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More "Prank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... haen the brains o' a cock spug," I heard him sayin' till himsel', "ye michta jaloosed they were to play ye some prank. You muckle, dozent gozlin'," he says; an' he took himsel' a skelp i' the side o' the heid wi' his open luif that near ca'd him on his back. In his stagger his feet tickled amon' his claes, an' he gaithered them up, an' lookit fair dumfoondered like. He put them ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... to explain to me how that Mistress Alison (which was her name) was a dear and bosom friend, and she it was that had been drest in the Court suit to play a prank for a wager with a certain young man who would be lover to her, an he might. And I then to come along, and so speedy to offence that truly I never saw her face plain, because that I was so utter jealous. And so the Lady Mirdath had been more justly in anger than I supposed, ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... Bohemia" collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons whom ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Matilda," the judge was saying; "it will prove to be only some wild prank on the part of his mates; Christopher will turn up presently, safe and sound. You say he went out last night; do you ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... dark listened to the troubadours below, also for the love of it. A great cavalry leader, he shone at his brightest in the chase, and, when there was no fighting to be done, his were the spirits of a boy, and he was as quick for a prank as any lad under ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... would hide him. The man who is known to have committed that crime—Francesco Paoli—escaped to New York. We are looking for him to-day. He is a clever man, far above the average—son of a doctor in a town a few miles from Naples, went to the university, was expelled for some mad prank—in short, he was the black sheep of the family. Of course over here he is too high-born to work with his hands on a railroad or in a trench, and not educated enough to work at anything else. So he has been preying ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... to exist, in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or immorality ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... her that his thoughts ran with a tiring persistency against which his common sense rebelled. A kiss! what was it after all? A Christmas forfeit, a prank of which even Val Stafford could have said no worse than that it was beneath the dignity of his six and thirty years: only too flattering for such a little country girl, sunburnt, simple, and occasionally tongue-tied. The lady of ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... vengeance-proof. They little thought, that day of pain When, launched as on the lightning's flash, They bade me to destruction dash, That one day I should come again, With twice five thousand horse, to thank The Count for his uncourteous ride. They played me then a bitter prank, When, with the wild horse for my guide, They bound me to his foaming flank: At length I played them one as frank— For time at last sets all things even— And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... separated, still singing and laughing; never dreaming of the storm brewing from their evening's prank. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... individual profit, the more prisoners he had, the happier he was; and the higher the prisoners were in rank, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed an expression of countenance which he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me; but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... heartily at the puzzling the friar gave Father James. 'James,' says he, 'never heed him; he's only pesthering you with bog-Latin; but, at any rate to do him justice, he's not a bad Scholar, I can tell you that.... Your health, Prank, you droll crathur—your health. I have only one fault to find with you, and that is, that you fast and mortify yourself too much. Your fasting has reduced you from being formerly a friar of very genteel dimensions to ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Miss Mischief had been up to some prank, which had turned out disastrously. But it must have been a serious one, and perhaps there were grave ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... to Emma Jane that same afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank. "I do hate her ways," she exclaimed, "but I'm sorry I let her know we 'spected her; and so to make up, I gave her that little piece of broken coral I keep in my bead purse; you ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... by that time Jonathan had found his tongue, and both children explained the affair so clearly, that the old magistrates looked rather foolish, and dismissed the case with a reprimand to Jonathan for wasting his time so foolishly. But some good came of the boy's prank after all. For his father, seeing how near Jonathan came being proved a witch, bestirred himself in favor of poor School-master Halleck, who was set free from ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... are beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with green streamers—a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about MONKEY, which can't so well ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... to do?" said the stranger. "I don't think you can pull home in her. One doesn't know how much she may be damaged. She may sink in the lock, or play any prank." ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Pavlovitch, took him unexpectedly and firmly with two fingers by the nose, and succeeded in leading him two or three steps across the room. He could have had no grudge against Mr. Gaganov. It might be thought to be a mere schoolboy prank, though, of course, a most unpardonable one. Yet, describing it afterwards, people said that he looked almost dreamy at the very instant of the operation, "as though he had gone out of his mind," but that was recalled and reflected upon long ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... some pilgrims on their way To Sais or Bubastus, among beds Of lotos flowers that close above their heads, Push their light barks, and hid as in a bower Sing, talk, or sleep away the sultry hour, While haply, not far off, beneath a bank Of blossoming acacias, many a prank Is played in the cool current by a train Of laughing nymphs, lovely as she whose chain Around two conquerors of the world was cast; But, for a third too ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... not trust her where she thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... affair had also its "too funny" side, now that she understood it. But the Judge did not laugh. If he felt any secret amusement at the girlish prank he did not betray it in his expression, which was the sternest his daughter had ever seen when bent ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... the bank. Since Wunpost had lost in his bet with Eells and deposited all his money in the bank he was looked upon almost with pride as a picturesque asset of the town. He made talk, and that was made into publicity, and publicity helped the town. And now this mad prank upon which he seemed bent gave promise of even greater renown. So he had had a bad dream? That piqued their curiosity, but they were not kept long in doubt. Dismounting at the bank, he glanced up at the front and then made a plunge ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly of me as ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... said Groves at last, as if a bright thought had struck him, "I know what it must be, sir. You're up to a prank sometimes—in fact, rather often—and you've hidden away the yacht, for there's been no one else in the Cove but you; though where you can have put it I'm puzzled to say, seeing there's not a place fit to hide a walnut-shell I haven't looked in, not to say a schooner ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... almost inclined to take the "Rondo form" as a new roguish prank. But we may find a form where the subjects are independent of the basic themes that weave in and out unfettered by rule—where the subjects are rather new grouping of ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... board his ammunition, the vermilion-painted powder hoys I had observed in the distance at the mouth of the harbour being now nearly alongside the ship; and, all of a sudden, as my reckless shipmates were pulling me almost to pieces between them in their mad prank, there came a cry from the deck above, "Stand clear, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to my good sense, captain,' Dare remonstrated. 'I have not indulged in a prank since the sixth year of my pilgrimage. I have found them too damaging to my interests. Well, it is not too dry here, and damp injures your health, you say. Have a pull for safety's sake.' He presented a ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... to the Warden that some organised prank or protest was afoot. Dignity required that he should take no heed whatsoever. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, stately he approached the dais, his Fellows ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... Wales had sent them a piano, and many fine pictures ornamented the walls from famous persons. An old English lady who spends her summers up there seemed much amused at the prank of the girls, and evidently wondered what their ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... the reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news that the boy had disappeared, run away; the ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... next?' And as Arthur hesitated, 'I misdoubt greatly whether Burnside would give you a helping hand if you came fresh from colloguing with French Jacobites, though my father and all the rest of us at the Lynn aye told him that he might thank himself and his dour old dominie for your prank—you were but a schoolboy then—you are a man now; and though your poor mother would be blithe to set eyes on you, she would be sairly perplexed what gate you had best turn thereafter. Now, see here! There's talk of our being sent to dislodge the Spaniards ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... racket soon transpired. A suspicion that they had been sold gradually dawned on the Rivermouthians. Many were exceedingly indignant, and declared that no penalty was severe enough for those concerned in such a prank; others—and these were the very people who had been terrified nearly out of their wits—had the assurance to laugh, saying that they knew all along it was ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the keenest relish of a funny prank, and one such he used to act over again in after life with the greatest vivacity of manner. Every one remembers the story told by Jefferson Hogg how Shelley got rid of the old woman with the onion ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... there had been no wrongdoing; not even a mischievous prank, except, perhaps, the breaking down of the ladder, and yet it seemed a pity that Stella should have suffered the most, when she never would have dreamed of staying at the tree-house after it began to look like rain, had it not been ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... coming in again with a grin for another kick when Chris played his merry little prank. While the others sprang for the door Demetre sprang for Joe. He glided upon the horse's bare back like a snake and shouted something at him like the crack of a dozen whips. One of the firemen afterward swore that Joe answered him back in the same language. Ten seconds ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... breathless to articulate, the two fat youths lay there gasping for breath, while those gathered about them made mock gestures of "first aid to the injured." Nobody had been hurt, however, and the victims of the prank took it in the way ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... thing damped my spirits exceedingly, and that was, having no hint from Moll the night before of this project, which then must have been fully matured in her mind, nor any written word of explanation and encouragement. For, thinks I, she being no longer a giddy, heedless child, ready to play any prank without regard to the consequences, but a very considerate, remorseful woman, would not put us to this anxiety without cause. Had she resolved to go to her friends at Elche, she would, at least, have comforted us with the hope of meeting her again; whereas, this utter silence did ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... This is some prank, which I am sure does not concern Ehrenstein in the least. They would never dare enter Dreiberg for aught else. There must be a flaw in ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... spoon or spoil a horn, and—let me have my laugh out—you bid well for an archer," said Randal; and Robin counselling me to play the same prank on the French lad's sword as late I had done on his own, they took each of them an arm of mine, and so we swaggered down ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... on raids against cattle-stealers, and in a brush with half-breeds and Indians; as when he stood for the legislature; but he felt now for the first time that he had not made the most of himself, that there was something hurting to self-respect in this prank played upon him. When he came to that point his resentment went higher. He thought of Molly Mackinder, and he heard all too acutely the vague veiled references to her in their satire. By the time Gow Johnson spoke he had mastered himself, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... said Miss Wealthy, "I could not do that, of course. Mildred was my god-child, and I loved her dearly. But she was not allowed to see me for twenty-four hours, and I fancy those were very sad hours for her. Dear Mildred! that was her last prank; for the next time she came here she was a woman grown, and all the hoyden ways had been put off like a garment. And now, dears," added Miss Wealthy, rising, "we must let Martha take these dishes, or she will be late with her work, and that ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... the cloak-room leaned over her checks, with her lips curved up in a smile. "The little one!" she thought. "And such courage! He will make a great king! Let him have his prank like the other children, and—God bless ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... finding he had left it in his usual health, it was feared some accident had happened. The congregation then dispersed, much concerned at the absence of the worthy pastor, who, however, atoned in the evening, by unwonted eloquence, for his unpremeditated prank of ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... about that picture over the altar. Of course, they would naturally have replaced it! I wondered who had found old de Wiggs up there; I wondered if he knew about it, and if he had any idea who had played that prank. I looked to his pew; yes, there he sat, rosy and beaming, bland as ever! I looked for old Peter Dexter, president of the Dexter Trust Company—yes, he was in his pew, wizened and hunched up, prematurely bald. And Stuyvesant Gunning, of the Fidelity National—they were all ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... Bedford, despotic and rash, Tried to force her poor groom to shave off his moustache. Judge BAGSHAWE the wise, made her pay for her prank. This makes one inclined to sing, "I know a Bank," Where BAGSHAWE might bring common-sense, for a change; They're worse than the Lady of Goldington Grange, These Banking Bashaws with three tails, who must clip ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... Terence, that Dan Hoolan, though he's mighty quiet just now, will be playing us some prank or other before long, if he can find a chance," ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... watched the leaping flame. Its cheerful crackle, its bright color in the gloom was almost too good to be true. In these dark forests he had learned to be wary and on guard at too great fortune. Quite often it was only a prank of perverse forest gods, before they smote him with some black disaster. It seemed to him that there was a wild laughter, a Satanic mocking in the joyous crackle that was vaguely but fearfully ominous. The promise in the rainbow, the siren's song to the mariners, ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... that Louis had pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)—that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... have just one answer. The scheme is too grisly. Besides, we've nothing against the undertakers that should make us willing to waste their time. Moreover, Dan we're in the High School, and we're expected to be gentlemen. Now, does your scheme strike you as just the prank ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... be so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was roused to anger. ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... said he, "but I tell you again I have no time either to drink or shear. I must be gone before those mad fellows return, and detain me by some new prank." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the story of her capture to Miss Watts, but with that lady's perverted English sense of humour, she thought O'Leary's prank was funny. She knew that she ought to disapprove of it, ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... Powder (gun) pulvo. Powder pulvro, pudro. Power povo, potenco. Power (of attorney) konfidatesto. Powerful multepova. Powerless senpotenca. Practical praktika. Practice (custom) kutimo. Practice praktiko, kutimo, uzado. Practise praktiki. Prairie herbejo. Praise lauxdi. Prank petoleco—ajxo. Prate babili. Prattle babili. Pray (religious) pregxi. Pray (to request) peti. Prayer pregxo. Prayer-book pregxlibro. Preach prediki. Preacher predikisto. Preaching ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Sir Risdon excitedly. "No, no,—you must be mistaken. A boyish prank. No one about here would ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... suspected him. The squire did not suspect him, but he suspected the squire. He never could again feel himself to be on comfortable terms of trusting legal friendship with a man who had played such a prank in reference to his marriage as this man had performed. Why, then, should he still be concerned in a matter so distasteful to him? Why should he not wipe his hands of it all and retreat? There was no act of parliament compelling him to meddle with ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... expedition I recognized John ——-. Of all persons in the world to meet on top of the Rocky Mountains thousands of miles from home, he was the last one I should have looked for. We were school-boys together and warm friends for years. But a boyish prank of mine had disruptured this friendship and it had never been renewed. The act of which I speak was this. I had been accustomed to visit occasionally an editor whose room was in the third story of a building and overlooked the street. One day this editor gave me a watermelon ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a better time up north so they think they try it. But they found out that they wasn't no easy way to live away from Marster. He always took 'em back, didn't beat 'em nor nothin'. I run away once myself but I never went nowhere." Melvin's long body shook with laughter as he thought of his prank. He shifted in his chair ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... mixture that produced perpetual ferment. They were all the time either fighting or frolicking with each other, and I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, everything went wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each other, or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good natured fellow, the worst character that ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... shelter or other. I dare say that she climbed in at one of the windows of the house, though I could not make quite sure without asking more questions than I thought worth while. She came stealing in early in the morning, looking a little pale and wild, but she hasn't played such a prank since. I had a call to the next town and Marilla had evidently been awake all night. I got home early in the morning myself, and was told that it was supposed I had picked up Nan on the road and carried her with me, so the blame was all ready for my shoulders unless ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... on them and they were never more to know the warmth and motion of life. Had they dragged themselves, still living, to that place, so as to die in one another's company? or was it not rather a ghastly prank of the Prussians, who had collected the bodies and placed them in a circle about the table, out of derision for the traditional ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... of the solid wave, Prank'd with rude shapes by the fantastic frost, He stood in silence;—now keen thoughts engrave Dark figures on his front; and, tempest-toss'd, He fears to say that every hope is lost. Meanwhile the multitude as death ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... now, when she found the frog in her desk. It jumped right into her face, and fell into her apron-pocket,—we wore aprons with big pockets then,—and she screamed so she had to be taken home. That was the kind of prank Solomon was up to, every day of his life; and fishing for schoolmaster's wig through the skylight, and every crinkum-crankum that ever was. Master Bayley used to go to sleep every recess, and the skylight was just over his head. Dear me, Sirs, how that wig ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... she might have got on better with my young people. You have heard, of course, that it was my two boys, Noel and Jack, who put all those things in your box. Oh, not with a view to getting you into trouble, but it was a prank they had played off upon Colonel Baker. I made them go down and confess to him this morning and take his property back with them, and, judging from their crestfallen looks ever since, I fancy they have had a talking-to that they won't forget in a hurry. So they have been well ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... for a prank," remarked the Principal, without administering any reproof for the interruption. "And we may as well ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... of that day contain accounts of many a mad prank which [Lord Warwick, Addison's step-son] played ... [like] the lawless freaks of the madcap prince ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... little turret, and, when I am at last on top, I look out through the small window at the wide heavens and am not at all cold. It seems to me then as if I must give vent to all my pent-up tears, and the next day I am so cheerful and feel new-born, and I look with cunning for a prank to play. And—canst ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... last more than a few hours. The sun will be shining in the morning, and all you'll see to remind you of to-night will be the rather worn looks of your companions. But what is one night's loss of sleep, anyway? I just know when you were at school you lost many a good night's sleep through some prank. Now, ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... kept step with him in the race. Like the Sun-god, he was buoyant and beautiful, careless, free, elastic, unfading. Years never cramped his bounding spirits, or dimmed the lustre of his soul. He was ever ready for prank and pastime, for freak and fun. Of all his loves at Elleray, boating was the chief. He was the Lord-High-Admiral of all the neighboring waters, and had a navy at his beck. He never wearied of the lake: whether she smiled or frowned on her devotee, he worshipped all the same. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... these fellows," said Elmer, seriously, "and both Toby and Ty gave me their word of honor that no game or joke was set up between them. If Nat is playing a prank then he's doing it on his ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... said Tommy, "we'll bury it in a corner of your garden." Shaking with laughter, and wildly elated at the success of their mad prank, they very nearly ran, as they were leaving Chesham Lodge, straight into the arms of a policeman, who, with slow and solemn tread, was pacing down the road. That narrow shave calmed them somewhat, and probably there was not one of them who did not ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... saluted his fourth spouse With all the ceremonies of his rank, Who cleared her sparkling eyes and smoothed her brows, As suits a matron who has played a prank; These must seem doubly mindful of their vows, To save the credit of their breaking bank: To no men are such cordial greetings given As those whose wives have made them fit ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Queen, in a tone which she tried to make very severe, "you have passed all reasonable bounds in this last prank; you have outraged and insulted my faithful servant—and, worse than all, you have told an untruth. If it had not been for this last, I might have forgiven you after you had made fitting apologies to the prime minister; even now ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... were the temptations that led me early into lawless habits. I associated with others friendless like myself; I formed them into a band, I was their chief and captain. All shepherd-boys alike, while our flocks were spread over the pastures, we schemed and executed many a mischievous prank, which drew on us the anger and revenge of the rustics. I was the leader and protector of my comrades, and as I became distinguished among them, their misdeeds were usually visited upon me. But while I endured punishment and pain in their defence with the spirit of an hero, I ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... advanced the clock by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you deny this, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... him for making fools of us," said Prank, pettishly. "No, Mother, what you say may be very good, but I don't want to do ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... which he laid on the floor lest it should play him the same prank over again, Joe Corney once more settled himself in the easy-chair and resolved to give his mind to meditation. Just then the City clocks pealed forth ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... it could be done in the time," I said, calling to mind a prank related by a gay little friend—"clap it on ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... a good and holy hermit, sir, the pious clerk of Copmanhurst, that you wot of, who played many a prank with us in the days that we knew King Richard. Ah, noble sir, that was a jovial ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... theory that it might be a hoax grew more and more implausible as he contemplated it. He was positive he knew no one capable of such a prank, and to suppose that any stranger had gone to so much trouble to play a trick on him ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... warning ahead that it is to be severe. It seems to be a meteorological prank in order ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... about a month after the interview above related he sent word to Quennebert that the Chevalier de Moranges had left Perregaud's completely recovered from his wound. But the nearly fatal result of the chevalier's last prank seemed to have subdued his adventurous spirit; he was no longer seen in public, and was soon forgotten by all his acquaintances with the exception of Mademoiselle de Guerchi. She faithfully treasured up the memory of his words of passion, his looks of love, the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... prevent possible loss from some prank of mischievous boys or thieving negroes, Maurice had secured a long and stout chain, with a padlock, and at night this was so attached to the dinky that no one could sneak the stumpy little craft away without the use of a hatchet to chop out the staple; and while this ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... hats in hand, George Gaylord said: "Allow me, Miss Fenwick, to introduce to you my friend and college chum, Fillmore Flagg: for a peculiar purpose of his own he wishes to regain possession of that flighty paper which, fortunately for him, the prank playing wind carried to your feet ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... Theatre Guild this morning and played hide and seek with them in the park—such a merry set of rascals! Teresa Helburn invented a new prank—she took all my MSS. and hid them in a tin box for ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... love of mischief was speeding him into other experiences ere he reached his bed that night. Some of the consequences of his mischievous prank were to be immediate, ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... into the brown shade to meet him, with such a shamefaced, boyish air of conscious delinquency. Conscious, indeed, that he was the author of a certain commotion, but very far, assuredly, from being conscious that he, Gifford Crayshaw, by means of this schoolboy prank, was taking the decisive step towards a change in the destiny of every soul then bearing a part ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Saracens thronged amain, Seated the king on his throne again, And the Algalif said, "'Twas a sorry prank, Raising your weapon to slay the Frank. It was yours to hearken in silence there." "Sir," said Gan, "I may meetly bear, But for all the wealth of your land arrayed, For all the gold that God hath made, Would I not live ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... fairy played, but this I ken weel, that Wullie had nae great goo o' his performance; so he sits thinkin' to himsel': 'This maun be a deil's get, Auld Waughorn himsel' may come to rock his son's cradle, and play me some foul prank;' so he catches the bairn by the cuff o' the neck, and whupt him into the fire, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... turns up quite permiskus, and always upon the full trot; He seemed mixed up with Portias, and Doges, smart gals, and the dickens knows wot. All kep waving their arms like mad semy-phores, doin' the akrybat prank, As if they was swimming in nothink, or 'ailing a 'bus ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... men who were closeted together heard these words they were perplext as to their affair, and said one to other, "What shall we do? Indeed we are unable to sit out three days in this stead." Hereupon the Pieman said to them, "Nay, rather let us play a prank whereby we may escape," and said they, "What may be the device thou wouldest devise?" Quoth he, "Whatso I do that do ye look upon and then act in like guise," and so speaking he arose and taking his minced meat fell to sticking it upon his skin until he was like a leper covered with sores.[FN415] ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... looked up to see the monkey swinging by his tail from a bough, holding the great cock-a- doodle by his splendid tail, while all the twenty hens clucked and cackled with wrath and fear at such a dreadful prank. ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... hand, Startled eyes of hazel bland Kindling, growing larger, Up thou leapest with a spring, Full of prank and ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... talkative and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for servants, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... him now, I do, skippin' along street fresh an' nimblelike, his eyne chock full o' mischief lookin' round fur to see some poor soul to play a prank on. It do feel strange-like to have him a-sittin' by my elbow today. Many's the tale I could tell o' his doin' an' our sufferin'. Why, I mind a poor lump of a 'prentice as I wunst had, a loon as never could raise a keek: poor ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... to cut the tail from the horse on which he road, binding themselves thereby with a perpetuall reproach: for afterward (by the will of God) it so happened, that every one which came of that kinred of men which plaied that naughty prank, were borne with tails, even ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... companion and, in his own person, return to Sowell Street. But, lest the man might suspect there was in his actions something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant, tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned there. Calling up the London office of the REPUBLIC, he directed that one of his assistants, an English ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... stage, and the scheme he would offer for their mutual emolument. At the same time he resolved within himself to keep such a strict eye over his future actions, as would frustrate any design he might hereafter harbour, of repeating the prank he had so successfully played upon him, in their journey from ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... French captain, who was once prisoner here, being with his ship at Plymouth, hath played some freakes there, for which his men being beat out of the town, he hath put up a flag of defiance, and also somewhere there about did land with his men and go a mile into the country, and did some prank; which sounds pretty odd to our disgrace, but we are in condition now to bear any thing. But, blessed be God! all the Court is full of good news of my Lord Sandwich having made a peace between Spain and Portugall; which is mighty great news, and above all to my Lord's honour more than ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... Mimi and Musette With: "S'il vous plait, une cigarette?" Marcel and Rudolf, Shaunard too, Behold the old rapscallion crew, With flowing tie and shaggy head . . . Who says Bohemia is dead? Oh shades of Murger! prank and clown, And I will ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... presently espied that I sought—a place where the coping was gone with sundry of the bricks, making here a gap very apt to escalade; and here, years agone, I had been wont to climb this wall to the furtherance of some boyish prank on many a night such as this. Awhile stood I staring up at this gap, then, seizing hold of massy brickwork, I drew myself up and dropped into a walled garden. Here were beds of herbs well tended and orderly, and, as I went, I breathed an air ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... another much in the same way as we used to do years before, when she had detected me in some boyish prank, and assumed the mentor while I felt a culprit. How really I felt a culprit at that moment she could ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... lieutenant as he walked to and fro. "To think of the boy being missing like this.—Now you, sirs, in with that boat.—Where can he be? Not the lad to go off on any prank.—There, go below and get something to eat, my lads.—All comes of being sent into a miserable little boat like ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... with a finality I could not ignore. I let it go at that, but twice I got up and went outside to look. There burned the light, diabolically like a signal fire on the peak, where no fire should be. I began to seek explanations, but the best of them were vague. Electricity playing a prank of some obscure kind,—that was as close as I could get to it, and even that did not satisfy as it should have done, perhaps because the high, barren mesas and the mountains of bare rocks are in themselves weird and sinister, and commonplace ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... pen away, That so feebly runs on paper; Keep him quiet, or he'll play Other trait'rous prank and caper. Why apologize for treason, Or ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his face in the tilted mirror caught and held his attention. Could that harsh semblance of a man be himself? Various periods of his life flashed in separate pictures before him. Glimpses of his college days; this and that gay prank of irresponsible youth. Then came incidents of his first business ventures; his dealings with Jefferson Henderson stood out sharply. The old man's first intuitive fears of coming loss rang in his ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... go there again," commanded the oldest sister, still trembling with fright at what might have happened to the daring berry pickers, but she never thought to question them any further, and Peace's prank remained a secret ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... which is brought to your attention of a sighting of a flying disc in order to ascertain whether or not it is a bona fide sighting, an imaginary one or a prank. You should also bear in mind that individuals might report seeing flying discs for various reasons. It is conceivable that an individual might be desirous of seeking personal publicity, causing hysteria, or ...
— Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA Documents - Unidentified Flying Objects • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
... happy, and they'll be so proud of you. Won't you try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... rode nto Alcudia, and brought the Infantes his sons-in-law from thence with him into the city to the Alcazar, that they might see their brides Doa Elvira and Doa Sol. Doa Ximena had her daughters ready to receive them in full noble garments, for since midnight they had done nothing but prink and prank themselves. Full richly was the Alcazar set out that day, with hangings both above and below, purple and samite, and rich cloth. The Cid entered, between the Infantes, and all that noble company went in after them; and they went into the ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... weatherbeaten face. "Gods!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are just beginning to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... without paying their share of the reckoning—'if a maun, or ony maun, or ony other maun,' &c. &c.; you have both the same redundant eloquence. But why should you think any body would personate you? Nobody would dream of such a prank who ever read your compositions, and perhaps not many who have heard your conversation. But I have been inoculated with a little of your prolixity. The fact is, my dear R——ts, that somebody has tried to make a fool of you, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... and play-time of the year, . . . . the little ones, a sportive team, Gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prank their hair ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... at hand, fairly startling her, it was so unexpected. "Zoe, what mad prank is this? Let me help you ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... received as a part of the conqueror's spoils a collection of Egyptian antiquities which the savants of Napoleon's expedition had gathered and carefully packed, and even shipped preparatory to sending them to the Louvre. The feelings of these savants may readily be imagined when, through this sad prank of war, their invaluable treasures were envoyed, not to their beloved France, but to the land of their dearest enemies, there to be turned over to the trustees of the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... suddenly a young sailor jumped through one of the open windows into the apartment, whistled and danced a hornpipe, and before they could recover from their amazement jumped out again. A few minutes later my father walked in at the door as sedately as though quite innocent of the prank, and shook hands with everyone; but the sight of their amazed faces proving too much for his attempted sobriety, his hearty laugh was the signal for the rest of the party to join in his merriment. But judging from his slight ability in later years, I fancy that ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... with me this morning,—one of those that are here in the house,—telling me some story about some other girl that you have made a fool of. It's nothing to me how much of that sort of thing you may have done, so that you do none of it here. But,—if you play any prank of that kind with me, you'll find that ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... Behold! these are the tribunes of the people, The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise them; For they do prank them in authority, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... is very familiar to me, as I have often received a scolding for some boyish, and therefore not very wise or orderly prank, in these terns:—"One would think you were not altogether gradely," or, as it was sometimes varied into, "You would make one believe you were not right in your head;" meaning, "One would think you had not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... to the crossing of the trails, and Dolly replaced the signs as they had been before she had played her thoughtless prank. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... Edie Ochiltree had observed Dousterswivel stand somewhat disconsolate and sad, looking into the open grave. Age had not dulled Edie's wit, nor caused him to relish less a boyish prank. His quick eye had caught some writing on the lid of the box of treasure, and while all were admiring the solid ingots of precious metal laid bare before them, Edie kicked the piece of wood aside without ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... No merrier lad's Sweet laughter ever rang! But he is so generous and so frank, His wildest wit or his maddest prank Can never cause ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... cheek, like rosebuds in a wreath; And those more distant showing from beneath The others' wings their little eyes of light. While see! Among the clouds, their eldest brother, But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss, This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother, Who turns to greet the tidings ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... Jane that same afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank. "I do hate her ways," she exclaimed, "but I'm sorry I let her know we 'spected her; and so to make up, I gave her that little piece of broken coral I keep in my bead purse; you ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... man could possibly be he had not the remotest idea. He tried to recall who of his acquaintances might be guilty of playing such a joke on him. To the mind of Janus the incident could have been only a prank, though he questioned the good taste of any such interference between himself ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... remember perfectly the impression made upon me by the story of the wicked miller's wife, who transformed herself at night into a cat, and how I consoled myself with the fact that in the end she did indeed receive due punishment for this wicked prank. The cat, namely, when once starting out on her nightly walk, had a paw chopped off by the miller's apprentice, who thought she looked suspicious, and the next day the miller's wife lay in bed with a bloody right ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... day.'" Now when the four men who were closeted together heard these words they were perplext as to their affair, and said one to other, "What shall we do? Indeed we are unable to sit out three days in this stead." Hereupon the Pieman said to them, "Nay, rather let us play a prank whereby we may escape," and said they, "What may be the device thou wouldest devise?" Quoth he, "Whatso I do that do ye look upon and then act in like guise," and so speaking he arose and taking his minced meat fell to sticking ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... and appeared in a great hurry. To my surprise, however, he stopped and exclaimed quite cordially, "Ah, cousin, you are a stranger! I have not seen you for a long time. I was sorry to hear of Peleton's mad prank. Were ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... He was the centre and the head of the revel, unquenchably joyous, a contagion of fun. He multiplied himself, and in so doing multiplied the excitement. No prank he suggested was too wild for his followers, and all followed save those that developed into singing imbeciles and fell warbling by the wayside. Yet never did trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon that when Burning Daylight made a night of it, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... not answer for a moment. He looked like a naughty schoolboy caught In a foolish prank. The ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... windows of the house, though I could not make quite sure without asking more questions than I thought worth while. She came stealing in early in the morning, looking a little pale and wild, but she hasn't played such a prank since. I had a call to the next town and Marilla had evidently been awake all night. I got home early in the morning myself, and was told that it was supposed I had picked up Nan on the road and carried her with me, so the blame was all ready for my shoulders unless we had both happened ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Adam, clapping me on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly of ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... not play such capers every night. The genius of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have sufficed to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a year. In the first place, circumstances were not always propitious: sometimes the moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly irritated their betters; then one or another of their number refused to share in some proposed outrage because a relation was involved. But if the scamps were not at Mere Cognette's every night, they always met during the ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... far above the others: John Ringo, Prank Stilwell, Zwing Hunt, the Clanton brothers, and Billy Grounds. They were "He Wolves." And there was Curly Bill, the worst of all. He might be said to ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... all," she said. "It was a prank one would expect you to play. Though it's a very long time since I saw you, you haven't changed, Dick. Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come back ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... the boat is gone! what prank next? Thou careless unthrift, ill-luck follows i' thy wake. She has slipped anchor, and the little Kitty is gone to the Manx herring-boats. I am ruined, thou limb of Old Nick! thou ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... though he died long ago, and others have probably forgotten all about the naughty prank. I often longed to ask him how he knew the surest way to win a child's heart by the patience, sympathy, and tender little acts that have kept his memory green for nearly ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... he helped himself to cream and sifted sugar with leisurely satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all, there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business— Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... fellows, the truth is that you are all on the wrong scent. I haven't thought up a blessed prank for to-night." ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... gone a babel of tongues broke forth, and there were loud and angry cries for Le Brusquet, whose "fool's prank," as they called it, had caused this storm. Le Brusquet, however, was not to be seen. He had stolen in, thrown his apple of discord, and stolen forth again like a ghost. None knew or understood better than he ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... as more to be prized than that of Dux and Randall scholar. Harry was in his room the next morning as soon as ever he was stirring, a welcome guest—teased a little at first, by his pretending to take it all as a sailor's prank to hoax him and Richard, and then free to pour out to delighted ears the whole history of the examination, and of every ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... been bothering Malone all along. There didn't seem to be any purpose to the car thefts. They hadn't been sold, or used as getaway cars. True, teenage delinquents sometimes stole cars just to use them joy-riding, or as some sort of prank. ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... into the man's eyes, his face flushed like the face of a schoolboy who had been caught in a foolish prank, and he returned the hat awkwardly to ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm a ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... here on dis spot an' rode a wheel to Fernwood every day, an' fed de teams an' hitched 'em to de wagons an' I was niver late an' niver stopped fer anything, an' my wheel niver was in de shop. I niver 'lowed anybody to prank wid it, an' dat wheel was broke ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... brought herself into a high fever, where she lay without so much as calling for aid in her extremity; not that she was afraid the cheat she had put on Octavio would be discovered; for she had lost the remembrance that any such prank was played; and in this multitude of thoughts of more concern, had forgot all the rest of ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are just beginning to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... navigate the ship, do you; and must needs try and take an observation yourself? Do you and your mates try that prank again, and I'll land you all on the first island we sight, where you may follow your own pleasure, if the savages don't knock you on the head and eat you; and if some one doesn't take you off, which is not very likely, there you will remain to the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... Mirdath then to explain to me how that Mistress Alison (which was her name) was a dear and bosom friend, and she it was that had been drest in the Court suit to play a prank for a wager with a certain young man who would be lover to her, an he might. And I then to come along, and so speedy to offence that truly I never saw her face plain, because that I was so utter jealous. And so the ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... Slimak bitterly, 'there was no policeman to certify that it was we who saved you the hog, but when a boy plays a prank on ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... Varsity Devil, one must bring home a few Souvenirs every Night he goes out. If the Missionaries did it, it would be called Looting. If the Common People did it, it would be called Petit Larceny. But with us, it is merely a Student Prank." ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... set this down as a prank. She's full of high spirits—only a child yet. She's gone somewhere, to some friend's house, is playing a joke on you. Isn't ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... which Francesco, Giovanni, Garzia, and Ernando, the Duke's sons, were joined by young Malatesta de' Malatesti and other pages of the household. One such boyish prank, when the Court was at Pisa, in the winter of 1550, had a tragic ending. In the pages' common room the lads were playing with shot-guns, which were supposed to be unloaded. Picking up one of these, by mere chance, Malatesta aimed it jokingly ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... fifteen minutes every evening with the best middleweight in the corps. There were times in his early cadet days when he was suspected of having an ugly temper, and perhaps with reason. Exasperated at some prank played at his expense by a little "yearling" toward the close of his first—the "plebe"—encampment, Loring actually kicked the offender out of his tent. The boy was no match for the older, heavier man, but flew at ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... this do the rules provide! This is scandal, this is a shame, This madcap prank in Our Lady's name. Out of the doors with him; back to the street: He has no place ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... been frightened by an appearance at the window. At once they all faced the imperturbable window, and for a moment there was a silence. An astute lad made an immediate census of the other lads. The prank of slipping out and looming spectrally at a window was too venerable. But the little boys were all ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... a gallery across the entire front," she resumed. "After a year together in that school Sam and I went to the school taught by Mrs. Horr. It was then he used to write notes to me and bring apples to school and put them on my desk. And once, as a punishment for some prank, he had to sit with the girls and occupied a vacant seat by me. He didn't seem to mind the penalty at all," Mrs. Frazer added with another laugh, "so I don't know whether it was effective as ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... author of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" upon some historic issue, and the historian led him grotesquely astray. Who would not have accepted anything Gibbon said without criticism? Who would have expected this great personage capable of indulging in a school-boy prank? Goldsmith's writings prove him well instructed and widely read, and show his mind as curiously stored and equipped as its whole genius was charming and gracious. If he could not talk, but could only write, then the pen in his hand is taken as an instrument capable of exerting hypnotic ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... King's deer in Woolmer Chase, or broke the head of Hobbs the chapman, so that he lay for seven days betwixt life and death in our infirmary, saved only by Brother Peter's skill in the pharmacies of herbs; but to put pike in the Abbot's pond—why should he play such a devil's prank?" ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... door, which he laid on the floor lest it should play him the same prank over again, Joe Corney once more settled himself in the easy-chair and resolved to give his mind to meditation. Just then the City clocks pealed forth the ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... home, the four boys had been content to take it easy, spending their time roaming the fields, helping to gather the fruit, of which there was great abundance, and in going fishing and swimming. But then Andy and Randy had found time growing a little heavy on their hands, and one prank had been followed by another. Some of the tricks had been played on Jack and Fred, and they, of course, had done their best to retaliate, and this had, on more than one occasion, brought forth a forceful, but good-natured, pitched battle, and ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... last to leave the dormitory, stopped for a moment and looked about at the sleeping girls. Then, satisfied that they were really asleep and that none of them suspected the prank, she followed the other girls out into the hall and closed ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... out of Greek and Roman lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his fellow-dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose Rosalynd contributed so much to the Poet's As You Like It: for it was then much the fashion for authors to prank up their matter with superfluous erudition. Like all the surviving works of Greene, Pandosto is greatly charged with learned impertinence, and in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt to overlook the real merit of the performance. It is better than ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... apace, and I followed them. At the same time, I was fully conscious that I was playing a mad prank without being able to stop myself. My disordered condition ran away with me; I was inspired with the craziest notions, which I followed blindly as they came to me. I couldn't help it, no matter how much I told myself that I was playing the fool. I made the most idiotic ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... walk till the purple dieth, And short dry grass under foot is brown, But one little streak at a distance lieth Green, like a ribbon, to prank ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... his un-mittened hand he held his revolver. With staring eyes he looked for Bram out where the wolves had passed. And then, all at once, came the shock. It was tremendous. The trickery of sound on the Barren had played an unexpected prank with his senses, and while he strained his eyes to pierce the hazy starlight of the plain far out, Bram himself loomed up suddenly along the edge of the bush not twenty ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... a pretty good boy in the main, was a crafty one. I never knew, certainly, whether or not Halstead and Ellen had any previous knowledge as to the prank Addison played with the Vermifuge, but I rather think not. There was another large flask-shaped bottle in the same cupboard, about half full of elderberry wine, old and quite thick, which Gram had made years before. It was used only "for sickness," and was always kept on ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... whom I've found *** you understand—for shame Your crimes are such as all must blush to name. Though I may have a negro for gallant, And erred when Atis for me seemed to pant, His merit and the black's superior rank, Must lessen, if not quite excuse my prank. Howe'er, old boy, you presently shall see, If any belle solicited should be, To grant indulgencies, with presents sweet, She will not straight capitulation beat; At least, if they be such as I have viewed:— Moor, change to dog; immediately ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... Shortly after this mad prank of Kelson's, Mr. Millinet invited Mary to walk out one lovely evening, to which she gladly assented. They took their way towards the "Whale's Head," a name given by the inhabitants of B—— to the high bluff already mentioned, that formed the eastern side of their harbor, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... good business, and his expenses were light. He could afford to play tricks, but he played a foolish prank in trying to amuse Rabbit township. Rabbit was incapable of ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... older readers will remember the thrilling experiences of this boyish trio during the early trials of the new submarine torpedo boat, both above and below the surface. These readers will remember, also, for instance, the great prank played by the boys on the watch officer of one of the stateliest battleships ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... himself and act wisely, something about Just's brave acknowledgment, where silence would have covered the whole thing, appealed to him. The thought of the way the absent father and mother had met every confession of his own that he could remember in a life of prank-playing softened the words which came next to ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... in high spirits at thought of her prank, while Droop closed the tight iron shutters at each window, thus ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... [FN424] i.e. an thou prank or adorn thyself: I have translated literally, but the couplet strongly suggests ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... you remember, only to be chased up the hill without his purchase. So to-day Little John was chosen, and for sweet company's sake Robin went with him a part of the way until they came to the "Seven Does," the inn where Robin had recently played his prank upon Middle the tinker. Here they drank a glass of ale to refresh themselves withal, and for good luck; and Robin tarried a bit while Little John ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... gambols must, I thought, bring refreshment to weary souls who, their present taken from them and their future dark, had no life save the shadow of their vanished past. Many a merry but never a rude prank did the children play; and if they did at times cause a momentary jar in the rhythm of the dance, the poor spectres, who had nothing to smile withal, at ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... here come Mimi and Musette With: "S'il vous plait, une cigarette?" Marcel and Rudolf, Shaunard too, Behold the old rapscallion crew, With flowing tie and shaggy head . . . Who says Bohemia is dead? Oh shades of Murger! prank and clown, And I will watch and write ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... the Infantes his sons-in-law from thence with him into the city to the Alcazar, that they might see their brides Doa Elvira and Doa Sol. Doa Ximena had her daughters ready to receive them in full noble garments, for since midnight they had done nothing but prink and prank themselves. Full richly was the Alcazar set out that day, with hangings both above and below, purple and samite, and rich cloth. The Cid entered, between the Infantes, and all that noble company went in after them; and they went into the chief hall of the Alcazar, where Doa ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... go here, Franklin. I expect my students to have more common sense than that. Of course, it may have been nothing but a boyish prank, and if you can give me your word that the snowball which went down the stairs and hit Professor Duke was not aimed at him deliberately, I shall feel inclined to ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... me somewhat as Mr. Belknap-Jackson did last night and when my own deportment was quite all that could be wished. It occurs to me now that it was because his lordship was, how shall I say?—quite far gone in liquor at the time, so that I could without loss of dignity pass it off as a mere prank. Indeed, he regarded it as such himself, performing the act with a good nature that I found quite irresistible, and I am certain that neither his lordship nor I have ever thought the less of each other because of it. I revert to this merely to show that I have not ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... grumbling slanders on the legitimacy of the student body. "One of those little angels shoots me, it's just a cute little prank, and we oughtn't to frown on the little darling when it's just trying to express its dear little personality, or we might give it complexes, or something," he falsettoed incongruously. "And if the little darling's mistake doesn't kill me outright and I shoot back, people talk about King Herod!" He ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... man of mature age and strong understanding, is almost invariably the sign of a bad heart—a taste for severe practical jokes. If a courtier was fond of dress, oil was flung over his richest suit. If he was fond of money, some prank was invented to make him disburse more than he could spare. If he was hypochondriacal, he was made to believe that he had the dropsy. If he had particularly set his heart on visiting a place, a letter was forged to frighten him from going thither. These things, it may be said, are trifles. They ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... intimacy with the future poet. He describes graphically his first meeting with the youth who was to be his lifelong friend. He first saw Jos sliding down from a third-story balcony on a tin waterspout. In the light of later years Escosura felt that in this boyish prank the child was father of the man. The boy who preferred waterspouts to stairways, later in life always scorned the beaten path, and "the illogical road, no matter how venturesome and hazardous it was, attracted ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... the happier he was, and the higher in rank the prisoners happened to be, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed the expression of countenance he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me, but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul and La ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to believe it. There are two of us. That dinner! And out of an innocent prank comes this! Folly, always folly!" And as she remembered the piece of folly she was about to start out upon, she laughed. "Mad? Yes. Only, to your madness there is some ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter and larger than the sun or the moon: A blazing star, I foretell, 'twill ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... dear Wilton," replied Lord Sherbrooke, "the adventure is mine. All other trades failing, and having exhausted every other mad prank but that, I am taking a turn upon the King's Highway, which has become far more fashionable now-a-days than the Park, the puppet-show, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... the open windows into the apartment, whistled and danced a hornpipe, and before they could recover from their amazement jumped out again. A few minutes later my father walked in at the door as sedately as though quite innocent of the prank, and shook hands with everyone; but the sight of their amazed faces proving too much for his attempted sobriety, his hearty laugh was the signal for the rest of the party to join in his merriment. But judging from his slight ability in later years, I fancy that ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... favorable, with no mention of the possibility of any aggravating circumstances. An inevitable feverishness, and a great lassitude, which must be met with absolute repose for several days, would be the only consequences of this dangerous prank. ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... been cutting up the greatest prank you ever heard of. She almost deserves to be shut up for daring to do it. Can't ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... so gay in relating his childish prank, he jested so merrily about his ruin, that the Countess looked at him in surprise, as he had looked at her on entering.... We understand ourselves so little, and we know so little about our own singularities of character, that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Laura played this prank with the wig, you can't suppose that Pen could have been very ill upstairs; otherwise, though she had grown to care for him ever so little, common sense of feeling and decorum would have prevented her from performing any ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... quickly off the bench on which he had been seated, and running rapidly on all fours among the crowd, suddenly jumped upon the back of a small boy who had been hitherto enjoying the fun and laughing very heartily at the antics of the monkey. This last prank, however, frightened the small boy very much, and he ran about wildly, with the ape seated on his shoulders, screaming loudly. As the monkey held on bravely, with each hand grasping firmly a handful of the boy's hair, the little fellow had some excuse for ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... but I was joking," the old rascal declared. "Wash and I always prank with each other. You can take a joke, ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... people separated, still singing and laughing; never dreaming of the storm brewing from their evening's prank. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... talked, you may be sure. The Lunda boys were decidedly in favour of Yaspard's scheme—was there ever a boy who would have objected to any such prank? They saw no harm in it whatever, ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... probable that there was any real connection between these Gates, of Saracenic design, carved (it is said) in Himalayan cedar, and the Temple of Somnath. But tradition did ascribe to them such a connection, and the eccentric prank of a clever man in high place made this widely known. Nor in any case can we regard as alien to the scope of this book the illustration of a work of mediaeval Asiatic art, which is quite as remarkable for its own character and indisputable history, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... sixteen. I had graduated from the seminary and was pursuing my studies at the Preacher's Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent scholar. You are a ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... "And," said Prank, utterly taken aback by Tom's business-like levity, "you would actually have stood to shoot, and be shot at, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... himself filled with a supernatural courage that came from nowhere. That jingling music seemed full of the vivacity, the vulgarity, and the irrational valour of the poor, who in all those unclean streets were all clinging to the decencies and the charities of Christendom. His youthful prank of being a policeman had faded from his mind; he did not think of himself as the representative of the corps of gentlemen turned into fancy constables, or of the old eccentric who lived in the dark room. But he did feel ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... both children explained the affair so clearly, that the old magistrates looked rather foolish, and dismissed the case with a reprimand to Jonathan for wasting his time so foolishly. But some good came of the boy's prank after all. For his father, seeing how near Jonathan came being proved a witch, bestirred himself in favor of poor School-master Halleck, who was set ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... vengeance, Commander de Jars kept his word, and about a month after the interview above related he sent word to Quennebert that the Chevalier de Moranges had left Perregaud's completely recovered from his wound. But the nearly fatal result of the chevalier's last prank seemed to have subdued his adventurous spirit; he was no longer seen in public, and was soon forgotten by all his acquaintances with the exception of Mademoiselle de Guerchi. She faithfully treasured up the memory of his words of passion, his looks of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... chill the water more speedily when in this condition; then again the chances of knocking one of the interlopers on the head with a heavy lump of ice falling quite some distance would be obviated. Hugh did not intend that this prank should end in a tragedy, if ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... LaChaise, who was one of the conductors at the Metropolitan and was to have the direction of the summer opera out here at Ravinia this year. Portia added with the falsely deprecatory air of a mother apologizing for a child's prank, that Pietro had in fact, already invited him to the dinner and had only just informed her of the fact. Lucile had assured her, of course, that this addition to the company would cause not the slightest inconvenience, served on the contrary to bring it up to the number that had originally been ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Benny Ellison's cotton shirt down behind the log. Seizing the sleeves, he proceeded to tie the thin garment into hard knots. It was the old schoolboy trick. He had had it played on him many a time in swimming—and done the same by others; but he had never entered into the prank with half the zest as now. He tugged at the knots and ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... somebody before he's done—a beast!—Tigers is angels to him, sir," he continued appealingly to Morris. "He's the wickedest elephant I ever see, and I've spent more on him in damages than I paid for him at first; but he's played his last prank, and if I can't drive him I can shoot.—'Member that lion, my lads, as killed the ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... at the word 'prank,' just like he'd never had one single advantage of foreign travel. 'He does indeed—one of those Hammersmith twin louts was with him—the speckled devil with the lisp, I gather—and praise God his bones, at least, are ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... home by his mother and sent to school at Taunton, where he stayed for five years. He is sure to have been liked by his schoolfellows, for he was a very lively, mischievous boy, constantly inventing some fresh prank, but never shirking the punishment it frequently brought. At Woolwich, which he entered as a cadet at fifteen, it was just the same. He was continually defying, in a good-humoured way, those who were set over him, and more than once he had a very ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... appreciate this way he's got of treating it like a spoiled kid's prank. I'm going to make him recognize the fact that I'm a man, by golly, and that I look at things like a man. He's got to be proud to have me in the family, before I come into the family. He ain't going to take me in as one more kid to look after. I'll come in as his equal in honesty and business ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... wolf, making pretty objects like this my prey!" Then, choosing his moment carefully, by a quick turn he confronted Sesostris sternly, and almost thundered: "You speak of my doing ill to this maiden? You speak—the slave of Pratinas, who is the leader in every vice and wild prank in Rome! Has the slave as well as the master learned to play the hypocrite? Do you want to be tortured into confessing your part in all your master's crimes when the hour of reckoning comes and he ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... desirous of doing penance because of his wretched failure as a prank player, Bandy-legs did work, bringing wood to the outside of the ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... if the poles should frisk about And stand upon their heads! I hope I'm ready for the worst, Whatever prank betides." ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... the doctor walked out of Dugro's office without a dollar. It was utterly impossible for a man of his temperament to realize it. The crash had come so suddenly, its work was so complete and overwhelming it seemed a sort of foolish prank Fate had ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... the unpacking of the great basket, to listen to the fun as the simple presents and absurd jokes came to light, one after another, while Jean now wiped away a tear or two over Katharine's dainty gift, now laughed convulsively over some ridiculous prank of Alan's plotting? And all the time, the chorus went on, now explaining, now joking, but always bringing to Jean the welcome assurance that her friends did not forget her even ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... see the hock-cart crowned. About the cart, hear how the rout Of rural younglings raise the shout; Pressing before, some coming after, Those with a shout, and these with laughter. Some bless the cart, some kiss the sheaves, Some prank them up with oaken leaves: Some cross the fill-horse, some with great Devotion stroke the home-borne wheat: While other rustics, less attent To prayers than to merriment, Run after with their breeches rent. Well, on, brave boys, to ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... having one night challenged a fellow-student and received no answer, fired, and took such good aim that the poor young man fell dead on the pavement. Horrified and amazed at the fatal result of his mad prank, the student fled, hoping ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... though I had driven my friend into a corner from which he would find it difficult to extricate himself. But I did him an injustice and shall therefore do everything in my power to right it. My memory, as it so frequently does, played me a prank. At the same time that I answered him, I was in active correspondence with one of the delegates to the Chicago Parliament of Religions, at which the love of God and one's neighbour had been adopted, as a sort of article of agreement which the followers of any or ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... are the tribunes of the people; The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise them, For they do prank them in authority, Against ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... that Comet came home, in disgrace—a gun-shy dog, a coward, expelled from college, not for some youthful prank, but because he was—yellow. And he knew he was disgraced. He saw it in the face of the big man, Devant, who looked at him in the yard where he had spent his happy puppyhood, then turned away. He knew it because of what he saw in the face ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... into solemn contract when we were of less tender age; but there never was betrothal; and before any fit time for it had come, I had the mishap to have the maid close to me—she was ever besetting and running after me—when by some prank, unhappily of mine, a barrel of gunpowder blew up and wellnigh tore her to pieces. My father came, and her mother, an unnurtured, uncouth woman, who would have forced me to wed her on the spot, but my father would not hear of it, more especially as there were then two male heirs, so that I should ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ammunition, the vermilion-painted powder hoys I had observed in the distance at the mouth of the harbour being now nearly alongside the ship; and, all of a sudden, as my reckless shipmates were pulling me almost to pieces between them in their mad prank, there came a cry from the deck ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a solium of the solid wave, Prank'd with rude shapes by the fantastic frost, He stood in silence;—now keen thoughts engrave Dark figures on his front; and, tempest-toss'd, He fears to say that every hope is lost. Meanwhile the multitude as death are mute; ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... love the Game. So warm they glow, Not seldom rise imperial quarrels; And not so many moons ago Jove boxed with zeal Apollo's laurels. The question ran, Was Arthur Mold Unfairly stigmatised by muffs, Or did he play a dubious prank? Venus herself began to scold, And Gods by dozens on a bank Profanely ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... brains o' a cock spug," I heard him sayin' till himsel', "ye michta jaloosed they were to play ye some prank. You muckle, dozent gozlin'," he says; an' he took himsel' a skelp i' the side o' the heid wi' his open luif that near ca'd him on his back. In his stagger his feet tickled amon' his claes, an' he gaithered them up, an' lookit fair dumfoondered like. He put them a' on; an' ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... they were men who when at home manifested the most gentle and wide-reaching feelings; most of them could not by any possibility have slapped a kitten merely for the prank and yet all of them who had seen an unknown man shot through the head in battle had little more to think of it than if the man had been a rag-baby. Tender they might be; poets they might be; but they were all horned with a provisional, temporary, but absolutely ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... have advanced the clock by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... to some deviltry I can always tell it on you—you look so incredibly meek and meechin', like a cat eatin' the canary," he remarked severely. "Thank you for a biscuit. And the sugar! Now what warlockry is this?" He jerked a thumb at the far-off fires. "What's the merry prank?" ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... lost in his bet with Eells and deposited all his money in the bank he was looked upon almost with pride as a picturesque asset of the town. He made talk, and that was made into publicity, and publicity helped the town. And now this mad prank upon which he seemed bent gave promise of even greater renown. So he had had a bad dream? That piqued their curiosity, but they were not kept long in doubt. Dismounting at the bank, he glanced up at the front and then made a plunge through ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... to us one day at Genoa, and enjoyed our dismay at it like a froward boy who has achieved what he considers some mischievous prank. He offered us a copy, but we declined to accept it; for, being in the habit of seeing Mr. Rogers frequently beneath our roof, we thought it would be treacherous to him. Byron, however, found others less scrupulous, and three or four ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... tulips prank their state Has drunk the life-blood of the great; The violets yon fields which stain Are moles of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... implements as handles, carried the booms some distance back into the woods. Then everybody tramped back and forth, round and about, to confuse the trail. Orde was like a mischievous boy at a school prank. When the last timber had been concealed, he lifted up his deep voice in a roar of joy, in ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... A like prank vnder the like assumed names, and with like successe and boding, they plaied, when Octauius and Anthony were, with like meanes, to decide the ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... began writing stories and sketches. The "Tales from Bohemia" collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons whom he met ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... in mischief herself too often when at Phil's age not to feel sympathy with him on the score of the prank he had played that afternoon. It was this same sympathetic understanding of their moods and actions which gave her so much influence with the boys, enabling her to twist them round her little ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... cool, some pilgrims on their way To Sais or Bubastus, among beds Of lotos flowers that close above their heads, Push their light barks, and hid as in a bower Sing, talk, or sleep away the sultry hour, While haply, not far off, beneath a bank Of blossoming acacias, many a prank Is played in the cool current by a train Of laughing nymphs, lovely as she whose chain Around two conquerors of the world was cast; But, for a third too feeble, broke ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... that produced perpetual ferment. They were all the time either fighting or frolicking with each other, and I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, everything went wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each other, or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good natured fellow, the worst character ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... make a spoon or spoil a horn, and—let me have my laugh out—you bid well for an archer," said Randal; and Robin counselling me to play the same prank on the French lad's sword as late I had done on his own, they took each of them an arm of mine, and so we swaggered down ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... he help it, seemingly," she answered. "Any way he swore he was driven to speak. In fact he have had the thing in his prayers for a fortnight. 'Tis a most ondacent, plaguey prank for love to play; for surely at our time of life, we ought to be dead ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... clew. I can't believe that my daughter is wilfully consorting with such men. She always has been full of life and spirit; but she's got a clean mind, and her little escapades have always been entirely harmless—at worst some sort of boyish prank. I simply won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes. If she's with them she's being ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... for who can reduce a fantasy to a formula? Nor should they ever be allowed to clip the wings of romance. But the painter who bade his subject sit under a sodium light would justly be deemed a lunatic, and any analysis of Spencer's character drawn from his latest prank would be ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... been expelled. The president's letter was severe; but the young man's letter regretted it as only a boyish prank. He was sorry. He had never expected anything so serious would come of it. He deserved the disgrace. It only hurt him through his love for her. But only forgive him, and he would show her ...
— The Potato Child and Others • Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
... Mischief had been up to some prank, which had turned out disastrously. But it must have been a serious one, and perhaps there were grave ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... major; 'but what next?' And as Arthur hesitated, 'I misdoubt greatly whether Burnside would give you a helping hand if you came fresh from colloguing with French Jacobites, though my father and all the rest of us at the Lynn aye told him that he might thank himself and his dour old dominie for your prank—you were but a schoolboy then—you are a man now; and though your poor mother would be blithe to set eyes on you, she would be sairly perplexed what gate you had best turn thereafter. Now, see here! There's talk of our being sent to dislodge the Spaniards from Sicily. You are a ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boors were now able to stir themselves again. Doubtless there were many bumps, black and blue faces, and bloody noses: but the sight of all could not suppress the most extravagant merriment. All that had happened was looked upon as a prank of the fiddler, and many in their hearts felt that they had only received a just punishment for their coarse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... salons a very pretty little stage; the fashionable world was au complet, and, after having made our bows to Mrs. Story, we took our places in the theater. Mr. Story was Shylock, and acted extremely well. Edith was very good as Portia. Waldo and Julian both took part. Mr. and Mrs. Prank Lascelles, of the English Embassy, both dressed in black velvet, played the married couple to the life, but did not look at all Italian. The whole performance was really wonderfully well done and most successful; the enthusiasm was sincere and warmed the ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... managed to ion glide over to each other. Their eyes met. They were the butts of a prank that no doubt had been the source ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... Cossacks; and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbours looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious abode; every burned ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... another prank upon her not long afterward and thrust into her hands a possible means of access to John Barron. A favorite resort of Joan's was the brook which ran down the valley beneath Drift and Sancreed. The little stream wound through a fair coomb between orchards, ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... at the result of his prank, had quickly scrambled into his own saddle and drawn back from the scene of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... would mention a name, or allude to some boyish prank which would give them food for plenty of thought. And the home country, so dear and so distant, would little by little gain possession of their minds, sending them back through space, to the well-known forms and noises, to the familiar scenery, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... over the prank that had first earned him the title,—the holding up of the coach that ran between Byestry and Kingsleigh, Nick at the head of a band of half a dozen young scapegraces clad in black masks and huge hats, and armed with old pistols purloined from the historic gun-room of the old Hall! It had been ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... plum, all simp'ring there. Walk in the groves, and thou shalt find The name of Phillis in the rind Of every straight and smooth-skin tree; Where kissing that, I'll twice kiss thee. To thee a sheep-hook I will send, Be-prank'd with ribbons, to this end, This, this alluring hook might be Less for to catch a sheep, than me. Thou shalt have possets, wassails fine, Not made of ale, but spicd wine; To make thy maids and self free mirth, All sitting near the glitt'ring hearth. Thou shalt have ribbands, roses, ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... was your great-grandfather, and Judas your father; and you have trod in their steps (2 Kings 5:20; Matt. 26:14, 15; 27:1-5). It is but a devilish prank that thou usest; thy father was hanged for a traitor, and thou deservest no better reward. Assure thyself, that when we come to the King, we will do Him word of this thy behaviour. Thus they went ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbours looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... rest only for a short time. The sympathy that is capable of entering into the impression of the comic is a very fleeting one. It also comes from a lapse in attention. Thus, a stern father may at times forget himself and join in some prank his child is playing, only to check himself at once in order to ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... of the door, which he laid on the floor lest it should play him the same prank over again, Joe Corney once more settled himself in the easy-chair and resolved to give his mind to meditation. Just then the City clocks pealed forth the ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... his immense iron-grey moustaches with complacency. "I can't guess what prank you may be up to, but you are never starting for Venice in a ball-dress. You 're capable of a good deal, my dear, but you 're ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... midst of a lively caper, dolly went bounce into the garden below, for the string fell from Poppy's hand when she suddenly saw grandpa at the window opposite, laughing as heartily as any one at her prank. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... enormous quarto volumes. I had been working at it for more than a year every evening after the hellish torture of the day's teaching, and all day every holiday, but now I had a good rest while it was playing its boomerang prank of returning to me once a month. The only gleam of hope came from Bentleys, who wrote to say that they could not make up their minds to reject it; but they prevailed upon themselves to part with it at last, though not without asking to see Mr. Bell's next book. At last it was accepted ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... submarine, which pays frequent visits to the district patrolled by the American destroyers. When he has finished his task of distributing his mines where they will do the most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of Irish shore-line, always ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... instance which is brought to your attention of a sighting of a flying disc in order to ascertain whether or not it is a bona fide sighting, an imaginary one or a prank. You should also bear in mind that individuals might report seeing flying discs for various reasons. It is conceivable that an individual might be desirous of seeking personal publicity, causing hysteria, ...
— Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA Documents - Unidentified Flying Objects • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
... in return, suspected Augustus Scarborough. The creditors suspected him. Mountjoy suspected him. The squire did not suspect him, but he suspected the squire. He never could again feel himself to be on comfortable terms of trusting legal friendship with a man who had played such a prank in reference to his marriage as this man had performed. Why, then, should he still be concerned in a matter so distasteful to him? Why should he not wipe his hands of it all and retreat? There was no act of parliament compelling him to meddle ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... in October 1713, Lord Berkeley of Stratton told Lord Strafford of "a fine prank of the widow Lady Jersey" (see Letter 29, note 3). "It is well known her lord died much in debt, and she, after taking upon her the administration, sold everything and made what money she could, and is run away into France without paying a farthing of the debts, with only one servant and unknown ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... raids against cattle-stealers, and in a brush with half-breeds and Indians; as when he stood for the legislature; but he felt now for the first time that he had not made the most of himself, that there was something hurting to self-respect in this prank played upon him. When he came to that point his resentment went higher. He thought of Molly Mackinder, and he heard all too acutely the vague veiled references to her in their satire. By the time Gow Johnson spoke he had mastered himself, however, and had made up his mind. He stood ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... were soon eagerly planning as to their work for the day. First of all the two old boats which had served to carry them up to the forks of the Evergreen River must be securely hidden. This was mainly on account of those prank-loving boys who, under the leadership of the town bully, Ted Shafter, they half expected to follow them ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... This prank encouraged him very much indeed, for he then felt that now he had certainly escaped without any bad consequences; so he went on applauding his own ingenuity, and came to a farm where several little boys were at play. He desired leave to play with them, which they allowed him to ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... dear, and not be so impatient. Papa promised to give you a chance before the season is over, and he always manages things nicely. That will be better than any queer prank of yours,' answered Bess, tying her pretty hair in a white net to match her suit, while Josie made a little ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... through the small window at the wide heavens and am not at all cold. It seems to me then as if I must give vent to all my pent-up tears, and the next day I am so cheerful and feel new-born, and I look with cunning for a prank to play. And—canst thou believe it?—all ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the tribunes of the people, The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise them; For they do prank them in authority, Against all ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... of slang, of which she makes no secret. But she drops her voice somewhat to disguise her feats of metathesis, about which she has doubts and which are involuntary: the "stand-wash," the "sweeping-crosser," the "sewing chamine." Genoese peasants have the same prank when they ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... dear, granted, and he does not talk so much about the workhouse. He was a great deal better, and I could have forgiven this mad, boyish prank—though what could have influenced him, I ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... their grandfather's home, the four boys had been content to take it easy, spending their time roaming the fields, helping to gather the fruit, of which there was great abundance, and in going fishing and swimming. But then Andy and Randy had found time growing a little heavy on their hands, and one prank had been followed by another. Some of the tricks had been played on Jack and Fred, and they, of course, had done their best to retaliate, and this had, on more than one occasion, brought forth a forceful, but good-natured, pitched battle, and the fathers and the others present ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... told by Master Hugo Gottfried here (whose acquaintance I made at my father's house on the day after his foolish boy's prank of the White Swan) that in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg dwelt one of mine own age, like myself a maid solitary among men. So to-day I have come to solicit her acquaintance, and to ask her to be kind ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... the cart, hear how the rout Of rurall youngling raise the shout. Pressing before, some coming after, These with a shout, and those with laughter. Some blesse the carte, some kisse the sheaves, Some prank them up with oaken leaves; Some cross the fill-horse, some with great Devotion stroake ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... and soot and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... ought to exist, in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or immorality of the Horner of Wycherley and the Careless of Congreve ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... aid to the aspiring mind. Improvement, stark, blatant Improvement, advertised itself from that culturous and reeking compartment. But just below—Io was tempted to rub her eyes—stood Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"; a Browning, complete; that inimitably jocund fictional prank, Frederic's "March Hares," together with the same author's fine and profoundly just "Damnation of Theron Ware"; Taylor's translation of Faust; "The [broken-backed] Egoist"; "Lavengro" (Io touched its magic pages with tender fingers), and a fat, faded, reddish volume so ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the time either fighting or frolicking with each other, and I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, everything went wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each other, or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good natured fellow, the worst character that a manager ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... that it was only a prank. I knowed you weren't goin' to throw yourself away on no one here, when the woods are full of 'em out our way that would like to have you. Don't dodge, Sammy. Stand right up to your fodder, for you know it's a fact. It made mother powerful mad. She took it that you ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... pondered the situation. She felt like laughing outrageously at the prank Cupid had played on them, but she dared not utter a sound of mirth because that might spoil everything. And there might be a possible chance of saving ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Hobbs the chapman, so that he lay for seven days betwixt life and death in our infirmary, saved only by Brother Peter's skill in the pharmacies of herbs; but to put pike in the Abbot's pond—why should he play such a devil's prank?" ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Paoli—escaped to New York. We are looking for him to-day. He is a clever man, far above the average—son of a doctor in a town a few miles from Naples, went to the university, was expelled for some mad prank—in short, he was the black sheep of the family. Of course over here he is too high-born to work with his hands on a railroad or in a trench, and not educated enough to work at anything else. So he has been preying on his more industrious countrymen—a typical ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... the spontaneous as well as the mechanical and rigid may be comical. Sometimes the same object may be comical from both the points of view which we have specified; this is always true, as we shall see, in the most highly developed comedy. For example, we may laugh at the child's prank because it is so absurd from the point of view of our grown-up expectations as to reasonable conduct, and at the same time, taking the part of the child, rejoice at the momentary relief from them which it offers us. Our scorn is mixed with sympathy. And oftentimes the child himself will hold both ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... windows into the apartment, whistled and danced a hornpipe, and before they could recover from their amazement jumped out again. A few minutes later my father walked in at the door as sedately as though quite innocent of the prank, and shook hands with everyone; but the sight of their amazed faces proving too much for his attempted sobriety, his hearty laugh was the signal for the rest of the party to join in his merriment. But judging from his slight ability in later years, I fancy that he must have taken many ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with green streamers—a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about MONKEY, which can't so well be written—how it ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news that the boy had disappeared, ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... linger over the unpacking of the great basket, to listen to the fun as the simple presents and absurd jokes came to light, one after another, while Jean now wiped away a tear or two over Katharine's dainty gift, now laughed convulsively over some ridiculous prank of Alan's plotting? And all the time, the chorus went on, now explaining, now joking, but always bringing to Jean the welcome assurance that her friends did not forget her even ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... 'Puck,' 'Bogle', are the same as the German 'Spuk' and the Danish 'Spogelse,' without the sibilant aspiration. These words are general names for any kind of spirit, and correspond to the 'pouk' of Piers Ploughman. In Danish 'spog' means a joke, trick, or prank, and hence the character of Robin Goodfellow. In Iceland Puki is regarded as an evil sprite; and in the language of that country, 'at pukra' means both to make a murmuring noise and to steal clandestinely. The names of these spirits seem to have originated in ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... insular method in popular history is perfectly shown in the treatment of Richard Coeur de Lion. His tale is told with the implication that his departure for the Crusade was something like the escapade of a schoolboy running away to sea. It was, in this view, a pardonable or lovable prank; whereas in truth it was more like a responsible Englishman now going to the Front. Christendom was nearly one nation, and the Front was the Holy Land. That Richard himself was of an adventurous and even romantic ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... to come. Two libel suits mushroomed into view in as many days, provoked, as it were, out of conscious nothing; unimportant but harassing: one, brought by a ne'er-do-well who had broken a leg while engaged in a drunken prank months before, the other the outcome of a paragraph on a little, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... this fragrant spring is clad, And mantled round in sweet nymph Flora's robes: Here grows th'alluring rose, sweet marigolds And the lovely hyacinth. Come, nurse, gather: A crown of roses shall adorn my head, I'll prank myself with flowers of the prime; And thus I'll ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... the expedition I recognized John ——-. Of all persons in the world to meet on top of the Rocky Mountains thousands of miles from home, he was the last one I should have looked for. We were school-boys together and warm friends for years. But a boyish prank of mine had disruptured this friendship and it had never been renewed. The act of which I speak was this. I had been accustomed to visit occasionally an editor whose room was in the third story of a building and overlooked the street. One day this editor gave me ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the higher in rank the prisoners happened to be, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed the expression of countenance he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me, but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul and ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... because you succeed! And now I may say it, I hope without blushing, That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter and larger ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... himself all this heart-burning and misery by looking through the dining-room window on that Sunday afternoon when his prospects seemed to be so rosy. He never thought of that. He cursed every circumstance and person impartially and fluently, but he omitted from the Satanic litany the one girlish prank of tree-climbing that led Iris to spring out of sight amid the sheltering arms of an elm when her uncle and Captain Coke deemed the summer-house a suitable place for "a plain talk as man ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... games of hide-and-seek just at dinner-time, is she?" asked Arthur, laughing. "I am never surprised at anything Peggy does. She has some little prank on hand, depend upon it, and will turn up in good time. It's her own fault if ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... Then, laughing at their prank, they returned to the barracks and took place at the end of a line composed of poverty-stricken folk and tramps who were waiting for a meal. An old woman who had already eaten lent them a tin in ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... you want to bring a dozen and more of your friends down on his place to commit some prank that will make him dislike boys more than ever. It's all wrong, I tell you, fellows, and for one I refuse to lend a hand," and Jack folded his arms as though his mind were made up once ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... he left his chum's residence, after spending the evening there, but he was still burning for revenge against Andy and his cronies. He had half a notion to go to Andy's house and tell Mr. Foger how nearly serious the bully's prank at the sub marine had been, but he concluded that Mr. Foger could only uphold his son. "No, I'll settle ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... Phrinzy. Here is th' inconsistency of conduct that marks a disturbance of the reason: and, to tell the truth, I once knew a young fellow that played this very prank at a wedding, and the nixt thing we hard, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the fact that Max had ventured to propose such a solution to the strange mystery of the night assault seemed to give the victim more or less comfort. He could stand being made an object of attack on the part of prank-loving boys, but the very thought of having been seized by a hungry man-eating panther gave him ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Colonel declared, getting excited. "Suppose we were to forgive him and pay the money. You know he would not give up leading a dissipated life, squandering money, making debts, going to our tailors and ordering suits in our names! Can you guarantee that this will be his last prank? As far as I am concerned, I have no ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... I played many a prank here in my boyhood. But you, sir, who are you? An adjutant of the Colonel's, or a ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... will make a spoon or spoil a horn, and—let me have my laugh out—you bid well for an archer," said Randal; and Robin counselling me to play the same prank on the French lad's sword as late I had done on his own, they took each of them an arm of mine, and so we swaggered down the ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... I found Dorothy in close consultation with the queen and two of her ladies. I heard the name of Lord James Stanley spoken amid suppressed laughter, and I suspected Dorothy had on foot some prank touching that young man, to which her ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... to prevent possible loss from some prank of mischievous boys or thieving negroes, Maurice had secured a long and stout chain, with a padlock, and at night this was so attached to the dinky that no one could sneak the stumpy little craft away without the ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... they ever be allowed to clip the wings of romance. But the painter who bade his subject sit under a sodium light would justly be deemed a lunatic, and any analysis of Spencer's character drawn from his latest prank would be ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... should frisk about And stand upon their heads! I hope I 'm ready for the worst, Whatever prank betides! ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... the air, White daisies prank the ground; The cherry and the hoary pear Scatter their ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... the attic," declared Janet Clarke. "She was always prowling about there for theatrical stuff; don't you remember, Jane, how she frightened the girls one night with some foolish prank when she was dressed like a bear ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... graduated from the seminary and was pursuing my studies at the Preacher's Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent scholar. You ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... in early manhood, the keenest relish of a funny prank, and one such he used to act over again in after life with the greatest vivacity of manner. Every one remembers the story told by Jefferson Hogg how Shelley got rid of the old woman with the onion basket who took a place ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... indicated, Judge Enderby in his unprofessional hours had an elfish and prank-some love ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... amain, Seated the king on his throne again, And the Algalif said, "'Twas a sorry prank, Raising your weapon to slay the Frank. It was yours to hearken in silence there." "Sir," said Gan, "I may meetly bear, But for all the wealth of your land arrayed, For all the gold that God hath made, Would I not live and leave unsaid, What Karl, the mightiest ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... were doing an act of justice. I deserved what you said, but I didn't deserve what has followed. I meant no harm—it was a silly prank, and I have suffered for it as if it were a crime, and the consequences are not ended yet. I should think that, if there is a moral government of the universe, the Judge of all the earth would know when to hold his hand. And now the worst ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... rules provide! This is scandal, this is a shame, This madcap prank in Our Lady's name. Out of the doors with him; back to the street: He has no place at ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... men could be so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was roused to anger. ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... mad prank of Kelson's, Mr. Millinet invited Mary to walk out one lovely evening, to which she gladly assented. They took their way towards the "Whale's Head," a name given by the inhabitants of B—— to the high bluff already mentioned, that ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... rag-time and working-class songs, and pass judgment on the world's music? She was vexed with him, and as she walked beside him she had a vague feeling of outrage. At the best, in her most charitable frame of mind, she considered the statement of his views to be a caprice, an erratic and uncalled-for prank. But when he took her in his arms at the door and kissed her good night in tender lover-fashion, she forgot everything in the outrush of her own love to him. And later, on a sleepless pillow, she puzzled, as she had often puzzled of late, as to how ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... said, "I look on this in another way than ye do, for methinks it was a foolish prank; they were sure to bear in mind their griefs, even though they were not reminded of them anew; but those men who try others so heavily must ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... life, who was always ready to oblige anybody, to do anything he was told to do, so as to have'an easy time, a sufficiency of food, and a warm corner to crawl into! What could have persuaded fate to pick him for the victim of this cruel prank; to put him into this position, where he could not avoid suffering, no matter what he did? They wanted him to tell something, and Peter would have been perfectly willing to tell anything—but how could he tell it when ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... into the girl's face as she caught Sherm's glance. "Oh, dear, and he had told her only that morning that girls should be different!" She liked Sherm—she didn't want him to think she was a bold, awful girl. Some way their prank seemed to need excusing. She replied to the look in Sherm's eyes rather ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... do not see how we are to keep it from her; but you have certainly won her in a most remarkable way. You must promise me, Holly darling, that you 'll never play such a wicked prank again.' ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ways ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into her tent—and then, eloquent in urging her own defence, the Queen was far more so in pressing upon Richard the charge of unkindness, in refusing her so poor a boon as the life of an unfortunate knight, who, by her thoughtless prank, had been brought within the danger of martial law. She wept and sobbed while she enlarged on her husband's obduracy on this score, as a rigour which had threatened to make her unhappy for life, whenever she should ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... roses Have blossomed over night; I bring you some To prank your study. Sister, Don ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... family priest, a commander of the guard and the prince's tutor, under plea of the bath and stows them away in baskets which suggest Falstaff's "buck-basket." In Miss Stokes' "Indian Fairy Tales" the fair wife of an absent merchant plays a similar notable prank upon the Kotwal, the Wazir, the Kazi and the King; and akin to this is the exploit of Temal Ramakistnan, the Madrasi Tyl Eulenspiegel and Scogin who by means of a lady saves his life from the Rajah ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Lord, To chide at your extreames, it not becomes me: (Oh pardon, that I name them:) your high selfe The gracious marke o'th' Land, you haue obscur'd With a Swaines wearing: and me (poore lowly Maide) Most Goddesse-like prank'd vp: But that our Feasts In euery Messe, haue folly; and the Feeders Digest with a Custome, I should blush To see you so attyr'd: sworne I thinke, To shew my ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... his word, and about a month after the interview above related he sent word to Quennebert that the Chevalier de Moranges had left Perregaud's completely recovered from his wound. But the nearly fatal result of the chevalier's last prank seemed to have subdued his adventurous spirit; he was no longer seen in public, and was soon forgotten by all his acquaintances with the exception of Mademoiselle de Guerchi. She faithfully treasured ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... making fools of us," said Prank, pettishly. "No, Mother, what you say may be very good, but I don't want to do ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... might I choose, be honest-poor: For she that sits at Fortune's feet a-low Is sure she shall not taste a further woe, But those that prank on top of Fortune's ball Still fear a change, and, fearing, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... closed the door and dipped the heads of the screws in vinegar to darken them. The whole looked rusty, and as we hoped when we had done no one would ever guess the game we had been up to. We swept up dust from the carpet, and pushed it under the bottom of the door, and I think our prank never was known. The old ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... light, Its ebullition foaming white (Like other things I could relate) My heart of old would captivate. The last poor obol I was worth— Was it not so?—for thee I gave, And thy inebriating wave Full many a foolish prank brought forth; And oh! what verses, what delights, Delicious ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... one of the salons a very pretty little stage; the fashionable world was au complet, and, after having made our bows to Mrs. Story, we took our places in the theater. Mr. Story was Shylock, and acted extremely well. Edith was very good as Portia. Waldo and Julian both took part. Mr. and Mrs. Prank Lascelles, of the English Embassy, both dressed in black velvet, played the married couple to the life, but did not look at all Italian. The whole performance was really wonderfully well done and most successful; the ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... great debate amongst 'em, Aunt Martha fin'lly admittin' it was just a little prank of Hadley's, her being roped down; but she was sure I had tried to murder him, just for nothing at all. Hadley says so too. In fact, he tells seven diff'rent yarns in as many minutes, each one makin' me out ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Caprice. — N. caprice, fancy, humor; whim, whimsy, whimsey[obs3], whimwham[obs3]; crotchet, capriccio, quirk, freak, maggot, fad, vagary, prank, fit, flimflam, escapade, boutade[Fr], wild-goose chase; capriciousness &c. adj.; kink. V. be capricious &c. adj.; have a maggot in the brain; take it into one's head, strain at a gnat and swallow a camel; blow hot and cold; play fast and loose, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... green-moss'd pool, with well-spring nigh, And through the grass a streamlet fleeting by. The porch with palm or oleaster shade— That when the regents from the hive parade Its gilded youth, in Spring—their Spring!—to prank, To woo their holiday heat a neighbouring bank May lean with branches hospitably cool. And midway, be your water stream or pool, Cross willow-twigs, and massy boulders fling— A line of stations for ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a wreath; And those more distant showing from beneath The others' wings their little eyes of light. While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother, But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss, This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother, Who turns to greet the tidings ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... deliberately indulged by a man of mature age and strong understanding, is almost invariably the sign of a bad heart—a taste for severe practical jokes. If a courtier was fond of dress, oil was flung over his richest suit. If he was fond of money, some prank was invented to make him disburse more than he could spare. If he was hypochondriacal, he was made to believe that he had the dropsy. If he had particularly set his heart on visiting a place, a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the few times in his life, doubted his eyes. What trick were they playing him? For it was not a real, sharp figure that he saw; it was an indefinite one, shimmering and elusive, like a mirage. A prank of the strange light, perhaps. But Ku Sui nevertheless! ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... his bureau. The reflection of his face in the tilted mirror caught and held his attention. Could that harsh semblance of a man be himself? Various periods of his life flashed in separate pictures before him. Glimpses of his college days; this and that gay prank of irresponsible youth. Then came incidents of his first business ventures; his dealings with Jefferson Henderson stood out sharply. The old man's first intuitive fears of coming loss rang in his ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... his weatherbeaten face. "Gods!