new friend. When asked casually in conversation as to her maiden name, she had not blushed as she answered the question with a falsehood. When, unfortunately, the name of her first husband had in some way made itself known to Clara, she had been ready again with some prepared fib. And when she had recognized William Belton, she had thought that the danger to herself of having any one near her who might know her quite justified her in endeavouring to create ill-will between Clara and her cousin. 'Self-preservation ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... I wanted, sir," said Winter. "There may be nothing in it, but I was curious to know why Hilton Fenley took the trouble to fib about such a trivial matter. His brother, too, is behaving in a way that invites criticism. I don't imagine that either of the sons shot his father—most certainly, Hilton Fenley could not have done it, and Robert, I think, was in London ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... had been discussing was, whether the hero of the story was worthy the name of lover, seeing he deferred offering his hand to the girl because she told her mother a FIB to account for her being with him in the garden after dark. "It was cowardly and unfair," said Christina: "was it not for HIS sake she did it?" Mercy did not think to say "WAS IT?" as she well might. "Don't you see, Chrissy," she said, "he reasoned this way: 'If ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... so far as I saw, she gave him no encouragement. She is poor, pretty, and proud; and that tells the whole story. I imagined she believed she would not be welcomed by you, and while I begged her to come and visit me, I doubt if she does." (A fib.) ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... gwine whop him fo' tellin' a fib 'bout dey ain' no ghosts whin yiver'body know' dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she tek' note de hair ob li'l' black Mose's head am plumb white, an' she tek' note li'l' black Mose's face am de color ob wood-ash, so she jes retch' ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... as I have never seen in England or France, nor (assuredly) in Padua, where there is no zest, but much decorum, in the practice of religion. To see her in church was, as it were, to see a child in her mother's lap—able to laugh, to play, to sulk and pout, ah, and to tell a fib, being so sure of forgiveness! No secret too childish to be kept back, no trouble too light; the mustiness of the season's oil, the shocking price of potherbs, the delinquency of the milliner's apprentice who had spoiled a breadth of silk. She could grumble at her husband, or impart and expect ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... any of us have to fib. I always said Cristobal is the luckiest saint to have for a patron. See how he's offering his help to you. And oh, did you know he's the patron saint of automobilists? To-morrow I'll give you a Cristobal medal to nail on your car. They're made on purpose; such ducks! But now do you begin ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... exclaimed Frolich, ceasing her stirring for a moment to look round; "what a capital story that is! and how few people know it! and how neatly you catch him in his fib! And why should not something like it be happening now with Rolf? Rolf knows all the ins and outs of the fiord: and if he has been playing bo-peep with his enemies among the islands, and frightening Hund, is it not the most ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... gauche that, when The Dockyard gentry came to sup, She always had to be lock'd up; And some one wrote to us and said Her mother was a kitchen-maid. Dear Mary, you'll be charm'd to know It must be all a fib. But, oh, She is the oddest little Pet On which my eyes were ever set! She's so outree and natural That, when she first arrived, we all Wonder'd, as when a robin comes In through the window to eat crumbs At breakfast with us. She has sense, Humility, and confidence; And, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... you don't want the truth told, and the fib'll do you any good; and, upon my word, the way you're looking I really think it will. So ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... "That's a fib!" cried Jo, taking her by the shoulders, and looking fierce enough to frighten a much ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... to Mr. Townsend; that's all I ask. It is highly probable you have been corresponding with him for the last three weeks—perhaps even seeing him. I don't ask you—you needn't tell me." He had a moral conviction that she would contrive to tell a fib about the matter, which it would disgust him to listen to. "Whatever you have done, stop doing ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... robber stories which he had either heard of or invented, and poured out with unceasing volubility, and so often that he believed them all true. But the Ballantyne family had no great faith in his veracity, when it suited his convenience to fib, exaggerate, or prevaricate, particularly when excited by his own lucubrations, or the waggery of his more intellectual neighbors and companions. He had a seat in the centre, which he always occupied, and a stool for his deformed feet and legs; they ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... "You fib in a good cause, but you cannot deceive me; I read your thoughts, but I am very forgiving, and I am resolved that we shall have a pleasant ride to the hotel together. Now, entertain me, tell me about that war, of which you saw ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... hour or so of solitary shopping, and had the things I bought carried straight into my own room, for I had given out that I had a sick headache, and wanted to sleep—a fib so delicate, that it seemed almost conscientious, besides being worth forgiving on account ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... it was caused by my hastily constructed lie or by the girl's inquiries I could not tell, but my dislike for the clumsy giant made me suspicious about his knowledge of the incident of the preceding evening, and I felt certain that he was smiling at my fib. ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... the indignant dominie, "I told a fib about you this morning, but quite innocently. I said you would not be ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... left for me to say," replied Cordelia, in a slightly worried voice. "You've got all the pretty things used up. I should just have to say I think she's fat and homely—and I don't think I ought to say that, for it would be a downright fib. I don't ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... I answered. "Then he is more fortunate than I am, for I have never heard of him or what he is." This, I am sorry to say, was a fib, for it will be remembered that Mameena had mentioned him in the hut as one of her suitors, but among natives one must keep up one's dignity somehow. "Friend Umbezi," I went on, "I have come to bid you farewell, as I am about to ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... face," Bristles admitted. "She looked all around as if she was afraid that Corny'd be popping up, and then shook her head again and again, saying the pin wasn't hers. But, Fred, I know the poor little girl was telling a fib, because she was afraid if she owned up to the old piece of fake jewelry that she seemed to value so much, it might get somebody in a peck of trouble; and we know who that ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... admitted cheerfully; "please don't trample on me. But really, it wasn't all fib. Jack does do things with a pencil—other things besides maps and working profiles, I mean. Won't you come over and let me do the honors of the studio?"—with a grandiloquent arm-sweep meant ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... it over. Possibly you have not stopped to think as yet. When you know the truth yourself, you will be the better qualified to fib about it. Also, ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... took up his hat from the counter, saying, that as Sir William was close at hand, he would step and tell him what he thought would ease his mind about this affair. This movement laid open to Lady Hunter's mind the enormity of her fib: and remembering that, as far as she knew, her husband had never heard of the charred stick, she vigorously interfered to keep Mr Jones where he was, averring that Sir William had rather hear the explanation from her than from any person actually resident in Deerbrook. He had his reasons, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... say it to Angelina Lansing—and above all never hint as much to Lana Helmer. Women are human; and pretty women perhaps a little less than human. Leave them to me. For if this romantic damsel be truly what you picture her, I'll have to tell a pretty fib or two concerning her and you, I warrant you. Leave that saucy baggage, Lanette, to me, Euan. And you keep clear of her, too. She's murderous to men's peace of mind—more fatal than ever since ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... appreciated the fact that all men and women are liars, for Punch records the following as the dialogue between her and her mother when she had been caught in a fib: ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... stand up and fib each other about (saying nothing of the practice), why let them do it; or if two dogs worry each other to death for a bone, or two cocks meet and contend for the sovereignty of a dunghill. In these last two cases ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... immaterial. But if he should happen to inquire, I shall depend on you to preserve my incognito. You must even fib a little, if it ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... question, and for some time he had considered what answer he should make to it. To deny was impossible. It would be easy to convict him of a fib, for the fact of the question being asked was sufficient to say there was proof that the button was his. He must, then, confess the truth, grave as ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... nuisance, on our last day! But I forgot, I asked her to come. If she stays very long, just tell a little fib, won't you, and say ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... in a bumper! "Old" Ponny—a fib; What's fifty? A baby. Bring tucker and bib. Add twenty; then ask us again, little boy, And till then may your life be ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... gone on to the headland, with that heroic mannikin, Johnny. Dolly was to follow, with that Shanks maid to protect her, as soon as her hat was trimmed, or some such era. But I'll answer for it that she loses herself in the crowd, or some fib of that sort." ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... of the house conceived it best To keep the whole a secret in his breast. But to discover ALL, his lovely rib Appeared disposed, though wives can often fib; The silliest of the throng (or high or low), Most perfectly the science seem ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... charmed with her," said Pen, telling almost the first fib which he has told in the course of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... plucked a certain little Nellie Taylor from a family near by, named her "Rose Featherstone" and taken her to and from the kindergarten daily, a distance of at least half a mile of crowded streets. The affair was purely one of innocent romance. Emma Abby Googins never told a fib or committed the slightest fault or folly save that of burying her name, assuming a more distinguished one, and introducing a sister to me who had no claim to the Googins blood. Her mother was thoroughly mystified by the occurrence and I no less so, but Emma Abby simply opened her blue eyes wider ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... become of Lady Cecilia Clarendon. Before we follow her on her very early morning visit to her cousin's, we must take leave to pause one moment to remark, not in the way of moralising by any means, but simply as a matter of history, that the first little fib in which Lady Cecilia, as a customary licence of speech, indulged herself the moment she awoke this morning, though it seemed to answer its purpose exactly at the time, occasioned her ladyship a good deal of superfluous toil and trouble during the course of the day. In reply ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... the mate, fingering the presentation cigars, and then to himself: "What a whopping fib! I wouldn't sail in the same craft with such ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... looked into all that as yet, aunt." There must surely have been a little fib in this, or the Dean's daughter must have been very much unlike ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... scream. If he asked to see the telegram, she was prepared to say that she had torn it up, as an excuse not to show it to Basil, on second thoughts the affair appearing to be Somerled's business. Somerled did not, however, make the request, and Aline was spared an extra fib, at which she was ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... governor sat to him. Then others sat to him; and so he left the island, with a replenished purse, and from that time became a portrait-painter. If the poor fellow had been the veriest dauber, you, Eusebius, would have sat to him twenty times over, and have told all the country round quite as great a fib as he did the governor, that he was a very Raffaelle in outline, and Titian in coloring. And what shall the "recording angel" do? Poor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
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