"Poking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the women, were defending the stockade against a score of Spaniards, who kept poking their bayonets between the palisades, till all our people were wounded and bleeding. But Rachel had now recovered from her first grief at her husband's death, or rather it had turned to a feeling of revenge, and there she was, like a raging tigress, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... after the arrival of the Reliance at Sydney the two friends set to work, and in an eight-foot boat, which they appropriately named the Tom Thumb, went poking in and out along the coast-line, making discoveries of the greatest local value. Then began work destined to be of ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... that he could return to a field and locate a four-leafed clover that he had seen on a previous stroll. His dogs of war had become foxes of war, burrowing in places which wise old father foxes knew were safest from detection. Hereafter, I shall not be surprised to see a muzzle poking its head out of an oven, or from under grandfather's chair or a farm wagon, or up a tree, or in a garret. Think of the last place in the world for emplacing a gun and one may be there; think of the most likely place ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... in to spread the cloth for dinner, and went through her duties with the stolidity of the London lodging-house maidservant, poking a clogged fire to perdition, and repressing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... at the adventure. "Ensign Paul, Emilius, Theophilus, Arnoldi, is, I calculate, a pretty considerable strong active sort of fellow; and, to judge by Henry Grantham's half strangled look, his companion lacks not the same qualities. Why, in the name of all that is precious would you persist in poking your nose into the rascal's skins, Grantham? The ruffians had nearly ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... minutes later and you'd have made me blunder against the fellow poking about here with his ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... gallery wall, in a very disorderly manner, just before the opening of the other chapel, and the commencement of a new chaunt, announced the approach of his Holiness. At this crisis, the soldiers of the guard, who had been poking the crowd into all sorts of shapes, formed down the gallery: and the procession came up, between ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... a cursed dull poking life here. What with I so lately saw of poor Belton, and what I now see of this charming fellow, I shall be as crazy as he soon, or as dull as thou, Jack; so must seek for better company in town than either of you. I have been forced to read sometimes to divert me; and you know ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Percivale," I said. "What right has it to come poking in between you and me, telling me what I know and have known—for, well, I won't say how long—far better than even you can ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... out—same as us," said Overland, poking a half-burned root into the fire. "And they're gettin' about as far along at it, too. Like most folks does in a crowd—jest howlin' all together. Mebby it sounds good to 'em. I ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... did not seem interested in what was said, or in what I answered. He was a man of few words. He went off to the eastern wall, whither we followed him. I found him poking about there with a stick. The Jo'burg charioteer was soon fussing along, hurrying on tea-time. 'He didn't want to get a dose of fever this trip,' he said. He had heard about our unhealthy season up north, and the month ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... all Peter Rabbit could get out of Mr. Toad, so he started on down the Crooked Little Path. Now Peter Rabbit has a great deal of curiosity and is forever poking into other people's affairs. The more he thought about it the more he wondered what Mr. Toad could have done with his old suit. Of course he hadn't swallowed it! Who ever heard of such a thing! The more he thought of it the more Peter Rabbit felt that he must know ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... he really is a very clever man, and might do much in London, I dare say. He often comes over to dine and sleep, returning the next morning. His energy is wonderful—and contagious. Can you imagine that he has actually stirred up the flame of my vanity, by constantly poking at the bars? Metaphor apart, I find myself collecting all my notes and commonplaces, and wondering to see how easily they fall into method, and take shape in chapters and books. I cannot help smiling ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... exclaimed, "I've always been drawn toward that kind of life. A musket will be a little heavier than a gun, that's all; then I shall see different countries, and that will change my ideas." He tried to appear facetious, poking around the kitchen, and teasing the magpie, which was following his footsteps with inquisitive anxiety. Finally, he went up to the old man Vincart, who was lying stretched out in his picture-lined niche. He ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... insignificant in themselves, had nevertheless exhausted his little store of savings. His elder brothers, to whom he had exhibited with great pride these purchases, expressed none of the admiration which he had expected, but began to tease him by calling the things "trash," as indeed they were, and poking fun at the "wonderful presents" of their small brother; they would have been less cruel, perhaps, had he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence 'password hacker', 'network hacker'. The correct term ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... London for instance. There is something in the clear skies and bracing air of our city that keeps the spirits up to the successful defiance of anything short of actual hunger. There abides with me from days and nights of poking about in dark London alleys an impression of black and sooty rooms, and discouraged, red-eyed women blowing ever upon smouldering fires, that is disheartening beyond anything I ever encountered in the dreariest tenements here. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... often did cheat sailors so much that sailors might well be excused for poking fun at "Land-men" who were seasick. Yet, at a time when even the best crews had no means of keeping food and water properly, a land-lubber might also be excused for being not only seasick but sick in worse ways still. The want of fresh ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... forward and poking the fire in her embarrassment. This was entirely gratuitous frankness on Sylvia's part. "Well, I can assure you he was made for better things," she went on, bridling. "When you visit me I will show you a landscape in my parlor worth a thousand of the daubs people rave over. ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... with his back turned, fiercely poking at his lazzarone; but at Mr. Leavenworth's last words he faced ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... She felt that Stella was in the right about this. 'But they are not private, Stella; they are only furniture, and she meant to be kind, and she has got all this nice breakfast ready. I think she is in the kitchen, for I can hear some one poking the fire. Do let's go and thank her, and please be nice and smile at her, Stella,' Vava ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... thought it would be more comfortable for them to be together; because, if they got tired of me, they might talk to one another, and laugh at my old ways behind my back. But one or the other, if not both of them, I must have. Lord bless me! how do you think I can live poking by myself, I who have been always used till this winter to have Charlotte with me. Come, Miss Marianne, let us strike hands upon the bargain, and if Miss Dashwood will change her mind by and bye, why so much ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... farther concerning these subterranean productions anon, and whether the earth, as well as the water, have not the virtue of strange transmutations: These trees are found in moors, by poking with staves of three or four foot length, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... helps him remove his coat. Then he comes to the window and sinks into a leather chair and stares at the rain and the umbrellas outside. The great financier has been abroad. His highly specialized mind has been, poking among columns of figures, columns of reports. He desired to find out if possible what conditions abroad were. For six months the great financier closeted himself daily with other great financiers and talked and ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... by the little bears playing and tumbling over and around us. So we got up, and the bears made us go back again across the sands into the berry-bushes, and there we all ate berries, as there was nothing else to eat. The little ones kept poking their noses into our hands, and thus begged us to pick berries ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... other of the great black oxen lightly with his goad. The huge beasts swayed from side to side, and finally succeeded in getting themselves and the cart in motion, while the farmer walked leisurely beside them, tapping and poking them occasionally, and talking to them in that mystic language which only oxen and their drivers understand. Down the sweet country lane they went, with the willows hanging over them, and the daisies and buttercups ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... against the ivory frame which surrounded the stuffed back of her seat. "Once more I beg of you excuse me from all further speech." This time the two kings obeyed her wishes. When Euergetes offered her his hand she said with downcast eyes, and poking her fan-stick into the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... said the guide, poking his head into the coach. "Here's where you get out. Boss said to treat her well," he continued, turning to the man with whom he had ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... villains!" Saying this he sprang aft to drive back a gang of the pirates, who were attempting to board on our quarter. Two of the first paid dearly for their temerity, and were cut down by either the captain or Mr Gale. I got a long pike, and kept poking away over the bulwarks at every fellow I could reach. Several pistols were fired at me, but missed their aim; but at last the pike was dragged out of my hands, and thrown overboard. Unfortunately there was so little wind that the pirates, by getting ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... sniffing at the flowers, a quarter so often as pretty Dolly does, perhaps you wouldn't make such a perfect angel of her, and run down her sister in comparison. But your wonderful Miss Faith comes peeping here and poking there into pots and pans, and asking the maids how their mothers are, as if her father kept no housekeeper. She provoked me so in the simple-room last week, as if I was hiding thieves there, that I asked her at last ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... he began, poking his head inside the doorway with an air of comic surprise. "Jes' to see you a-sitting there, dressed up like that. Catch on to them gaiters, will you? Ain't you got the nerve to go up and down Broadway fixed up like ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... ne'er have by rote, I can scarce tell the difference, at least as to phrase, Between beef a la Psyche and curls a la braise.— But in short, dear, I'm trickt out quite a la Francaise, With my bonnet—so beautiful!