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... arrested in a province to which he had been banished. He was accused of many wicked things, and; amongst others, of coining. Charnace was a lad of spirit, who had been page to the King and officer in the body-guard. Having retired to his own house, he often played off many a prank. One of these I will mention, as being full ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... were being hoisted on them, a third gun was fired. The ladies, delighted with the flash and thundering of the guns, begged me to linger a little longer, that another gun might be fired; but fearful that R—— would play some mad prank, and stand out of the fiord without me, I promised the fair dames, that the next time I came to Norway, I would comply with their request, and never leave them, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... write in a neighbouring town, made him at last a brave village notary. This fellow, having acquired such dignity, began to disdain their ancient customs, and to buzz into the people's ears the pomp of the other parts of the nation; the first prank he played was to advise a friend of his, whom somebody had offended by sawing off the horns of one of his goats, to make his complaint to the royal judges thereabout, and so he went on from one to another, till he had spoiled and confounded ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Oddo repented his prank when he saw, in the flickering light behind the crowd of guests, who seemed to hang together like a bunch of grapes, the figures of his grandfather and Erica. The old man had come out in the cold for his sake; and Erica, who looked as white as the snow, had no doubt come ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... was to laugh at his prayers, with a joke at the quality of his Latin. But Dieu protect you, Monsieur, if ever he gets whip-hand. A revengeful priest is more to be feared than a rabid dog. I stirred one of his breed once at the Cathedral by some wild prank, and carry the scar of it still. But come, it becomes dusk. Let's break our fast, and while eating consider the best plan for the night. Eloise, do ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... which the savants of Napoleon's expedition had gathered and carefully packed, and even shipped preparatory to sending them to the Louvre. The feelings of these savants may readily be imagined when, through this sad prank of war, their invaluable treasures were envoyed, not to their beloved France, but to the land of their dearest enemies, there to be turned over to the trustees of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... master had been arrested, as well as of his own behaviour, and the disaster he had received on that occasion. His lordship never doubted that Pickle had brought this calamity upon himself by some unlucky prank he had played at the masquerade; when he understood that the young gentleman had drunk freely in the afternoon, and been so whimsical as to go thither with a man in woman's apparel; and he that same day waited on the French minister, in full confidence of obtaining his discharge; but ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... fearful and wonderful things on that rock. Won't they get a shock, though, when they come to Eeny-Meeny?" In their mind's eye they could all see the sensation caused by the discovering of Eeny-Meeny possibly years hence at the base of the rock, and the prank ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... good mother; she loved him excessively, and thereby spoiled him. The boy became very fastidious and sensitive. He was eleven years old when his mother noticed that she could not command his obedience. Once the child played some prank, a mere trifle; how can a child of eleven years commit any great offence? His mother thought she must rebuke him. The boy laughed at the rebuke; he could not believe his mother was angry; then, in consequence, his mother ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... was joking. This was some odd prank. He had borrowed the tin trunk and was giving me a travesty on Tip Pulsifer fleeing over the mountain from his petulant spouse: for last night Tim and I had had a little tiff. For the first time I had forgotten the post-prandial pipe, and undismayed by the horrors of the famine ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... own day, but, one reads between the lines, he doesn't believe any of them. One error, he says, begets another, and everything is exaggerated in the hope of making converts to the talker's opinion. One miracle bruited all over France turned out to be a prank of young people counterfeiting ghosts. When one hears a marvel, he should always say, "perhaps." Better be apprentices at sixty then doctors at ten. Now witches, he continues, are the subject of the wildest and most foolish ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... that there was any real connection between these Gates, of Saracenic design, carved (it is said) in Himalayan cedar, and the Temple of Somnath. But tradition did ascribe to them such a connection, and the eccentric prank of a clever man in high place made this widely known. Nor in any case can we regard as alien to the scope of this book the illustration of a work of mediaeval Asiatic art, which is quite as remarkable ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... lest the man might suspect there was in his actions something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant, tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned there. Calling up the London office of the REPUBLIC, he directed ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... never shall," he answered. "The joke is that you're always ready to bring the whole place about your ears with some mad prank, and then when a cartload of bricks does fall on your head, you say, 'It's ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... with him into the city to the Alcazar, that they might see their brides Doa Elvira and Doa Sol. Doa Ximena had her daughters ready to receive them in full noble garments, for since midnight they had done nothing but prink and prank themselves. Full richly was the Alcazar set out that day, with hangings both above and below, purple and samite, and rich cloth. The Cid entered, between the Infantes, and all that noble company went in after them; and they went into the ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... was Alfred Batchelder, who had an extremely bad influence on him. Alfred was a genius at instigating mischief, and he and Halstead played an odious prank at the schoolhouse, as a result of which the school committee suspended them ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Daylight's night. He was the centre and the head of the revel, unquenchably joyous, a contagion of fun. He multiplied himself, and in so doing multiplied the excitement. No prank he suggested was too wild for his followers, and all followed save those that developed into singing imbeciles and fell warbling by the wayside. Yet never did trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... mean you no harm, my pretties, and it's no affair of mine telling the good ladies at Lavender House what I've seen. You cross my hand, dears, each of you, with a bit of silver, and all I'll do is to tell your pretty fortunes, and mum is the word with the gypsy-mother as far as this night's prank is concerned." ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... George Gaylord said: "Allow me, Miss Fenwick, to introduce to you my friend and college chum, Fillmore Flagg: for a peculiar purpose of his own he wishes to regain possession of that flighty paper which, fortunately for him, the prank playing wind carried to your ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... they thrived like weeds in their ancestral domicile, which was now sadly in need of repair. Occasionally some daring prank set the neighbourhood by the ears, but, for the most part, the twins behaved very well and attended strictly to their own affairs. They ate when they were hungry, slept when they were sleepy, and, if they desired to sit up until four in the morning, reading, they ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... one another much in the same way as we used to do years before, when she had detected me in some boyish prank, and assumed the mentor while I felt a culprit. How really I felt a culprit at that moment she ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... O think you, Friend with the musing eye Who watch us stepping by, With doubt and dolorous sigh? Can much pondering so hoodwink you? Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... mentions Rees's Cyclopaedia—such was the wealth of a boy of genius in those days—but among the eight hundred books it is certain that the bulk of English literature was contained. He practiced writing somewhat, though he had given up poetry; and he played a prank by sending to a Boston paper a fabricated account of one of those destroying insects which visit that region from time to time, with notes on ways of exterminating it,—all for the benefit of his uncle, who took the paper; but no other trace of his composition ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... more talkative and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for servants, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... the leaping flame. Its cheerful crackle, its bright color in the gloom was almost too good to be true. In these dark forests he had learned to be wary and on guard at too great fortune. Quite often it was only a prank of perverse forest gods, before they smote him with some black disaster. It seemed to him that there was a wild laughter, a Satanic mocking in the joyous crackle that was vaguely but fearfully ominous. The promise in the rainbow, the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... now able to stir themselves again. Doubtless there were many bumps, black and blue faces, and bloody noses: but the sight of all could not suppress the most extravagant merriment. All that had happened was looked upon as a prank of the fiddler, and many in their hearts felt that they had only received a just punishment for their coarse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... gang having one night challenged a fellow-student and received no answer, fired, and took such good aim that the poor young man fell dead on the pavement. Horrified and amazed at the fatal result of his mad prank, the student fled, hoping ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... O think you, Friend with the musing eye, Who watch us stepping by With doubt and dolorous sigh? Can much pondering so hoodwink you! Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with the ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... it. But they found out that they wasn't no easy way to live away from Marster. He always took 'em back, didn't beat 'em nor nothin'. I run away once myself but I never went nowhere." Melvin's long body shook with laughter as he thought of his prank. He shifted in his chair ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... oh, take his pen away, That so feebly runs on paper; Keep him quiet, or he'll play Other trait'rous prank and caper. Why apologize for treason, Or for stealing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... One prank which the boys played some years after Jane's death, I must relate, and then I have done. The eldest, whose name was Willie, took me, the evening before thanksgiving day, and, having dressed himself up in some of the cook's dirty old clothes, and ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... laughing in the pleasant French way that shakes all over and has no spite. Emboldened, I asked why Hortense could not play with us any more. Hortense, she explained, was become too big to prank on the commons. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... too absurd view to take of the thing!' cried Urania, with an injured air. 'An innocent practical joke, not involving harm of any kind; a little girlish prank played on the spur of the moment. I thought you were more sensible than to be offended—much less seriously angry—at ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... of course. So long as you can be always off on some prank or another with Braine's unbroken colt. It suits you, you lazy ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... woman in with me this morning,—one of those that are here in the house,—telling me some story about some other girl that you have made a fool of. It's nothing to me how much of that sort of thing you may have done, so that you do none of it here. But,—if you play any prank of that kind with me, you'll find that ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... the girl's face as she caught Sherm's glance. "Oh, dear, and he had told her only that morning that girls should be different!" She liked Sherm—she didn't want him to think she was a bold, awful girl. Some way their prank seemed to need excusing. She replied to the look in Sherm's eyes rather than ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... full of horse play, but I must keep up the high key and act like the rest. Indeed for the most of the time I feel as they do, I suppose, but sometimes that sort of ribaldry and feelings of the ludicrous that made us joke, and prank, and cut up in genial companionships come over me, and I am suffocating with a glee out of place to this exalted society. Ah! it's good to feel you, my friend, so fresh and new from earth. It's promised here in the learned talk ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... return to his hiding-place in the hold, though he was rather an incubus on board. Phlegmatic, methodic, and by no means communicative, he carefully avoided the seamen, who had always some prank to play off on him, and he kept to his own provisions. He was thin enough in all conscience, and his additional weight but imperceptibly added to the cost of navigating the Dream. If Seng Vou got a free passage it was obvious that his carriage ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... Now when the four men who were closeted together heard these words they were perplext as to their affair, and said one to other, "What shall we do? Indeed we are unable to sit out three days in this stead." Hereupon the Pieman said to them, "Nay, rather let us play a prank whereby we may escape," and said they, "What may be the device thou wouldest devise?" Quoth he, "Whatso I do that do ye look upon and then act in like guise," and so speaking he arose and taking his minced meat fell to sticking it upon his skin until he was like a leper covered ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... he had been banished. He was accused of many wicked things, and; amongst others, of coining. Charnace was a lad of spirit, who had been page to the King and officer in the body-guard. Having retired to his own house, he often played off many a prank. One of these I will mention, as being full of wit ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... brave acknowledgment, where silence would have covered the whole thing, appealed to him. The thought of the way the absent father and mother had met every confession of his own that he could remember in a life of prank-playing softened the words which ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... clapping me on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... are such as all must blush to name. Though I may have a negro for gallant, And erred when Atis for me seemed to pant, His merit and the black's superior rank, Must lessen, if not quite excuse my prank. Howe'er, old boy, you presently shall see, If any belle solicited should be, To grant indulgencies, with presents sweet, She will not straight capitulation beat; At least, if they be such as I have viewed:— Moor, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... ringlets of the vale We flash our faery feet in gamesome prank; Or, silent-sandal'd, pay our defter court, Circling the Spirit of the Western Gale, Where wearied with his flower-caressing sport, 65 Supine he slumbers on a violet bank; Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... any of them upon the street, he would not never fail to put some trick or other upon them, sometimes putting the bit of a fried turd in their graduate hoods, at other times pinning on little foxtails or hares'-ears behind them, or some such other roguish prank. One day that they were appointed all to meet in the Fodder Street (Sorbonne), he made a Borbonesa tart, or filthy and slovenly compound, made of store of garlic, of assafoetida, of castoreum, of dogs' turds very warm, which he steeped, tempered, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... spirit of mischief urged the Prince on to a gay prank, as also a wayward spirit urged him no longer to brook Queen ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... indicated firmness of will and tenacity of purpose. Julian was his aunt's favourite, and was one of the most popular boys at his school. He liked being popular, and as long as it did not put him to any great personal trouble was always ready to fall in with any proposal, to take part in every prank, to lend or give money if he had it in his pocket, to sympathize with any one ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... squib, which doubtless celebrated some college prank, wrong conclusions should be drawn, I hasten to say that in college James ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... had been no wrongdoing; not even a mischievous prank, except, perhaps, the breaking down of the ladder, and yet it seemed a pity that Stella should have suffered the most, when she never would have dreamed of staying at the tree-house after it began to look like rain, had it not ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... young men practise those manly arts, which, so far as I can judge, are at a lower ebb in these modern days of quips and quodlibets than in the stirring times of my youth. Then, thank God, it was held more necessary for a page to know his seven points of horsemanship than how to tie a ribbon, or prank a gown, ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... war's pomp and circumstance, The gauds in which we prank it? Germ ends for us our fine romance, Wrapped in a dingy blanket. We set out braggartly in mirth, World's bravest men and tallest, To do the mightiest thing on earth, And here we're lying, nothing worth, Succumbent to ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... practical jokes!" exclaimed the prince, imagining that some of his courtiers were playing a prank on him. ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... only for a short time. The sympathy that is capable of entering into the impression of the comic is a very fleeting one. It also comes from a lapse in attention. Thus, a stern father may at times forget himself and join in some prank his child is playing, only to check himself at once in ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... Mamma, I'm sure, and make her quite forget my naughty prank of yesterday. Do you know I offended her dreadfully by peeping into the gold case she wears on her neck? She was asleep and I was sitting by her. In her sleep she pulled it out and said something about ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... though mischievous, was very kind-hearted and generous, caught quickly at the proposal of the tutor, and slipped a silver coin into each shoe. Then they hid behind a tree to watch the outcome of their innocent prank. They had not very long to wait. An elderly man came back to his work—hard work it was, too hard for a man of his years—and slipped his ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... your time, dear, and not be so impatient. Papa promised to give you a chance before the season is over, and he always manages things nicely. That will be better than any queer prank of yours,' answered Bess, tying her pretty hair in a white net to match her suit, while Josie made a little lobster ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... that I knew so much better in a natural lively mood annoyed me, and I played there and then a prank more becoming a boy in his first kilt than a gentleman of education and travel and some repute for sobriety. I noticed I was opposite the house of a poor old woman they called Black Kate, whose door was ever the target in my ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... altogether favorable, with no mention of the possibility of any aggravating circumstances. An inevitable feverishness, and a great lassitude, which must be met with absolute repose for several days, would be the only consequences of this dangerous prank. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... she said. "It was a prank one would expect you to play. Though it's a very long time since I saw you, you haven't changed, Dick. Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come back and ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... his host exclaimed. "Can't you see that I had no part in this, that the minx devised it all by herself expressly to thwart me? Don't let her have the satisfaction of outmanoeuvering both of us. Don't let a mere prank of a child spoil all our arrangements. She'll be a good wife ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... mother; she loved him excessively, and thereby spoiled him. The boy became very fastidious and sensitive. He was eleven years old when his mother noticed that she could not command his obedience. Once the child played some prank, a mere trifle; how can a child of eleven years commit any great offence? His mother thought she must rebuke him. The boy laughed at the rebuke; he could not believe his mother was angry; then, in consequence, his mother boxed his ears. The boy left the room; behind the garden there was ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... have your own pride; you have your own position here in The Corner. But I want you to notice that mine is different. You've spent a day for what you have in The Corner, here. I've spent ten years. You've played a prank, acted a part, and cast a jest for what you have. But for the place which I hold, brother mine, I've schemed with my wits, played fast and loose, and killed men. Do you hear? I've bought it with blood, and things you buy at such a price ought ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... that he must run it through a series of aphoristic sentences twisted out of Greek and Roman lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his fellow-dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose Rosalynd contributed so much to the Poet's As You Like It: for it was then much the fashion for authors to prank up their matter with superfluous erudition. Like all the surviving works of Greene, Pandosto is greatly charged with learned impertinence, and in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt to overlook the real merit ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... of air, Out of all summer, from wave to wave, He'll perch, and prank his feathers fair, Jangle a glass-clear wildering stave, And take his ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... experience,—that besides these gloomy associations, the name of Venice will conjure up scenes of brilliant and wanton gayety, and that in the foreground of the brightest picture will be the Carnival of Venice, full of antic delight, romantic adventure, and lawless prank. But the carnival, with all the old merry- making life of the city, is now utterly obsolete, and, in this way, the conventional, masquerading, pleasure-loving Venice is become as gross a fiction as if, like that other conventional Venice of which I have but spoken, it had never existed. There ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Have we called up these names of spell-like power, As, arm in arm, we took the friendly walk, Or lingered out the evening's parting hour— Or met at the debate, with joyous zest, To test our strength, and each to do his best; While pun and prank we gaily gave and took, With friendship in each heart and pleasure ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... But the oddest prank which this hummer performs is to dart up in the air, and then down, almost striking a bush or a clump of grass at each descent, repeating this feat a number of times with a swiftness that the eye can scarcely follow. Having done this, he will swing ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... that was to be heard in after days in places widely different and far remote from that gay, moonlit, lantern-decked, boat-thronged, water-lapped island in that far northern Canadian lake. Following the cheers there came stillness. Men looked sheepishly at each other as if caught in some silly prank. Then once more the Spectre drew near. But this time they declined not to look, but with steady, grave, appraising eyes they faced The Thing, resolute to know the worst, and in quiet undertones they talked together ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... a man as ever stood in shoe leather—even in the midst of his absorption in his disclosure he could not refrain from a pause to reflect on the signal success of his prank and laugh and ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... soot and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... and strong understanding, is almost invariably the sign of a bad heart—a taste for severe practical jokes. If a courtier was fond of dress, oil was flung over his richest suit. If he was fond of money, some prank was invented to make him disburse more than he could spare. If he was hypochondriacal, he was made to believe that he had the dropsy. If he had particularly set his heart on visiting a place, a letter was forged to frighten him from going thither. These things, it may be said, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... run any risk?" I anxiously demanded; for I feared he had some mad prank in mind which would betray our presence and perhaps stop our warning ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... to Frank, who was watching Madge with startled eyes, worried as to the result of this mad prank on both ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... Louis had pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)—that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated him ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Shakespeare drank! Through him the loves of all are linked to thee, By Romeo's ardour, Juliet's constancy He sets the peasant in the royal rank, Shows, under mask and paint, Kinship of knave and saint And plays on stolid man with Prospero's wand and Ariel's prank. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... go and risk her good name thus. However, thank Heaven she has played this prank with an honest lad that will ne'er expose her folly. But oh, the perverseness! Could she not bestow her nauseousness on thee?" Denys sighed and shrugged. "On thee that art as ripe for folly ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... sports? No merrier lad's Sweet laughter ever rang! But he is so generous and so frank, His wildest wit or his maddest prank Can ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... long limited his daily fare to an anchovy and half-a-dozen olives. As for Abbe Jouve, he never knew what he was eating, and his blunders and forgetfulness supplied an inexhaustible fund of amusement. Jeanne, meditating some prank in this respect, was even now stealthily watching him with her ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... wet and so are you. Your bedding is—now what kind of prank is that? I came up here for ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... very angry, my old grandmother to hold up her hands, and look at the ceiling through her spectacles, and my aunt Milly as merry as myself. Before I was eight years old, I had become so notorious, that any prank played in the town, any trick undiscovered, was invariably laid to my account; and many were the applications made to my mother for indemnification for broken windows and other damage done, too often, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... poles should frisk about And stand upon their heads! I hope I'm ready for the worst, Whatever prank betides." ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... the eyes of the weeping and shuddering child informed the company that she had been frightened by an appearance at the window. At once they all faced the imperturbable window, and for a moment there was a silence. An astute lad made an immediate census of the other lads. The prank of slipping out and looming spectrally at a window was too venerable. But the little boys were all present ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... said Prank, "give them to me, I'll put them past; an' do you bring us out the gun. I've the powdher an' shot here; we may as well bring her, an' have a slap at them. One o' the officers in the barracks of —— keeps me in powdher an' shot, besides givin' me an odd ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... Northumberland is not like to play that prank, or I err," answered Percy, who well knew that Lord Northumberland was not in all cases cognisant of the use made of his name by this very worthy cousin: "as to death, of course that may hap,—we are all prone to be tumbled out of the world at short notice. But what then is your project? ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... at last, on the shores of England. [Margaret landed at Weymouth; Lady Warwick, at Portsmouth.] Come they for joy or for woe, for victory or despair? The issue of this day's fight on the heath of Gladsmoor will decide. Prank thy halls, O Westminster, for the triumph of the Lancastrian king,—or open thou, O Grave, to receive the saint-like Henry and his noble son. The king-maker goes before ye, saint-like father and noble son, to prepare your thrones ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... George, I found Dorothy in close consultation with the queen and two of her ladies. I heard the name of Lord James Stanley spoken amid suppressed laughter, and I suspected Dorothy had on foot some prank touching that young man, to which ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... in the gymnasium every morning during the barrack days and putting on the gloves for fifteen minutes every evening with the best middleweight in the corps. There were times in his early cadet days when he was suspected of having an ugly temper, and perhaps with reason. Exasperated at some prank played at his expense by a little "yearling" toward the close of his first—the "plebe"—encampment, Loring actually kicked the offender out of his tent. The boy was no match for the older, heavier man, but flew at him like a wildcat then and there, and Loring suddenly found ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... shepherdling, The blushing apple, bashful pear, And shame-faced plum, all simp'ring there. Walk in the groves, and thou shalt find The name of Phillis in the rind Of every straight and smooth-skin tree; Where kissing that, I'll twice kiss thee. To thee a sheep-hook I will send, Be-prank'd with ribbons, to this end, This, this alluring hook might be Less for to catch a sheep, than me. Thou shalt have possets, wassails fine, Not made of ale, but spicd wine; To make thy maids and self free mirth, All sitting near the glitt'ring hearth. Thou shalt have ribbands, roses, ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... Wunpost had lost in his bet with Eells and deposited all his money in the bank he was looked upon almost with pride as a picturesque asset of the town. He made talk, and that was made into publicity, and publicity helped the town. And now this mad prank upon which he seemed bent gave promise of even greater renown. So he had had a bad dream? That piqued their curiosity, but they were not kept long in doubt. Dismounting at the bank, he glanced up at the front and then made a plunge ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... wilder, the reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news that ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... Alcazar, that they might see their brides Doa Elvira and Doa Sol. Doa Ximena had her daughters ready to receive them in full noble garments, for since midnight they had done nothing but prink and prank themselves. Full richly was the Alcazar set out that day, with hangings both above and below, purple and samite, and rich cloth. The Cid entered, between the Infantes, and all that noble company ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... the northwest, they soon reached Duff Harbour, where Malcolm went on shore and saw Mr Soutar. He, with a landsman's prejudice, made strenuous objections to such a mad prank as sailing to London at that time of the year, but in vain. Malcolm saw nothing mad in it, and the lawyer had to admit he ought to know best. He brought on board with him a lad of Peter's acquaintance, and now fully manned, they ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... of breach of order, deviation or departure from rule, depressed him, though one would have thought it was no business of his. If one of his colleagues was late for church or if rumours reached him of some prank of the high-school boys, or one of the mistresses was seen late in the evening in the company of an officer, he was much disturbed, and said he hoped that nothing would come of it. At the teachers' meetings he simply oppressed us with his caution, his circumspection, ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Tim was joking. This was some odd prank. He had borrowed the tin trunk and was giving me a travesty on Tip Pulsifer fleeing over the mountain from his petulant spouse: for last night Tim and I had had a little tiff. For the first time I had forgotten ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... would a puppy, and then, putting on his spectacles, began inspecting the volume himself. At first he shook his head, then took off his glasses and rubbed them as though they were playing him some prank, and finally closed the book with an expression of ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... the door.] Thank you, my good woman. Next time you want to play a little prank like this, I beg that you will select your partner with more care. The name of Hooper is not a suitable one to toy ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... pulvo. Powder pulvro, pudro. Power povo, potenco. Power (of attorney) konfidatesto. Powerful multepova. Powerless senpotenca. Practical praktika. Practice (custom) kutimo. Practice praktiko, kutimo, uzado. Practise praktiki. Prairie herbejo. Praise lauxdi. Prank petoleco—ajxo. Prate babili. Prattle babili. Pray (religious) pregxi. Pray (to request) peti. Prayer pregxo. Prayer-book pregxlibro. Preach prediki. Preacher predikisto. Preaching predikado. Preamble antauxparolo. Prebendary kanoniko. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... is endless," the Colonel declared, getting excited. "Suppose we were to forgive him and pay the money. You know he would not give up leading a dissipated life, squandering money, making debts, going to our tailors and ordering suits in our names! Can you guarantee that this will be his last prank? As far as I am concerned, I have no faith whatever ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... bureau. The reflection of his face in the tilted mirror caught and held his attention. Could that harsh semblance of a man be himself? Various periods of his life flashed in separate pictures before him. Glimpses of his college days; this and that gay prank of irresponsible youth. Then came incidents of his first business ventures; his dealings with Jefferson Henderson stood out sharply. The old man's first intuitive fears of coming loss rang in his ears, followed by curses of helpless, astounded despair. One ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... appearance of knowledge {356} which sets up the scientific charlatan. Their world is large, and there are many who have that moderate knowledge, and perception of what is knowledge, before which extreme ignorance is detected in its first prank. There is a public of moderate cultivation, for the most part sound in its judgment, always ready in its decisions. Accordingly, all their successful pretenders have some pretension. It is not so in science. Those who have a right to judge are fewer and farther ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... however, who more and more began to reckon herself as one of the grown people, and only very rarely took part in the conspiracies against the Candidate, shook her head at this prank of her brother and sisters, and looked out a new piece of dark silk from her drawer (Louise was a hoarder by nature), possessed herself secretly of the Candidate's hat, and with some little help from her mother, had then her secret pleasure also, and could laugh in her own sleeve at his ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... be found in such cases as that of the prank of the boy and the statue. When some trick of this sort is played, the newspapers opposed to it always describe it as "a senseless joke." What is the good of saying that? Every joke is a senseless joke. A joke is by its nature a protest against sense. It is ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... we would stroll Down to the market. Took her arm in mine, And, out of sight, hurried her through cross-lanes, Bade her choose, now at a fruit, now pastry booth. Until we gained my lodging she spoke little But often laughed, tittering from time to time, "O Bacchus, what a prank!—Just think of Cymon, So stout as he is, at least five miles to walk Without a carriage!—well you take things coolly"— Or such appreciation nice of gifts I need not boast of, since I had them gratis. When my stiff door creaked open grudgingly Her face first ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... Street. But, lest the man might suspect there was in his actions something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant, tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned there. Calling up the London office of ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... readers will remember the thrilling experiences of this boyish trio during the early trials of the new submarine torpedo boat, both above and below the surface. These readers will remember, also, for instance, the great prank played by the boys on the watch officer of one of the stateliest battleships ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... in the way and was the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of the guests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity at this big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest fellow could have played such a prank ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for servants, not ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... round to the publishers in two enormous quarto volumes. I had been working at it for more than a year every evening after the hellish torture of the day's teaching, and all day every holiday, but now I had a good rest while it was playing its boomerang prank of returning to me once a month. The only gleam of hope came from Bentleys, who wrote to say that they could not make up their minds to reject it; but they prevailed upon themselves to part with it at last, though not ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... steadily refused to. His art was a huge joke—except to himself. If he asked people to dinner, every one expected a frolic. When he married Bella Knowles, people chuckled at the wedding, and considered it the wildest prank of Jimmy's career, although Jim himself seemed to take it ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... If Ray Rose were an intimate friend of mine, I should resent her performance and make a fuss about it. But she is such a casual acquaintance,—why, probably I shall never see her again after I go away from Lakewood,—and so I consider it better judgment to ignore her silly prank, rather than stir up a ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... clear to the Warden that some organised prank or protest was afoot. Dignity required that he should take no heed whatsoever. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, stately he approached the dais, his ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... which she makes no secret. But she drops her voice somewhat to disguise her feats of metathesis, about which she has doubts and which are involuntary: the "stand-wash," the "sweeping-crosser," the "sewing chamine." Genoese peasants have the same prank when they try to ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... restraint, they thrived like weeds in their ancestral domicile, which was now sadly in need of repair. Occasionally some daring prank set the neighbourhood by the ears, but, for the most part, the twins behaved very well and attended strictly to their own affairs. They ate when they were hungry, slept when they were sleepy, and, if they desired to sit up until ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... fun and frolic it was a wonder if young Jack Billington did not play some prank on the Indians. He was the boy who fired off his father's gun one day, close to a keg of gunpowder, in the crowded cabin of ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... ferment. They were all the time either fighting or frolicking with each other, and I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, everything went wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each other, or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good natured fellow, the worst character ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... chevalier's accusations and the First Consul's suspicions (for, after all, neither had any evidence against me), but I could not bear her generous confidence in me, feeling that I had so miserably forfeited my right to it by indulging in a foolish boyish prank. I did not raise my head (where it had sunk in shame), but by reason of being so much taller I yet could see her turn toward me, see her look of implicit trust change slowly to doubt and fear. Then I heard her utter one low cry, "Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!" and turn ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... stroking hand, Startled eyes of hazel bland Kindling, growing larger, Up thou leapest with a spring, Full of prank and curveting ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... of the Eagle might set on us again," added Stephen; and as they went on their way to Warwick Inner Yard, he explained that the cause of the encounter had been that Giles had thought fit to prank himself in his father's silver chain, and thus George Bates, always owing the Dragon a grudge, and rendered specially malicious since the encounter on Holy Rood Day, had raised the cry against him, and caused all the flat-caps around to make a rush at ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... rejection of any participation in the rude affrays, the catastrophe of which dramas was in general an almost universal flogging match. My admiration naturally led to its probable result, a desire to imitate—I firmly resolved to become a Peregrine. I soon promoted myself to be the leader of every mad prank that the wit of a spirit suddenly excited to activity could devise. In the first fortnight I got flogged for tying a huge mass of brown paper to the tail of the favourite cat of the master's lady, with which she rushed with an insane and terrifying ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... Stratton had appeared months and months ago on one of the official lists of "killed or missing." It increased his discomfort over the whole hateful business and made him thankful for the first time that he was alone in the world. At least no mother or sister had been tortured by this strange prank of fate. ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... girlie!" cried her father. "You have succeeded, indeed! But don't you ever dare cut up such a prank again!" ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... She had been in mischief herself too often when at Phil's age not to feel sympathy with him on the score of the prank he had played that afternoon. It was this same sympathetic understanding of their moods and actions which gave her so much influence with the boys, enabling her to twist them round her little finger, as Miles ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... them there since she died," Max asserted. "How do I know so much about it? I was down there last summer with Frank Sustis. His father sent him out to look the place over, with a view to buying it himself for a summer home. You should have heard Prank jeer at the idea while we ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... wreath; And those more distant showing from beneath The others' wings their little eyes of light. While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother, But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss, This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother, Who turns to greet ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... "Tales from Bohemia" collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons whom he met and the friends whom he knew, and he treated ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Art went to Larry's, where he understood that Phelim was on the missing list. This justified his suspicions of the Squire; but by no means lessened his bitterness against him, for the prank he had intended to play upon him. With great simplicity, he presented himself at the Big House, and met its owner on the lawn, accompanied by two other gentlemen. The magistrate was somewhat surprised at seeing Art at large, when he imagined him to be under the jailer's ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... do, skippin' along street fresh an' nimblelike, his eyne chock full o' mischief lookin' round fur to see some poor soul to play a prank on. It do feel strange-like to have him a-sittin' by my elbow today. Many's the tale I could tell o' his doin' an' our sufferin'. Why, I mind a poor lump of a 'prentice as I wunst had, a loon as never could raise a keek: poor soul, he bin underground ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... my gracious Lord, To chide at your extreames, it not becomes me: (Oh pardon, that I name them:) your high selfe The gracious marke o'th' Land, you haue obscur'd With a Swaines wearing: and me (poore lowly Maide) Most Goddesse-like prank'd vp: But that our Feasts In euery Messe, haue folly; and the Feeders Digest with a Custome, I should blush To see you so attyr'd: sworne I thinke, To ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Bidassoa, the Rubicon of their journey. It formed the boundary between France and Spain. On reaching its southern bank they stood on the soil of the land of the dons, and the truant prince danced for joy, filled with delight at the success of his runaway prank. Gresley afterwards reported in England that Buckingham looked worn from his long ride, but that he had never seen Prince ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... that same afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank. "I do hate her ways," she exclaimed, "but I'm sorry I let her know we 'spected her; and so to make up, I gave her that little piece of broken coral I keep in my bead purse; you ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... part of them. But at length he became resigned, noticing that among the three or four hundred in his class only about forty merited the honor of being questioned, because they attracted the professor's attention by their appearance, some prank, comicality, or other cause. The greater part of the students congratulated themselves that they thus escaped the work of thinking and understanding the subject. "One goes to college, not to learn and ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... who—gentlest of the gentle—has a dramatic sense of slang, of which she makes no secret. But she drops her voice somewhat to disguise her feats of metathesis, about which she has doubts and which are involuntary: the "stand-wash," the "sweeping-crosser," the "sewing chamine." Genoese peasants have the same prank when they try to ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... me on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly of ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... double force from an undisputed authority such as the late Dr. Arnold. Everybody who has had experience of school-life knows that the average boy spends a great deal of his time in cheating the masters, lying to the authorities, and playing every sort and kind of mischievous or disreputable prank that comes into his head. But it is better to have this fact testified to by a man who has been in a position to observe large numbers of boys over a very extended period. The accusation of exaggeration or hasty generalization ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... Two big months! He would have guessed, at farthest, two weeks. "I have been two months in one shirt? Impossible!" he exclaimed. His serious idea (he cherished it for the support of his reason) was, that the world above had played a mad prank since he had been shuffled off ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Freeman Bell, had it type-written, and sent it round to the publishers in two enormous quarto volumes. I had been working at it for more than a year every evening after the hellish torture of the day's teaching, and all day every holiday, but now I had a good rest while it was playing its boomerang prank of returning to me once a month. The only gleam of hope came from Bentleys, who wrote to say that they could not make up their minds to reject it; but they prevailed upon themselves to part with it at last, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to tell the truth I really believe she would have been equal to such a prank some years back. There's a lurking spirit of mischief in her eyes to this day, though I know she has met with a great grief lately, for I heard all about poor little Joe," Paul said, after ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... would be guilty of such an outrage, Frank only remembered that Peg was in a white heat of indignation, and fully capable of doing some madcap prank in order to frighten off the two saddle boys. He was also not a little worried about the rustlers, supposed to be lurking somewhere not ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... to have gone back ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, rather than have accomplished such an idiotic prank ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... soon transpired. A suspicion that they had been sold gradually dawned on the Rivermouthians. Many were exceedingly indignant, and declared that no penalty was severe enough for those concerned in such a prank; others—and these were the very people who had been terrified nearly out of their wits—had the assurance to laugh, saying that they knew all along it was ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the troubadours below, also for the love of it. A great cavalry leader, he shone at his brightest in the chase, and, when there was no fighting to be done, his were the spirits of a boy, and he was as quick for a prank as any lad under his ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... anyone coming into the place. Then, ordering some rum and water and a pipe of tobacco, he composed himself to watch for the appearance of those witty fellows whom he suspected would presently come thither to see the end of their prank and to enjoy ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... mother very angry, my old grandmother to hold up her hands, and look at the ceiling through her spectacles, and my aunt Milly as merry as myself. Before I was eight years old, I had become so notorious, that any prank played in the town, any trick undiscovered, was invariably laid to my account; and many were the applications made to my mother for indemnification for broken windows and other damage done, too often, I grant, with good reason, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... long mantle with a hood, and appeared in a great hurry. To my surprise, however, he stopped and exclaimed quite cordially, "Ah, cousin, you are a stranger! I have not seen you for a long time. I was sorry to hear of Peleton's mad prank. Were ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... spring the fairy played, but this I ken weel, that Wullie had nae great goo o' his performance; so he sits thinkin' to himsel': 'This maun be a deil's get, Auld Waughorn himsel' may come to rock his son's cradle, and play me some foul prank;' so he catches the bairn by the cuff o' the neck, and whupt him into the ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... solemn contract when we were of less tender age; but there never was betrothal; and before any fit time for it had come, I had the mishap to have the maid close to me—she was ever besetting and running after me—when by some prank, unhappily of mine, a barrel of gunpowder blew up and wellnigh tore her to pieces. My father came, and her mother, an unnurtured, uncouth woman, who would have forced me to wed her on the spot, but my father would not hear of it, more especially as there were then two male heirs, so that I should ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more pansylike than ever, but she was much more talkative and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for servants, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... rose to go to the billiard room. "I have one piece of advice to give you," he said. "This prank is harmless enough, but establish a definite understanding with this fellow that you are not to be liable in damages for personal injuries which his Indians may receive. Explain to him that it is not child's play and have him put it ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... her suitors, a family priest, a commander of the guard and the prince's tutor, under plea of the bath and stows them away in baskets which suggest Falstaff's "buck-basket." In Miss Stokes' "Indian Fairy Tales" the fair wife of an absent merchant plays a similar notable prank upon the Kotwal, the Wazir, the Kazi and the King; and akin to this is the exploit of Temal Ramakistnan, the Madrasi Tyl Eulenspiegel and Scogin who by means of a lady saves his life from the Rajah and the High Priest. Mr. G. H. Damant (pp. 357-360 of the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the Philosopher, "the obtuseness and arrogance of these creatures! No, my poor friend," continued he, addressing the Caterpillar, "disdain you as they may, and unpromising as your aspect certainly is at present, the time is at" hand when you will prank it with the ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... day a spirit of mischief urged the Prince on to a gay prank, as also a wayward spirit urged him no longer to ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... a hundred years I do not think I could ever forget it. Tanty Rose (she has not yet stopped scolding everybody for the fright she has had) is in the next room with Madeleine, who, poor dear, has been made quite ill by this prank of mine; but since after the distress caused by her Molly's death she has had the joy of finding her Molly alive again, things are balanced, I take it; and all being well that ends well, the whole affair is pleasant to remember. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... with you, Gwen! You're always thinking about yourself! You've done a silly, mad prank to-day, and I don't know what Mrs. Cass will say when she arrives. Really, at your age you ought to know better and remember your dignity. You're not a child now, though I'm sure you behave like one. Go and put that bucket and scrubbing-brush away, and wash your face ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... He describes graphically his first meeting with the youth who was to be his lifelong friend. He first saw Jos sliding down from a third-story balcony on a tin waterspout. In the light of later years Escosura felt that in this boyish prank the child was father of the man. The boy who preferred waterspouts to stairways, later in life always scorned the beaten path, and "the illogical road, no matter how venturesome and hazardous it was, attracted him to it by virtue of that sort of fascinating ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... manhood, the keenest relish of a funny prank, and one such he used to act over again in after life with the greatest vivacity of manner. Every one remembers the story told by Jefferson Hogg how Shelley got rid of the old woman with the onion basket who took a place beside him in a stage coach in Sussex, by ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... and poured out their tale, to Mrs. Moss's great amusement; for she saw in it only some playmate's prank, and was not much impressed by the ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... was in general an almost universal flogging match. My admiration naturally led to its probable result, a desire to imitate—I firmly resolved to become a Peregrine. I soon promoted myself to be the leader of every mad prank that the wit of a spirit suddenly excited to activity could devise. In the first fortnight I got flogged for tying a huge mass of brown paper to the tail of the favourite cat of the master's lady, with which she rushed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... firebrands having been thrown into it in the sight of the whole town, amidst loud exclamations of indignation and sorrow, I will not say of the loyalists—for I rather think there are none—but of simply every human being. That madman runs riot: thinks after this mad prank of nothing short of murdering his opponents: canvasses the city street by street: makes open offers of freedom to slaves. For the fact is that up to this time, while trying to avoid prosecution,[402] he had a case, difficult indeed to support, and obviously bad, but still a case: he might ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... tilted mirror caught and held his attention. Could that harsh semblance of a man be himself? Various periods of his life flashed in separate pictures before him. Glimpses of his college days; this and that gay prank of irresponsible youth. Then came incidents of his first business ventures; his dealings with Jefferson Henderson stood out sharply. The old man's first intuitive fears of coming loss rang in his ears, followed by curses of helpless, astounded despair. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... which pays frequent visits to the district patrolled by the American destroyers. When he has finished his task of distributing his mines where they will do the most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of Irish shore-line, always leaving behind them ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... mission; yet if he had sent me on a mission to a dog-court, I should have obeyed orders and entered by a dog-gate: however, it so happens that I am here on a mission to the King of Ts'u, and of course I expect to enter by a gate befitting the status of that ruler." Still another prank was tried by the foolish king: a "variety entertainment" was got up, in which one scene represented a famished wretch who was being belaboured for some reason. Naturally every one asked: "What is that?" The answer ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... escapades in which Francesco, Giovanni, Garzia, and Ernando, the Duke's sons, were joined by young Malatesta de' Malatesti and other pages of the household. One such boyish prank, when the Court was at Pisa, in the winter of 1550, had a tragic ending. In the pages' common room the lads were playing with shot-guns, which were supposed to be unloaded. Picking up one of these, by mere chance, Malatesta aimed it jokingly at his companions, when ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... childhood. As it hung in her father's house, she used to be both annoyed and terrified at the manner in which the eyes of the portrait followed her about the room with persistent and, as she thought, reproving gaze. Especially when she had been guilty of some childish prank, the silent reproach in her grandfather's eyes was intolerable. One day she climbed upon a chair before the portrait, and with a pin attempted to blind the eyes. The pin pricks are still visible ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... were men who when at home manifested the most gentle and wide-reaching feelings; most of them could not by any possibility have slapped a kitten merely for the prank and yet all of them who had seen an unknown man shot through the head in battle had little more to think of it than if the man had been a rag-baby. Tender they might be; poets they might be; but they were all horned with a ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... ion glide over to each other. Their eyes met. They were the butts of a prank that no doubt had been the source of ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... within, as it were, from his petticoat days when he collected goose-eggs and tried to hatch them out by sitting over them himself. One might be inclined to dismiss this trivial incident smilingly, as a mere childish, thoughtless prank, had not subsequent development as a child, boy, and man revealed a born investigator with original reasoning powers that, disdaining crooks and bends, always aimed at the centre, and, like the flight of the bee, were ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... and fished in that marvellously finished manner only possible to those who seem to have been destined by a capricious Fate to do so well that which they have never learned to do. And at college, who but Jemmy Dawson—who but he? For a wicked prank, or a mad carouse; for a trick to be played on a proctor, or a kiss to be taken by stealth,—who such a Master of Arts as our young Undergraduate? But at his lectures and chapels and repetitions he was (although always with a vast natural capacity) an inveterate Idler; and he did besides ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... arts, which, so far as I can judge, are at a lower ebb in these modern days of quips and quodlibets than in the stirring times of my youth. Then, thank God, it was held more necessary for a page to know his seven points of horsemanship than how to tie a ribbon, or prank a ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... darned if I appreciate this way he's got of treating it like a spoiled kid's prank. I'm going to make him recognize the fact that I'm a man, by golly, and that I look at things like a man. He's got to be proud to have me in the family, before I come into the family. He ain't going to take me in as one more kid to look after. I'll ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... then in a more composed voice: "I am hoping it is merely some boyish prank. But even that will be bad enough, if he ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... IOU's she had spoken of, there might easily be something in that; for though Evgenie was undoubtedly a man of wealth, yet certain of his affairs were equally undoubtedly in disorder. Arrived at this interesting point, Gania suddenly broke off, and said no more about Nastasia's prank ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... reasons. First it would chill the water more speedily when in this condition; then again the chances of knocking one of the interlopers on the head with a heavy lump of ice falling quite some distance would be obviated. Hugh did not intend that this prank should end in a tragedy, if he ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... thickness was not vengeance-proof. They little thought, that day of pain When, launched as on the lightning's flash, They bade me to destruction dash, That one day I should come again, With twice five thousand horse, to thank The Count for his uncourteous ride. They played me then a bitter prank, When, with the wild horse for my guide, They bound me to his foaming flank: At length I played them one as frank— For time at last sets all things even— And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of him who ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Master Hugo Gottfried here (whose acquaintance I made at my father's house on the day after his foolish boy's prank of the White Swan) that in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg dwelt one of mine own age, like myself a maid solitary among men. So to-day I have come to solicit her acquaintance, and to ask her to be kind to me, who have ever been in this city and country ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... one of the few times in his life, doubted his eyes. What trick were they playing him? For it was not a real, sharp figure that he saw; it was an indefinite one, shimmering and elusive, like a mirage. A prank of the strange light, perhaps. But Ku Sui nevertheless! Ku ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... believe that I was accessory to this mad prank of your brother's? Do not believe it ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... Lord Berkeley of Stratton told Lord Strafford of "a fine prank of the widow Lady Jersey" (see Letter 29, note 3). "It is well known her lord died much in debt, and she, after taking upon her the administration, sold everything and made what money she could, and is run away into France ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... said. "It was a prank one would expect you to play. Though it's a very long time since I saw you, you haven't changed, Dick. Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come back ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... of Akos' son—was reared too kindly by his poor, good mother; she loved him excessively, and thereby spoiled him. The boy became very fastidious and sensitive. He was eleven years old when his mother noticed that she could not command his obedience. Once the child played some prank, a mere trifle; how can a child of eleven years commit any great offence? His mother thought she must rebuke him. The boy laughed at the rebuke; he could not believe his mother was angry; then, in consequence, his mother boxed his ears. The boy left the room; behind the garden there was ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... spontaneous as well as the mechanical and rigid may be comical. Sometimes the same object may be comical from both the points of view which we have specified; this is always true, as we shall see, in the most highly developed comedy. For example, we may laugh at the child's prank because it is so absurd from the point of view of our grown-up expectations as to reasonable conduct, and at the same time, taking the part of the child, rejoice at the momentary relief from them which it offers us. Our scorn ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... word had made a great change in his attitude. It was plain that before that he had not taken them seriously, but had supposed them to be playing some prank. Now, however, he looked at ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... adore you, because you succeed! And now I may say it, I hope without blushing, That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter and larger than the ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... I have been able to find of this Fairy prank is in a small book of prose poetry called Gweledigaeth Cwrs y Byd, or Y Bardd Cwsg, which was written by the Revd. Ellis Wynne (born 1670-1, died 1734), rector of Llanfair, near Harlech. The "Visions of the Sleeping Bard" were published ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... Prank, utterly taken aback by Tom's business-like levity, "you would actually have stood to shoot, and be shot ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... who had been talking at random to please an avid mother. Mr. Bembridge knew that the boy was no good at work, wanted to say something nice about him, and had once noticed him playing some absurd but very ordinary boyish prank. On this supposed hint of character the master spoke. Mrs. Lane listened. Eustace acted. A sudden ambition stirred within him. To be known, talked about, considered, perhaps even wondered at—was not that a glory? Such a glory came to the greatly talented—to the mightily industrious. Men earned ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... situation; he helped himself to cream and sifted sugar with leisurely satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all, there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business— Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on the table, he and his father-in-law ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... blatant Improvement, advertised itself from that culturous and reeking compartment. But just below—Io was tempted to rub her eyes—stood Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"; a Browning, complete; that inimitably jocund fictional prank, Frederic's "March Hares," together with the same author's fine and profoundly just "Damnation of Theron Ware"; Taylor's translation of Faust; "The [broken-backed] Egoist"; "Lavengro" (Io touched its magic pages with tender fingers), and a fat, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... saving sense of humor. Though such a driver for work—sometimes twenty hours a day seemed too short and they often worked all of twenty-four,—there was not unfrequently a jolly, prank-playing relaxation among the employees in the laboratory. If some fellow fell asleep and began snoring the others would get a record of it and play it later for the culprit or they would fix up a 'squawkophone' to outdo his racket. Most amusing was Edison's means of taking a short nap by curling ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... he had the name without having had the game. More often, however, the search found him only too certainly to be the moving cause of the prank in question. His fourteen years of life had been full of stir and action, both for him and all connected with him, and nobody could complain of dullness when Teddy was around. Still, he was so frank and sunny-natured that everybody was fond of him, ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... bowed to him. He walked past them without acknowledging their greetings. His presence silenced and confused the crowd, and evoked embarrassed smiles and low exclamations, as of repentant children who had already come to regret their prank. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... the gang having one night challenged a fellow-student and received no answer, fired, and took such good aim that the poor young man fell dead on the pavement. Horrified and amazed at the fatal result of his mad prank, the student fled, hoping ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... for freaks like ours? You, whom I've found *** you understand—for shame Your crimes are such as all must blush to name. Though I may have a negro for gallant, And erred when Atis for me seemed to pant, His merit and the black's superior rank, Must lessen, if not quite excuse my prank. Howe'er, old boy, you presently shall see, If any belle solicited should be, To grant indulgencies, with presents sweet, She will not straight capitulation beat; At least, if they be such as I have viewed:— ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... this project, which then must have been fully matured in her mind, nor any written word of explanation and encouragement. For, thinks I, she being no longer a giddy, heedless child, ready to play any prank without regard to the consequences, but a very considerate, remorseful woman, would not put us to this anxiety without cause. Had she resolved to go to her friends at Elche, she would, at least, have comforted us with the hope of ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... the purple dieth, And short, dry grass under foot is brown; But one little streak at a distance lieth Green like a ribbon to prank ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious abode; every burned book ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... all others. When he encountered with any of them upon the street, he would not never fail to put some trick or other upon them, sometimes putting the bit of a fried turd in their graduate hoods, at other times pinning on little foxtails or hares'-ears behind them, or some such other roguish prank. One day that they were appointed all to meet in the Fodder Street (Sorbonne), he made a Borbonesa tart, or filthy and slovenly compound, made of store of garlic, of assafoetida, of castoreum, of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... absurd view to take of the thing!' cried Urania, with an injured air. 'An innocent practical joke, not involving harm of any kind; a little girlish prank played on the spur of the moment. I thought you were more sensible than to be offended—much less seriously ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... through a narrow sunbeam into the brown shade to meet him, with such a shamefaced, boyish air of conscious delinquency. Conscious, indeed, that he was the author of a certain commotion, but very far, assuredly, from being conscious that he, Gifford Crayshaw, by means of this schoolboy prank, was taking the decisive step towards a change in the destiny of every soul then bearing a part ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... were great jokers. There was something in the way of fun going on, nearly all the time; either there was racing, while mowing, or raking the heels of the boys ahead of them. They were brimming over with hay-makers' tricks, and I well remember what a prank they played on me during ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... room a reputation that would ensure its being free of inquisitive folk. You see what I mean? Well, of course, it was just possible, if this were the case, that someone knew the secret of the machinery, and was utilizing the knowledge to play this devil of a prank on Tassoc. The microphone test of the walls would certainly have made this known to me, as I have said; but there was nothing of the sort in the castle; so that I had practically no doubt at all now, but that it was a genuine case of what is ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... she disappeared again. Bennington stood still, waiting for some new prank, but he waited in vain. He instituted a search, but the search was fruitless. He called, but received no reply. At last he made his way again to the dell in which they had lunched, and there he found her, flat on her back, looking at the little ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... Olympus to consult about the marriage of a Frankfort lawyer, and seriously enough, to be sure, as well became the festival of such an honorable man. Venus and Themis had quarrelled for his sake; but a roguish prank, which Amor played the latter, gained the suit for the former: and the gods decided in favor of ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... her lips, stretch forth her arms, and sway her body, as though she were really singing. The noise in the house redoubled in the attempt to drown her voice, but she serenely went on with her pantomime. This seemed to continue an interminable time, when the audience, tiring of its prank and in order to hear, suddenly stilled its clamor, and discovered the dumb show she had been making. For a moment all was silent, save for the orchestra, her lips moving on without a sound, and then the ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... time, dear, and not be so impatient. Papa promised to give you a chance before the season is over, and he always manages things nicely. That will be better than any queer prank of yours,' answered Bess, tying her pretty hair in a white net to match her suit, while Josie made a little lobster ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... had been in mischief herself too often when at Phil's age not to feel sympathy with him on the score of the prank he had played that afternoon. It was this same sympathetic understanding of their moods and actions which gave her so much influence with the boys, enabling her to twist them round her little ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... Risdon excitedly. "No, no,—you must be mistaken. A boyish prank. No one about here ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... the huge Flavian wonder, hide Their heads in shame—these gilded stones (O heaven!) were very blood and bones Of those whom Christ did come To save—vile grin of slaves who sold Celestial rights for earthy gold, Marketing grace with merchant's measure, To prank with Europe's pillaged treasure ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... friends who would hide him. The man who is known to have committed that crime—Francesco Paoli—escaped to New York. We are looking for him to-day. He is a clever man, far above the average—son of a doctor in a town a few miles from Naples, went to the university, was expelled for some mad prank—in short, he was the black sheep of the family. Of course over here he is too high-born to work with his hands on a railroad or in a trench, and not educated enough to work at anything else. So he has been preying on his more industrious countrymen—a typical case of a man living by his wits with ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... rank the prisoners happened to be, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed the expression of countenance he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me, but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... though I could not make quite sure without asking more questions than I thought worth while. She came stealing in early in the morning, looking a little pale and wild, but she hasn't played such a prank since. I had a call to the next town and Marilla had evidently been awake all night. I got home early in the morning myself, and was told that it was supposed I had picked up Nan on the road and carried ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... solium of the solid wave, Prank'd with rude shapes by the fantastic frost, He stood in silence;—now keen thoughts engrave Dark figures on his front; and, tempest-toss'd, He fears to say that every hope is lost. Meanwhile the multitude as death are mute; So, ere the tempest on Malacca's ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... himself was a goody-goody—far from it; he was a terrible prank maker, and more than once narrowly missed suffering serious consequences. But when he really grew up and it came to an acquaintance with women, very few have even attracted him. I began to fear that ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... stream, and strode towards the beech clump. Prank of the moonlight! Nothing! In and out of the boulders and thorn trees, muttering and cursing, yet with a kind of terror, he rushed and stumbled. Absurd! Silly! Then he went back to the apple tree. But she was gone; he could hear a rustle, the grunting of the pigs, the sound of a gate closing. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Creek, expecting to enjoy the rare pleasure of seeing her leap over the Falls and emerge in little fragments and splinters of timber in the river below. Thousands had gathered on the Canadian shore, and on Goat Island, to witness a prank never matched in audacity since the British "guerrillas" from the other side, in the time of the Canadian rebellion, seized the steamer "Caroline" at Schlosser, set her on fire, and sent her down the Falls—an act which almost lit the torch of war so ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... myself again with a suddenness that caused a little blot of ink to spurt from my fountain-pen on to the surface of the paper. I drew a deep breath. I was free again. And with the freedom came a resolve—that whatever portion of myself had been responsible for this prank should not repeat it if ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... and unpardonable event. A number of medical students, mere boys, in the University of Havana, were charged with defacing the tomb of a Spanish officer who had been killed by a Cuban in a political quarrel. At its worst, it was a boyish prank, demanding rebuke or even some mild punishment. Later evidence indicates that while there was a demonstration there was no defacement of the vault. Forty-two students were arrested as participants, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... publish one and all, They leap the counter, and they leave the stall:— Provincial maidens, men of high command, Yea, baronets, have ink'd the bloody hand! Cash cannot quell them—Pollio play'd this prank: (Then Phoebus first found credit in a bank;) Not all the living only, but the dead Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' head! Damn'd all their days, they posthumously thrive, Dug up from dust, though buried when alive! ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... bet with Eells and deposited all his money in the bank he was looked upon almost with pride as a picturesque asset of the town. He made talk, and that was made into publicity, and publicity helped the town. And now this mad prank upon which he seemed bent gave promise of even greater renown. So he had had a bad dream? That piqued their curiosity, but they were not kept long in doubt. Dismounting at the bank, he glanced up at the front and then made a ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... his fourth spouse With all the ceremonies of his rank, Who cleared her sparkling eyes and smoothed her brows, As suits a matron who has played a prank; These must seem doubly mindful of their vows, To save the credit of their breaking bank: To no men are such cordial greetings given As those whose wives have made them fit ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... play such capers every night. The genius of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have sufficed to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a year. In the first place, circumstances were not always propitious: sometimes the moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly irritated their betters; then one or another of their number refused to share in some proposed outrage because a relation was involved. But if the scamps were not at Mere Cognette's every night, they always met during the day, enjoying together the legitimate ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... on dis spot an' rode a wheel to Fernwood every day, an' fed de teams an' hitched 'em to de wagons an' I was niver late an' niver stopped fer anything, an' my wheel niver was in de shop. I niver 'lowed anybody to prank wid it, an' dat wheel was broke up ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... with the air of being so absorbed in her own affairs that she looked upon the other occupants as she did the furniture. Without even a direct glance at the young people in the corner she swept up to a chair within a few feet of them and sat down to wait. Jimmy, in the midst of some tale about a prank that the High School Invincibles had played on a rival base-ball team, faltered, grew confused and finished haltingly. For all her spectacles and crape the golden haired stranger was fascinatingly ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Puck to Will-o'-the-wisp, are apt to play practical jokes and knock people about whom they meet after sunset. A dozen tales of such were rife, and folks were more amused than amazed by Lob Lie-by-the-fire's next prank. ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... pool, with well-spring nigh, And through the grass a streamlet fleeting by. The porch with palm or oleaster shade— That when the regents from the hive parade Its gilded youth, in Spring—their Spring!—to prank, To woo their holiday heat a neighbouring bank May lean with branches hospitably cool. And midway, be your water stream or pool, Cross willow-twigs, and massy boulders fling— A line of stations for the halting wing To dry in summer sunshine, has it shipped A cupful aft, or deep in ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... quite sure Miss Mischief had been up to some prank, which had turned out disastrously. But it must have been a serious one, and perhaps there were grave consequences to ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... do you mean to do?" said the stranger. "I don't think you can pull home in her. One doesn't know how much she may be damaged. She may sink in the lock, or play any prank." ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the Sunday-school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs, With a blow of his fist. Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin, And no children shall worship ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... very much about The Man's sudden return to Opal Farm and if it will interfere with Maria Maxwell's daily care of Amos Opie; for, as it turns out, he is really ill, the chill resulting from Larry's prank having been the final straw, and no suitable woman having been found, who has volunteered to tend the old man in the emergency, but Maria! That is, to the extent of taking him food and giving him medicines, for though in pain he is able to sit in an easy-chair. Maria certainly is capable, ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... dealt with the occasional outbreaks in the college was very interesting. If it was a case of wanton defiance of the habitual order, there was a very slight probability of its being overlooked. A favorite prank of the stealing of the college bell was invariably punished, first by having a hand-bell rung a little earlier than regulation hours all through the sections; and, when his secret police had discovered the offenders, they were punished according ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... proud of you. Won't you try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm a man ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... much more talkative and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... watched,—and would not thence depart— 230 My husband's unlamented tomb. My children knew their sire was gone, But when I told them,—'He is dead,'— They laughed aloud in frantic glee, They clapped their hands and leaped about, 235 Answering each other's ecstasy With many a prank and merry shout. But I sate silent and alone, Wrapped in the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... one of the stools and stirred his coffee. He held a dime novel with his other hand, reading; but Pie-Wagon Pete kept an eye on him. He knew Billy Getz and his practical jokes. If unwatched for a moment, the young whipper-snapper might empty the salt into the sugar-bowl, or play some other prank that came under his ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... in hand, George Gaylord said: "Allow me, Miss Fenwick, to introduce to you my friend and college chum, Fillmore Flagg: for a peculiar purpose of his own he wishes to regain possession of that flighty paper which, fortunately for him, the prank playing wind carried to your feet but a ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... After this prank the Troyas commenced a conversation with their visitors about the people and the affairs of the town. The engineer, fearing that his exploit might be discovered while he was present, wished to go, which ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... that dull grief delights to see Vex'd Nature wear a kindred gloom; Not that she smiled in vain to me, When gaily prank'd in summer's bloom Nay, much I loved, at even-tide, Through Brahan's lonely woods to stray. To mark thy peaceful billows glide, And watch the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... assistance; but since your going to war will cut off both those assistances, those that are for going to war choose evident destruction. What hinders you from slaying your children and wives with your own hands, and burning this most excellent native city of yours? for by this mad prank you will, however, escape the reproach of being beaten. But it were best, O my friends, it were best, while the vessel is still in the haven, to foresee the impending storm, and not to set sail out of the port into the middle of the hurricanes; for we justly pity those ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... had occasion to punish her one day last week for a particularly mischievous prank, and after she had talked it over very solemnly sent the little girl up to ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... betrays him into magnifying to enormous proportions the guilt of the boyish prank of stealing green pears from the garden of a neighbor, inspired by the agreeable thought of the irritation which would be caused by the theft. The pears were not edible, and were thrown to the pigs, which circumstance seduces ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... whole five were soon eagerly planning as to their work for the day. First of all the two old boats which had served to carry them up to the forks of the Evergreen River must be securely hidden. This was mainly on account of those prank-loving boys who, under the leadership of the town bully, Ted Shafter, they half expected to follow them to ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... a babel of tongues broke forth, and there were loud and angry cries for Le Brusquet, whose "fool's prank," as they called it, had caused this storm. Le Brusquet, however, was not to be seen. He had stolen in, thrown his apple of discord, and stolen forth again like a ghost. None knew or understood better than he the wayward character of Vendome, ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... at all, my eyes are dazzled and my heart goes to thumping like any silly school boy's. Aye, 'tis a very sorry pass. Were it not so demned upsetting, it would be amusing. Fate never played a wilder prank. What, ho, Zachariah! Where are we now? Whose farm is that upon ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... spot where tulips prank their state Has drunk the life-blood of the great; The violets yon fields which stain Are moles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... happened to be, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed the expression of countenance he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me, but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul and ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)—that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Mississippi Regiment: J. Wm. Flynn,[1] then a mere lad, but whose record will compare with the brightest; Samuel Frank, quartermaster; Maurice Bernhiem, quartermaster-sergeant, and Auerbach, the drummer of the regiment. I was proudly told by a member of Company G, Seventeenth Mississippi, that Sam Prank, although excelling in every duty of his position, was exceeding brave, often earnestly asking permission to lead the skirmishers, and would shoulder a musket sooner than stay out of the fight. Maurice Bernhiem, quartermaster-sergeant, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... should think perhaps they might be, sometimes. At any rate, I think that they deserve a beating quite as much as a boy does, for neglecting to learn a lesson or for playing some prank—which comes just as naturally, to him, as mischief does to a kitten. For anything really bad, I would beat a boy as long as I could stand over him. For lying, or thieving, or any mean, dirty trick I would have no mercy on him. But that is a very different thing to keeping the cane ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... espied that I sought—a place where the coping was gone with sundry of the bricks, making here a gap very apt to escalade; and here, years agone, I had been wont to climb this wall to the furtherance of some boyish prank on many a night such as this. Awhile stood I staring up at this gap, then, seizing hold of massy brickwork, I drew myself up and dropped into a walled garden. Here were beds of herbs well tended and orderly, and, as I went, I breathed an air sweet with the smell of thyme ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the hindmost, who'd be last? They storm the types, they publish one and all, They leap the counter, and they leave the stall:— Provincial maidens, men of high command, Yea, baronets, have ink'd the bloody hand! Cash cannot quell them—Pollio play'd this prank: (Then Phoebus first found credit in a bank;) Not all the living only, but the dead Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' head! Damn'd all their days, they posthumously thrive, Dug up from dust, though buried when alive! Reviews record this epidemic crime, Those books of martyrs to the rage for rhyme ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... O'Brady had chuckled over the prank that had first earned him the title,—the holding up of the coach that ran between Byestry and Kingsleigh, Nick at the head of a band of half a dozen young scapegraces clad in black masks and huge hats, and armed with old pistols purloined from the ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... an Oxford undergraduate prank. Members of a literary club, The Scorpions, agree to write a serial story on shares. They invent a tale around certain names in an accidentally found letter signed "Kathleen." Their romantic fervor ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... caprice of others, is of short duration. Cave's superiority in literature exalted him to an invidious familiarity with boys who were far above him in rank and expectations; and, as in unequal associations it always happens, whatever unlucky prank was played was imputed to Cave. When any mischief, great or small, was done, though, perhaps, others boasted of the stratagem, when it was successful, yet, upon detection, or miscarriage the fault was sure to fall ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... reason. This is some prank, which I am sure does not concern Ehrenstein in the least. They would never dare enter Dreiberg for aught else. There must be a flaw in ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... if he did, as soon as the sot felt that eyes were upon him, he would take to making faces or launch out into a speech. Then Jean-Christophe would turn away, trembling with fear lest he should commit some outrageous prank. He would try to be absorbed in his work, but he could not help hearing Melchior's utterances and the laughter of his colleagues. Tears would come into his eyes. The musicians, good fellows that they were, had seen that, and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... his revolver. With staring eyes he looked for Bram out where the wolves had passed. And then, all at once, came the shock. It was tremendous. The trickery of sound on the Barren had played an unexpected prank with his senses, and while he strained his eyes to pierce the hazy starlight of the plain far out, Bram himself loomed up suddenly along the edge of the bush ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... houses or cultivated fields, so much the more fun for the river. For years it would flow peacefully in a well-known channel around some great bend, then decide to make a change, and in a single night cut a new channel straight across the loop of land. By such a prank not only were all the river pilots thoroughly bewildered, but a large slice of one State, with its inhabitants and buildings, would be transferred to another. If at the same time an important river-town could be stranded and left far inland, the happiness of the mischief-making giant was complete; ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... must represent reaction from the tension under which he necessarily was through the grave anxieties pressing upon him. Humor he certainly had, but at this time it often showed itself in horse-play, so fantastic as to suggest some unusual exciting cause. Thus, for one such prank he seemed to draw his inspiration from the Sunday celebration of Divine Service. Upon its conclusion, he framed and published a new signal, for "all chaplains," the employment of which, however, was postponed to an occasion suited to his lordship's fun. "A few days after it blew great ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... every night. The genius of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have sufficed to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a year. In the first place, circumstances were not always propitious: sometimes the moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly irritated their betters; then one or another of their number refused to share in some proposed outrage because a relation was involved. But if the scamps were not at Mere Cognette's every night, they always ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... had sent them a piano, and many fine pictures ornamented the walls from famous persons. An old English lady who spends her summers up there seemed much amused at the prank of the girls, and evidently wondered what their ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... searching gaze. They took their hats off and bowed to him. He walked past them without acknowledging their greetings. His presence silenced and confused the crowd, and evoked embarrassed smiles and low exclamations, as of repentant children who had already come to regret their prank. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... of less tender age; but there never was betrothal; and before any fit time for it had come, I had the mishap to have the maid close to me—she was ever besetting and running after me—when by some prank, unhappily of mine, a barrel of gunpowder blew up and wellnigh tore her to pieces. My father came, and her mother, an unnurtured, uncouth woman, who would have forced me to wed her on the spot, but my father would not hear of it, more especially as there were then ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Blanche Bay, and the islands in the Gulf, it came bounding, screaming, and buffeting. And all the way across that open sweep from Mermentau to Cote Gelee it was tearing the rain to mist and freezing it wherever it fell, only lulling and warming a little about Joseph Jefferson's Island, as if that prank were too mean a trick ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... seek a green-moss'd pool, with well-spring nigh, And through the grass a streamlet fleeting by. The porch with palm or oleaster shade— That when the regents from the hive parade Its gilded youth, in Spring—their Spring!—to prank, To woo their holiday heat a neighbouring bank May lean with branches hospitably cool. And midway, be your water stream or pool, Cross willow-twigs, and massy boulders fling— A line of stations for the halting wing To dry in summer sunshine, has it shipped A cupful ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that Dan Hoolan, though he's mighty quiet just now, will be playing us some prank or other before long, if he can find a chance," ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... don't mention it. I am only sorry that some one has played a mischievous prank on you—a servant, doubtless. Madame," sternly, looking at his step-mother. "I insist that you shall investigate the matter, and discharge ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... "Suppose we were to forgive him and pay the money. You know he would not give up leading a dissipated life, squandering money, making debts, going to our tailors and ordering suits in our names! Can you guarantee that this will be his last prank? As far as I am concerned, I have no faith whatever in ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of Study, Work and Play. The Schoolhouse in the Woods. Maple Sugar-making. The Orator of the Dawn. A Boyish Prank. Capturing the ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... rakes they were as ever the world beheld—was attempting to play off a smart, witty jest upon him. Indeed, Miss Eliza Bolles, who was of a lively, mischievous temper, was not herself above playing such a prank should the occasion offer. With this thought in his mind Barnaby inquired of her with a good deal of particularity concerning the appearance and condition of the man who had left the note, to all of which Miss replied with so straight ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... of thoughts as he watched the leaping flame. Its cheerful crackle, its bright color in the gloom was almost too good to be true. In these dark forests he had learned to be wary and on guard at too great fortune. Quite often it was only a prank of perverse forest gods, before they smote him with some black disaster. It seemed to him that there was a wild laughter, a Satanic mocking in the joyous crackle that was vaguely but fearfully ominous. The promise in the rainbow, the siren's song to the mariners, the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... been in mischief herself too often when at Phil's age not to feel sympathy with him on the score of the prank he had played that afternoon. It was this same sympathetic understanding of their moods and actions which gave her so much influence with the boys, enabling her to twist them round her little ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... boyish air of conscious delinquency. Conscious, indeed, that he was the author of a certain commotion, but very far, assuredly, from being conscious that he, Gifford Crayshaw, by means of this schoolboy prank, was taking the decisive step towards a change in the destiny of every soul then bearing a part ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... did!" says he. "Just like Warrie to do that, though. But, if I know Miss Prentice at all, she will pay him back for that little prank." ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... relish, and this favorite dish of his childhood seemed to have restored his good humor. "I believe." he said, gayly, "I am still able to read as well in your face, mother, as I could when I was a boy, and took pains to discover whether or not I had deserved punishment for some naughty prank. I believe I have understood your mute dialogue with Cordelia. Will you confess the truth to me if I tell you what Cordelia's glances ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... sketches. The "Tales from Bohemia" collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons whom he met and the friends whom he knew, and he treated ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... went to Larry's, where he understood that Phelim was on the missing list. This justified his suspicions of the Squire; but by no means lessened his bitterness against him, for the prank he had intended to play upon him. With great simplicity, he presented himself at the Big House, and met its owner on the lawn, accompanied by two other gentlemen. The magistrate was somewhat surprised at seeing Art ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... and misery by looking through the dining-room window on that Sunday afternoon when his prospects seemed to be so rosy. He never thought of that. He cursed every circumstance and person impartially and fluently, but he omitted from the Satanic litany the one girlish prank of tree-climbing that led Iris to spring out of sight amid the sheltering arms of an elm when her uncle and Captain Coke deemed the summer-house a suitable place for "a plain talk ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... STENSSON. How came I to——? Nay, what know I? Many's the mad prank I've hit on in my day. And yet 'twas not I hit on it neither; wherever I appeared in the Dales, the people crowded round me and greeted me as Count Sture. Deny it as I pleased, —'twas wasted breath. The Count had been there two years before, they ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... had observed Dousterswivel stand somewhat disconsolate and sad, looking into the open grave. Age had not dulled Edie's wit, nor caused him to relish less a boyish prank. His quick eye had caught some writing on the lid of the box of treasure, and while all were admiring the solid ingots of precious metal laid bare before them, Edie kicked the piece of wood aside without being observed by ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... bring a dozen and more of your friends down on his place to commit some prank that will make him dislike boys more than ever. It's all wrong, I tell you, fellows, and for one I refuse to lend a hand," and Jack folded his arms as though his mind were made ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... home nor her parents seemed to have any part in her life. She told of a prank played ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... really singing. The noise in the house redoubled in the attempt to drown her voice, but she serenely went on with her pantomime. This seemed to continue an interminable time, when the audience, tiring of its prank and in order to hear, suddenly stilled its clamor, and discovered the dumb show she had been making. For a moment all was silent, save for the orchestra, her lips moving on without a sound, and then the audience realized that it had been sold, and broke out afresh, this time with genuine ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... of Phrinzy. Here is th' inconsistency of conduct that marks a disturbance of the reason: and, to tell the truth, I once knew a young fellow that played this very prank at a wedding, and the nixt thing we hard, my ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... may say it, I hope without blushing, That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... possibly could; and a carpenter was set to work to make a covered box, for the rector's tythe-rats, with a lifting door. Hector Mowbray was consulted on the whole progress; and the fancies of father and son were tickled to excess, by the happy prank they ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... love of it, and who in the dark listened to the troubadours below, also for the love of it. A great cavalry leader, he shone at his brightest in the chase, and, when there was no fighting to be done, his were the spirits of a boy, and he was as quick for a prank as any lad under his ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... keep up the high key and act like the rest. Indeed for the most of the time I feel as they do, I suppose, but sometimes that sort of ribaldry and feelings of the ludicrous that made us joke, and prank, and cut up in genial companionships come over me, and I am suffocating with a glee out of place to this exalted society. Ah! it's good to feel you, my friend, so fresh and new from earth. It's promised ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... the stream, and strode towards the beech clump. Prank of the moonlight! Nothing! In and out of the boulders and thorn trees, muttering and cursing, yet with a kind of terror, he rushed and stumbled. Absurd! Silly! Then he went back to the apple tree. But she was gone; he could hear a rustle, the grunting of the pigs, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... come to any thing. But these widows—Then such a love in us all, both old and young, of being courted and admired!—and so irresistible to their elderships to be flattered, that all power is not over with them; but that they may still class and prank it with their daughters.—It vexed me heartily to have her tell me of this proposal with self-complaisant simperings; and yet she affected to speak of it as if she had no intention ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... grew wilder, the reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news that the boy had ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... to the billiard room. "I have one piece of advice to give you," he said. "This prank is harmless enough, but establish a definite understanding with this fellow that you are not to be liable in damages for personal injuries which his Indians may receive. Explain to him that it is not child's play and have him put it ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... a more composed voice: "I am hoping it is merely some boyish prank. But even that will be bad enough, if he misses ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... of utmost dismay on his weatherbeaten face. "Gods!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are just beginning to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... manikins, with glassy eyes and open mouths, when Death had laid his icy hand on them and they were never more to know the warmth and motion of life. Had they dragged themselves, still living, to that place, so as to die in one another's company? or was it not rather a ghastly prank of the Prussians, who had collected the bodies and placed them in a circle about the table, out of derision for the traditional gayety of ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... was not short of such food as the Relief Committees bestow. There was a piece of bread upon the bench, left from his morning meal; and the old fellow chirruped about, and looked as blithe as if he was up to the middle in clover. He showed us a little thing which he had done "for a bit ov a prank." The number of his cellar was 8, and he had cut out a large tin figure of 8, a foot long, and nailed it upon his door, for the benefit of some of his friends that were getting bad in their eyesight, and "couldn't read smo' print so low deawn as that." "Well, ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... answered the professed castaway. "I've been trying to get help for more than a day, and he always breaks in and queers my call. He makes everybody think I'm putting up a prank." ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... place. The second place was just what had been bothering Malone all along. There didn't seem to be any purpose to the car thefts. They hadn't been sold, or used as getaway cars. True, teenage delinquents sometimes stole cars just to use them joy-riding, or as some sort of prank. ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... The man who is known to have committed that crime—Francesco Paoli—escaped to New York. We are looking for him to-day. He is a clever man, far above the average—son of a doctor in a town a few miles from Naples, went to the university, was expelled for some mad prank—in short, he was the black sheep of the family. Of course over here he is too high-born to work with his hands on a railroad or in a trench, and not educated enough to work at anything else. So he has been preying on his more industrious countrymen—a typical case ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... charge of the equipment and has undertaken to improvise clothes out of what canvas can be found here. Wild is working with Joyce. He is a cheerful, willing soul. Nothing ever worries or upsets him, and he is ever singing or making some joke or performing some amusing prank. Richards has taken over the keeping of the meteorological log. He is a young Australian, a hard, conscientious worker, and I look forward to good results from his endeavours. Jack, another young Australian, is his assistant. Hayward is the handy man, being ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... she thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ways ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to town. The jailer met me with a doubtful shaking of his scheming head, and I knew that again he had received orders to be rigid in his discipline, but I was resolved that the old rascal's appetite for liquor should not play a second prank upon me; so when he hinted at another bottle I told him that I had spent so much of my life as a temperance lecturer that it was against my conscience to buy a favor with whisky. I looked steadily at him, and he ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... was so positive, and by that time Jonathan had found his tongue, and both children explained the affair so clearly, that the old magistrates looked rather foolish, and dismissed the case with a reprimand to Jonathan for wasting his time so foolishly. But some good came of the boy's prank after all. For his father, seeing how near Jonathan came being proved a witch, bestirred himself in favor of poor School-master Halleck, who was set free from ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... he himself was a goody-goody—far from it; he was a terrible prank maker, and more than once narrowly missed suffering serious consequences. But when he really grew up and it came to an acquaintance with women, very few have even attracted him. I began to fear that he was becoming ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... as though I had driven my friend into a corner from which he would find it difficult to extricate himself. But I did him an injustice and shall therefore do everything in my power to right it. My memory, as it so frequently does, played me a prank. At the same time that I answered him, I was in active correspondence with one of the delegates to the Chicago Parliament of Religions, at which the love of God and one's neighbour had been adopted, as a sort of article of agreement which the followers of any or every faith could accept. Thus it ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... I was joking," the old rascal declared. "Wash and I always prank with each other. You can take a joke, can't ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... I followed them. At the same time, I was fully conscious that I was playing a mad prank without being able to stop myself. My disordered condition ran away with me; I was inspired with the craziest notions, which I followed blindly as they came to me. I couldn't help it, no matter how much I told myself that I was playing the ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... deportment was quite all that could be wished. It occurs to me now that it was because his lordship was, how shall I say?—quite far gone in liquor at the time, so that I could without loss of dignity pass it off as a mere prank. Indeed, he regarded it as such himself, performing the act with a good nature that I found quite irresistible, and I am certain that neither his lordship nor I have ever thought the less of each other because of it. I revert to this merely to show that I have not ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... poured out their tale, to Mrs. Moss's great amusement, for she saw in it only some playmate's prank, and was not much impressed by the ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... dear old mother when she'd tell about the long trip to Corpus Christi, and things that happened on the way. They stopped over at Camden as they went through, and one of the colored gals who hated her played a prank on her to take out her spite on mother: They had stopped at a dairyman's home near Camden, and she sent my mother in to get a gallon of buttermilk. After drinking all she could hold she grabbed mother by the hair of the head and churned her up and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... rear, one of his few champions, he estranged by exchanging the "war extra" which the carrier left at the door for her, for the German paper served to Mrs. Schultz, her pet aversion on the floor below. Mrs. Rafferty upset the wash-tub in her rage at this prank. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... which made my mother very angry, my old grandmother to hold up her hands, and look at the ceiling through her spectacles, and my aunt Milly as merry as myself. Before I was eight years old, I had become so notorious, that any prank played in the town, any trick undiscovered, was invariably laid to my account; and many were the applications made to my mother for indemnification for broken windows and other damage done, too often, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... chimney began to rumble ominously, sparks to fly out at the top, and soot and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if she ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... at one another much in the same way as we used to do years before, when she had detected me in some boyish prank, and assumed the mentor while I felt a culprit. How really I felt a culprit at that moment she ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... a thrill of alarm, for the first time, shot through Gard. It was not reassuring. He thought of Rudi. Was this some official prank young Bucher had set going? It would be like him. He must be a spy, as Anderson had insisted. Was the son trying to act with confederates far away over here ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... old Lapithites, with the goblets to fight, Our own 'mongst offences unpardoned will rank, Or breaking of windows, or glasses, for spight, And spoiling the goods for a rakehelly prank. ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
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