—high up and poking, Like things that are put to keep chimneys ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... was in the act of choosing a soft chop from the dish—an act accompanied by a great deal of prying and poking with that gentleman's own fork. My disillusioned compatriot had pushed away his plate; he sat with his elbows on the table, gloomily nursing his head with his hands. His companion watched him and then seemed to wonder—to do Mr. Simmons justice—how he could least ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... knowing presently how to take this intervention of my sister's. But she left me not long at a loss—O thou perverse thing, said she [poking out her angry face at me, when they were all gone, but speaking spitefully low]—what trouble do you give to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... I." He was poking about under the lifted arm, among folds of filmy stuff. "Here we are—no, we aren't. Does this top hook go in this little pocket on the ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... Sundays, so was there also a great clatter on the stairs at five o'clock each morning, a rattle of brooms and hiss and slop of scrubbing-brushes—and the mistress with clogs on her feet and her father's coat over her gown, poking her head into the maids' room to see if they were up, hurrying the men over their snacks, shouting commands across the yard, into the barns or into the kitchen, and seemingly omnipresent to those slackers who paused to rest or chat or ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... by the fier-side doth sit, One freezing in an Ague fit. Another poking in't with th' tongs, Still ready to cough up his lungs Here sitteth one that's melancolick, And there one singing in a frolick. Each one hath such a prety gesture, At Smithfield fair would yield a tester. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... us. He was out in a boat one day, when a ring slipped off his thin finger and sunk in a place where the water was rather shallow. "Jake"—you know Jake,—everybody knows Jake—was rowing him. He promised to come to the spot and fish up the ring if he could possibly find it. He was seen poking about with fish-hooks at the end of a pole, but nothing was ever heard from him about the ring. It was an antique intaglio stone in an Etruscan setting,—a wild goose flying over the Campagna. Mr. Kirkwood valued it highly, and regretted its loss ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... poking out your eyes with the gas in the coffee- room, I have no objection, since you are too proud to go to bed. Wish him good night first, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Rather, even if his favorite topic astrology were uppermost about the table, his eye travelled to the pantry on every change of dishes. His fingers, too, came to curl most delicately on his fork. He used it like an epicure, poking his viands apart for sharpest scrutiny. His nod upon a compote was ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... of poking about in that damp old passage, and all for nothing. I thought we were going to ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... for some distance, and I had to walk back again before I found my elephant. I had been poking about in the scrub in search of some acid fruits, and when I got back to the road, was much surprised to find that my boots were filled with blood, and on looking for the cause I found five small brown leeches, beautifully striped with ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... jumped off Granny's knees and was poking about in every corner, delighted at finding all sorts of things which he ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... something else that will crowd it out. Say to yourself, 'There's that sorrow poking his head up again, and I must push him down.' Then go at something hard. Study your spelling, or go on a picnic, anything to crowd that persistent ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... man of them trained up to snapping-point,' said Everard. 'You're sure to have them if you hold out long against them. And greedy dogs too: they're for half our hampers, and all the glory. And there's Nevil down on his back in the thick of them! Will anybody tell me why the devil he must be poking into the French camp? They were ready enough to run to him and beg potatoes. It 's all for humanity he does it-mark that. Never was a word fitter for a quack's mouth than "humanity." Two syllables more, and the parsons would be riding it to sawdust. Humanity! Humanitomtity! It's the best word of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of them, the Barry's, and my Miss Winter, who was as dear as could be. I had my lessons with the Duncans, you know. Oh, it was such fun!—the others would let us go on as fast as we liked, and come poking along together, and have their own quiet pleasures." Betty was much diverted with her recollections. "I mean to begin an out-of-door club ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Point of Pines, I'd like to know?" demanded Katherine. "There was the point of a pine poking me in the back all the while. If you'd been up in that pine you would have appreciated the point. And if we couldn't get down again we would have had ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... and most singular specimen of the negro called to obtain employment. He was not over three feet and a half high, hump-backed, crooked-legged, and quite forty years old. Poking his head into my tent, and, taking off his hat, he said: "Is de Co'nel in?" "Yes." "Hurd you wants a boy, sah. Man tole me Co'nel Eighty-eighth Olehio wants a boy, sah." "What can you do? Can you ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... stumped along in front of her into the parlor, and motioned her to a seat. "Mrs. North," he said, his face red, his eye hard, "some jack-donkeys have been poking their noses (of course they're ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... contradiction to themselves, and Dr. Harris was not a man to waste his thoughts on the impossible. He permitted the omnipresent Asiatic to make his exit, and then stepped briskly into the hall. There he found a figure which he had already forgotten. The inane Atkinson was still hanging about, humming and poking things with his knobby cane. The doctor's face had a spasm of disgust and decision, and he whispered rapidly to his companion: "I must lock the door again, or this rat will get in. But I shall be out again in ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... some way of getting down into it," said Ralph wistfully, poking at the ground, as if he thought he might force an ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... abstemiousness would not hurt these pampered Christians, so when they set out on their marches they need not be provided with rations or water. Perhaps some might die, but Talaat had no use for weaklings at his agricultural colonies. Nor must there be any poking and prying on the part of those interfering American missionaries; and so Talaat Bey put all the agricultural colonies out ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... "Your sister," repeated the carter, turning round his face with its great red lump of nose—"she's gone to hospital—diphtheria hospital—she has. Doctor was here over a week ago and took her off. They've been here since poking round and asking who she was and where she belonged—well, we didn't know. And asking where you were, too—and we didn't know either. She was real bad, if you ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... them closely. Gentlemen, they were, hastily but richly dressed—one of them wounded severely in the hand, both radiating a sort of furious horror. Waving aside Wessel's ready miscomprehension, they pushed by him into the room and with their swords went through the business of poking carefully into all suspected dark spots in the room, further extending ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... work in the ruins—not moving much, but bobbing up and down with unending energy and regularity. They are the beggars of Peking in their hundreds and thousands salving what they can from all this immense destruction by poking deep holes into the ruins and pulling out all manner of things from under the mass of bricks and rubbish. In the conserving hands of the Chinaman nothing ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... a genuine busy-body; bustling about the house like a country landlady at an unexpected arrival; for ever giving the young girls tasks to perform, which the little hussies as often neglected; poking into every corner, and rummaging over bundles of old tappa, or making a prodigious clatter among the calabashes. Sometimes she might have been seen squatting upon her haunches in front of a huge wooden basin, and kneading poee-poee with terrific vehemence, dashing the stone pestle about ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... was out here poking around in my fields and up in the hills from dawn till dark. Said he was making some soil tests. I yelled at him for stepping all over some ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... directed by the host to avoid the dangerous shoals, though the padre constantly kept an eye on Juana as she passed back and forth. As we arose from the table and were passing to the gallery, Uncle Lance nudged the priest, and, poking Don Blas in the ribs, said: "Isn't Juana a stunning fine cook? Got up that breakfast herself. There isn't an eighteen-year-old girl in Texas who can make as fine biscuits as she does. But Las Palomas raises just as fine girls as she does horses and cattle. The ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... be pirates or smugglers or what?" Greg asked, poking in the corner where he keeps his own ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... partners? Yes, one. A girl, noo. Ye'll be kenin' the lass thet helps in the boardin' shack where you and the bosses eat?" "La Vaune?" grinned Barney, poking Bruce in the ribs. "Do you know her?" La Vaune, the little black-eyed French Canadian, had taken quite a liking to her ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... are objects of His special admiration, as they are of ours, what can He think of a drab Shaker bonnet? What can He think when man and woman, the glory and crown of His creation, are entirely overtopped and thrown into the shade by birds and bees and blossoms, and go poking around the world in unexampled and ingeniously contrived ugliness? What does He think of men and women who take that passion of love, which was intended to make them happy, and give them sweet companionship, and bear young children to their arms, and trample it under their feet as an unholy ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... cold morning, in front of the wide stone steps of Lily De Koven's home, Biddy had found an ash can, and, poking over the ashes, had found and pulled out the very broken-armed doll which Lily had ordered to be thrown away, which Mary the cook had stripped of its fine robes, and which had last of all been swept up and put in the ash barrel, and so had come to the lowest possible condition of ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Kinderlen-Waechter and Churchill, squatting down by the fireplace and poking the burning papers with old-fashioned irons, not until then, when there began a conversation and other pairs conversed on certain points all around the room, did I gain a clear idea of just what had happened. What they said, the vital scraps of their conversation as they drifted to me ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... he asked sharply. As a matter of fact the little man was a miserable sailor and suspected her of poking fun ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... and marriages," exclaimed her husband, a lynx-eyed little stockbroker, who was perpetually poking what he called fun at his more ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... there any one here?" No answer. Louder still, "Is there any one here?" Perhaps a distant cough answers from some dark recess, and the steward and I begin a search. Then we go round systematically, climbing over on the barrels, searching under sacks, and poking into recesses, and after all occasionally missing one or two in our search. It seems a peculiarity about the men, that though they will lie up, they will not always say anything about it. The holds were very damp and dirty, but the men seemed to improve in health and fattened like ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... followed hers. There were the ash-heaps and tomato-cans, there were two of Mrs. Zamboni's bedraggled brood, poking with sticks into a dump-heap—looking for something to eat, perhaps, or for something to play with. There was the dry, waste grass of the road-side, grimy with coal-dust, as was everything else in the village. ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... a fellow as you are, Hargate. Here's the opening match of the season, and you, who are one of our best bats, poking about after birds and snakes. Come along; Thompson sent me and two or three other fellows off in all directions to find you. We shall be half out before you're back. Wilson took James's ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... Stonehenge and other so-called "Druidical" remains, there attaches the local superstition that they cannot be counted. It would be pleasanter to believe that the current story, to which reference has already been made, that Dickens was poking fun at the antiquarian's reverence for this hoary relic in his narrative of Mr. Pickwick's "BIL STUMPS" inscription, is altogether erroneous. Certainly it is open to anyone who wishes to be incredulous, for there is as much dissimilarity ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... characteristic of the clod-hopper, it did not occur to him to mention this at the time. He told it, however, afterwards to his master, a hunting man; and, on a subsequent occasion, when the same incident occurred again, one of the whips dismounted and went into the water, and, poking about the roots of the willows, dislodged Reynard, concealed under the hollow bank, and immersed under water, except his nose and mouth, by which he was hanging suspended from a fang of the tree roots. Surely Reynard’s clever ruse deserved ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... gather in the sounding-cord, and the Major stood peering down over the wall into the black depths and poking at a loose stone on the top of the ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... there we found a very beautiful marble statue of the Madonna and child, an admirable work, with painted eyes and the dress gilded and figured. What an extraordinary number of fine or, at the least, interesting things one finds in Italy which no one knows anything about. In one day, poking about at random, we had seen some early frescoes at S. Cristoforo, an excellent work at Morbio, and here was another fine thing sprung upon us. It is not safe ever to pass a church in Italy without exploring it carefully. The church may be new ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... door, and leaped, trusting to the night to hide his stratagem, to luck to save his limbs. Neither failed him; in a twinkling he was on all fours in the mouth of the alley, and as he picked himself up, the second fiacre passed, Calendar himself poking a round bald poll out of the window to incite his driver's cupidity with promises ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... if he does, he cannot come poking about in Osterno. Catrina will give him no information. Maggie hates him. You and I know him. There ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... again; in short, if they'd do the work that can't be seen half as well as what is in plain sight, I'd never say a word about beauty, I wouldn't even ask for those elegant caps the masons are so fond of poking out over windows. You can find at least ten thousand such in Springfield. Some folks paint them, sprinkle sand into the paint, and then go on their wicked way rejoicing in the notion that they have told such a cunning lie as ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... raise his fair companion from the ground; and then with much difficulty—their hands, despite all the clothes, being half-frozen—they again put the nartas in condition to proceed. Sakalar had not stopped, but was seen in the distance unharnessing his sledge, and then poking about in a huge heap of snow. He was searching for the hut, which had been completely buried in the drift. In a few minutes the whole six were at work, despite the blast, while the dogs were scratching holes for themselves in the soft snow, within which they soon lay snug, their ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... do this. Once there, a boat could have been launched and the floe party rescued. Bowers's satisfaction was short-lived, however, since Killer whales were noticed cruising amongst the loose ice, and these soon became numerous, some of them actually inspecting the floe by poking their noses up and taking an almost perpendicular position in the water, when their heads would be raised right above the floe edge. The situation looked dangerous, for the whales were evidently after the ponies. The wind fell ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... had rather tell you; and I came over to-day in part to do so: but you will see that the matter is one that should not be talked about," and he looked down on the floor, poking about on the carpet pattern with his stick, being unable any longer to meet the clear gaze of her ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... away and left the cent in the road, a humiliated boy. The next day he told Jim Gates about it. Jim said he was green not to take the money; he'd go and look for it now, if he would tell him about where it dropped. And Jim did spend an hour poking about in the dirt, but he did not find the cent. Jim, however, had an idea; he said he was going to dig sweet-flag, and see if another ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... you poking about down there for?" he said, pushing his ugly old face into mine as he spoke. "You fool! if you had fallen you would have been drowned. No one could swim a stroke in that mill-race. And then there would have ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... disturbed senses might feel more at home, and eventually finding a place in an overturned wastebasket wedged between a chair and a desk, both suction-cupped to the floor. Frightened and alone, with only his nose poking out of the burrow beneath the trash of the wastebasket, he blinked back at the silent camera through which Bessie observed him, and elicited from her a ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... once a woman who was so very inquisitive that she wished to know everything. She was never happy unless she was poking her nose into some mystery, and the less a matter concerned her the more curious she was ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Harry. "This isn't a nice place to go poking around in. We have troubles enough already ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... fact, however, he did not come back. The bell rang with a soul-satisfying jangle for about two minutes and then died away, and no amount of poking with a hairpin did any good. It was clear that the bell ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sat there on the moss basking in the sunshine, as luxuriously as any gentleman in his conservatory. He was interested in the plants, and examined them daily with great care, walking over the ivy leaves, grubbing under the moss, and poking his head into the unfolding hyacinth buds to see how ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... crying at the time, and appeared to have been so engaged for some time. It was one evening in June, and getting dusk. Mr. and Mrs. Burton had been for a walk in the country, and were returning home, when they came upon me, walking very slowly, poking my fists into my eyes, and crying, as I said. When they asked me what was the matter, I couldn't tell them much. I seemed to be trying to say something about a 'bad woman,' and my 'daddy.' They couldn't even make out, with certainty, what I said my name ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... second asking, and a minute later were poking and rummaging all through the place. They thought I might have hid him somewheres, and turned over everything to that end, not opening as much as a chest or pulling out a single drawer. It wasn't much pleasure to look on and ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... poking around volcanos all my life," he said, "and I have seen some queer things come out of ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... driven to the last gasp, and as if they had never been rubbed down in their lives; their bones starting through their skin; one lame, the other blind; one with a raw back, the other with a galled breast; one with his neck poking down over his collar, and the other with his head dragged forward by a bit of a broken bridle, held at arm's length by a man dressed like a mad beggar, in half a hat and half a wig, both awry in opposite directions; a long tattered great-coat, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... her "select" classes. But the difference between that dusty-smelling hall—with calico texts on the walls, the poor terrified little woman in a brown velvet toque with rabbit's ears thumping the cold piano, Miss Eccles poking the girls' feet with her long white wand—and this was so tremendous that Leila was sure if her partner didn't come and she had to listen to that marvellous music and to watch the others sliding, gliding over the golden floor, she would die at least, or faint, or lift her arms and fly ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... her hat and went out to see the judge, who was generally at home late in the afternoon; and Angela sat alone in the dusk for a while, poking her little fire with a pair of very rusty wrought-iron tongs, at least three hundred years old, which would have delighted a collector but which were so heavy and clumsy that they ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... before, spoken quietly aside to Gutierrez. And now three or four of the men were spreading out, poking about with small hand-flashes. Searching for me! The possibility that I might ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... And we never dared move the props because we thought it held up the tunnel-roof. It's all part of the old Indian-shelter stunts that this house's builders were so daft about, a hundred years ago. Hade must have blundered on it or studied it out, one of those times when he used to go poking around in the tunnel, all ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... when a wild gust of wind struck the Wondership and sent it staggering off its course. But in a jiffy Jack regained control of the craft and headed her straight for the white house occupied by Dr. Mays, which could now be seen, its lofty cupola poking up above the ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... swallering up half the world before his eyes, unless the muck and dirt of that earthquake was to spoil his clothes. William Brigmawl has been head-waiter in this house nigh upon thirty year; and beyond a stately way of banging-to a carriage-door, or showing visitors to their rooms, or poking a fire, and a kind of knack of leading on timid people to order expensive wines, I really don't see Brigmawl's great merit. But as to Brigmawl at an inquest, he's about as much good as ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... in Peter subsided slowly. He began to study the moss at his feet, poking at it with ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... who wrote about charms and enchantments in a style as potent in disenchantment as holy-water, and who bored their own generation too thoroughly to have any claim upon the button of ours. Every age is sure of its own fleas without poking over the rag-bag of the past; and of all things, a superstition has the least need of proving the antiquity of its pedigree, since its very etymology is better than the certificate of all the Heralds' Colleges put together. We are surprised that so clever and lively a man as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... place breathed perfume and delight. But Marcella did not, somehow, give it the attention it deserved. She sat down absently on the bench by the fountain, and presently, as George and Hallin were poking among the goldfish, she turned to her companion with ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Cephalus. "But he is splendid for fetes. Shows off beautifully in the dark. I'll prod him again and just you note the prismatic coloring of his flames. Get up there, Fido," he added, poking the dragon with his stick a second time. "Wake up, and give the ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... of him," answered the small boy, readily. "But then you see, Frank knows I just can't keep awake to save me. And what good is a sleepy guard, I'd like to know. Hope I've got it fixed now so I won't feel the ribs of this blessed Oldtown canoe poking me in my slats tonight. They kept me uneasy last night to beat the band. Aw! I'm awful sleepy, Larry; and I guess ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... and flowers, because, forsooth, it was the birthday of “Victoria R. and I.,” when champagne was offered at dessert and the band played “God Save the Queen,” while the English solemnly stood up in their places, it did seem as if the proprietor was poking fun at his guests ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... herself up into Mrs. Trigg's chair, and sat watching the others while they played. Pincher, Maud's dog, who had come with them, was very troublesome, and would hunt after the slipper as eagerly as the boys did, poking his nose into their faces, and sometimes even licking their ears with his tongue; and as they had their hands tucked under them, they could not stop him. Then, when Herbert flung the slipper over to the other side, and Harry made a grasp at it to get it ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... the front door. Mr. Rougeant led his rescuer into the kitchen. Here was Jeanne, a French servant, occupied in poking the fire. ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... struck Martin as anaemic and feather-brained, and was promptly dismissed from his mind. An hour later he decided that Brissenden was a boor as well, what of the way he prowled about from one room to another, staring at the pictures or poking his nose into books and magazines he picked up from the table or drew from the shelves. Though a stranger in the house he finally isolated himself in the midst of the company, huddling into a capacious ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... advice and was followed out. They surveyed the whole vicinity with care, poking in among the rocks with long sticks, and turning over such as were loose and ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... uttering fierce growls, he tore the hard wood into shreds, the man at the other end poking at the beast with ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... anyhow; maybe a few days less if I get homesick; though it would hardly be worth while to go so far for a shorter time, after staying West so many years without a single break. First, I count on poking round in some of our old haunts—poor mother's and mine—and then, when I am way down in the dumps I'll yank myself up again with a little fun—theatres and roof-gardens ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... troubled by the apparently general foe, for the specimen in which they were just then interested continued his course entirely unconcerned. Soon, however, he seemed to feel fatigue, for he drew his feet and head within his shell, which he tightly closed, and after that no poking or prodding had the desired effect. "I suspect we must depend on shank's mares for a time," said Bearwarden, cheerfully, as they scrambled down. "We can now see," said Cortlandt, "why our friend was so unconcerned, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... not made him feel angry or insulted. He was only rather curious about it. Because he was clean, and his hair and his shabby clothes were brushed, the first impression given by his appearance as he stood in the archway was that he was a young "toff" poking his nose where it was not wanted; but, as he drew near, they saw that the well-brushed clothes were worn, and there were ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Street Station and around the corner in Elizabeth Street. The way of it never gave me any concern that I remember. That would open as soon as the truth was told. The trouble was that people did not know and had no means of finding out for themselves. But I had. Accordingly I went poking about among the foul alleys and fouler tenements of the Bend when they slept in their filth, sometimes with the policeman on the beat, more often alone, sounding the misery and the depravity of it to their depth. I think a notion of the purpose of it all crept into the office, even ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... whether she was still in Salisbury; but I felt ashamed of questioning on, and, during the pause that ensued, my informant gave one more general polishing to the table, pushed one or two chairs out of their places, poked the fire, which did not want poking, and with a side bow left the room. My curiosity was so strongly excited, that I could not refrain from asking Mrs. Hatton if she knew anything of the Mrs. Tracy, who, in old times, had been my aunt's maid, but she had never seen her, and could give me no information on the subject. We ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... She was slowly poking over the things in her lap, when mamma came back, bringing a pot of yeast to set by the open fire-place, where a small fire burned leisurely on this cool May morning. She put a little tin plate on the top of the pot, kissed the precious baby, and then went out again. Baby Lila was used ...
— The Nursery, December 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 6 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... riddled with Germans. They have been robbing our trade right and left, and even here in Brunford Germans are poking their noses. I am about sick of them. Thirty years ago we hardly ever saw a German, and now they have nobbled our best-paying lines. If I had my way, all Germans should be driven out of the country; they are a bad lot to deal ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... yo'se'ves in dis disrection yo' will find sufficient condiments an' disproportionate elements to induciate a feelin' ob intense satisfactoriousness," exclaimed Washington White, poking his head in from the ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... and one only failed to enter with his associates—a veteran captain who read much war literature and abhorred Canker. To the surprise of the sentry he walked deliberately over to the fence, climbed it and presently began poking about the wooden curb that ran along the road, making a low revetment or retaining wall for the earth, cinders and gravel that, distributed over the sand, had been hopefully designated a sidewalk by the owners ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... himself now that he might have known it was going to happen, and that if he had not been so concerned that morning about saving his face and preserving this fiction of indifference he would know a little more about the labyrinth they were poking about in—the little more that tips the scale ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... affected by rain, and an attempt has been made to cover them; but the wind will affect them, and any gale of wind which would affect the traffic on the Mersey, would render it impossible to set off a locomotive engine, either by poking up the fire, or keeping up the pressure of the steam till the boiler is ready to burst. I say so, for a scientific person happened to see a locomotive engine coming down an inclined plane, with a tolerable ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... she, pausing in the middle of her toilet and poking her head up at him. He wholly disdained to answer, and merely butted at her with his head, so that she slipped down off her ledge several inches, with a great scrabbling. "Oh, don't!" she said peevishly, as she climbed ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... two. The real advantage lies in the point and polish of the swordsman's weapon; in the trained eye quick to spy out the weakness of the adversary; in the ready hand prompt to follow it on the instant. But, after all, the sword exercise is only the hewing and poking of the clubman developed ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... do have all the looks of a serving wench, mistress. She be tramping over the yard with naught but a white handkerchief over the head of she and a poking into most of the styes and a-calling of ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... much," he answers, with self-conscious stiffness, looking down and poking about the little dark pebbles with his cane; "nothing that you would ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... poking his nose industriously into every cranny and under every thick bush, would find a great roll of down plucked from the mother bird's breast, and scraping the top off carefully with his paw, would find five or six ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... full of tallow; otherwise I'm feeling fine," said the boy. "Did you hear those dirty Bucktail veterans back there poking fun at us? Well, we never answer 'em nowadays; but the Zouaves are getting fearfully sick of it; and if we don't go into battle pretty soon there'll be a private war on—" he winked—"with those Pennsylvanians, you bet. And I guess the Lancers ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... "You want to run your head into a noose; that's what it comes to. Why, I may have to flee the country. There's the red-breasts poking their noses into every cottage on the Ashford road." He strode on again. A wisp of mist came stealing down the hill. "I can't give my cousin up. He could be smuggled out, right enough. But then I should have to get across salt water, too, for ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... man, poking a $20 bill out through the crack in the door, "and don't be long." The door slammed and a great stillness clapped down, broken only by the running of the taximeter, which seemed to be equipped with a ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... poking fun at the show, Rodolphe, to move about more easily, showed the gendarme his blue card, and even stopped now and then in front of some fine beast, which Madame Bovary did not at all admire. He noticed this, and began jeering at the Yonville ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... shrubbery, and there were catkins on the nut trees, and the missel thrush we had been feeding in the frost sat out on mild days and sang to us, we all of us began to think of our gardens again, and to go poking about "with our noses in the borders," as Arthur said, "as if we were dogs snuffing after truffles." What we really were "snuffing after" were the plants we had planted in autumn, and which were poking and sprouting, and coming up in ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... you been?" asked the old gentleman, who wouldn't let Phronsie get down out of his arms, under any circumstances; so there she lay, poking up her head like a little bird, and trying to say she wasn't in the least hurt, "where's everybody been not to know she'd gone?" he exclaimed, "where's Polly—and Jasper—and all ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... the charge that the unlucky Burl had barely time to thrust out his gun against the chief assailant, when he found himself completely beset. Wielding his unloaded rifle as he would a pike—poking, pushing, punching therewith at the infuriated dam, in throat and breast and ribs—he contrived for a time to keep himself clear of the terrible claws continually making at him in such fierce, unwelcome greeting. ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... The natives began poking about with sticks in the drifts, and Mollie (for it was she) soon found the unconscious man ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... safe anywhere. The question in my mind is whether our silver's safe; and a few other things. I catched him poking about in the silver table only this morning. He knows what's what. He knows everything. I wouldn't say he ain't one of the swell mob myself—made up to look like an old man. I'll swear he's never seen eighty years for all ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... boys about 'er!" And with that she started to leave the room, stopping on her way to clap both Trinidad and Sonora playfully on the back. "Yes, ask the boys about 'er, they'll tell you!" And so saying she fled from the room, followed by the men she was poking fun at. ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco |
