"Deuce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... part stayed by the fitful vision of things unseen. Such an exquisite wild-goose-chase has never man undertaken before or since the dear Knight of La Mancha. And now I come to think of it, I don't know what the deuce I have been after, save that instead of pursuing I have all the time been ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... thought Sir Lucius. "It is certainly most perplexing. What can it mean? I haven't seen Wyatt for years, but I remember now that he was appointed Governor of Pentonville some time ago. But who the deuce is the man Hawker? I never heard the name. Papers of importance to me? What could they be, and how did the fellow get them? There must be ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... on the play to be given this evening, and will be forced—if it does not succeed—to leave this marvellous scenery, these rich stuffs at a hundred francs the yard, unpaid for. His fourth failure is staring him in the face. But, deuce take it! our manager has confidence. Success, like all the monsters that feed on man, loves youth; and this unknown author whose name is entirely new on the posters, flatters the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... will amuse, and the deuce is in it, if a little susceptibility will not put forth, now she receives my address; especially if I can manage it so as to be allowed to live under one roof with her. What though the sensibility be at first faint and reluctant, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... What the deuce is a fellow to do when a woman goes on in that way? She told me down there, upon the old race-course, you know, that matrimonial bonds were made for fools and slaves. What was I to suppose that she meant by that? But, to make all sure, I asked her what sort of a fellow the general was. ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... the sense of a, for him, very memorable something that he peered now into the immediate future, and tried, not without compunction, to take that period up where he had, prospectively, left it. But just where the deuce had he left it? The consciousness of dubiety was, for our friend, not, this morning, quite yet clean-cut enough to outline the figures on what she had called his "horizon," between which and himself the twilight was indeed of a quality somewhat intimidating. He had ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... you've something to live for, gentlemen. I've seen her but three times and I don't seem able to shake off the spell. Her sisters, you know—the married ones—are nothing to look at, and the Grand Duke isn't a beauty by any means. How the deuce she happens to produce such a contrast I can't, for the life of me, understand. Nature does some marvellous things, by George, and she certainly spread herself on the Princess Genevra. You've never seen such hair. 'Gad, it's as near like the kind that Henner painted as ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... so well that it makes you fidget and fret and fume all night, and robs you of your rest. Then the sun rises and frightens the mosquitoes away, and you think that's what the sun is for and are thankful; but why the deuce a mosquito should sting you, you can't ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... "At West Point, the deuce you have!" said Aiken. His tone was now one of respect, and he regarded me with marked interest. He was not a gentleman, but he was sharp-witted enough to recognize one in me, and my words and bearing had impressed him. Still his next remark ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... we tried the same manoeuvre with the same result. Now we saw them lowering a buoy from the ship—if we could only reach it we were saved; but we did not reach it. They were not exactly blessings that we poured on those on board. Why the deuce could they not bear down to us when they saw the straits we were in; or why, at any rate, could they not ease up the anchor, and let the ship drift a little in our direction? They saw how little was needed to enable us to reach them. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... Dry Valley went to the post office. When he came back, like Mother Hubbard he found the deuce to pay. The descendants of Iberian bandits and Hibernian cattle raiders had swooped down upon his strawberry patch. To the outraged vision of Dry Valley there seemed to be a sheep corral full of them; perhaps they numbered five or six. Between the rows of green plants ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... hallucinations, my love. You'll feel better in the morning. Where the deuce did you get such ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... "What the deuce——!" I began. Then I stopped suddenly. A couple of constables in uniform stood at the bedside, and I gathered that it was the voice of the sergeant which had so ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... bigot, you at a ball! Do you know, my girl, this seems to me downright nonsense! You and the hornpipe! Faith, all you need now is to want to get married! A deuce of a want, that! But if you marry, I warn you that I won't keep you—mind that! I've no desire to wait on your brats! Come a little nearer——Oho! why——bless my soul! Mademoiselle Show-all! We're getting to be a bit of a flirt lately, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... Max. "Cups?" he said in English. "I know we bought something quite unique in the matter of cups, but where the deuce we put them—For the love of God and the honor of the family, boy, tell me ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... preposterous gesture of ecstasy. Then caught her hand, slipped the braided ring over that plain circle of gold which had been on her finger for fifty-four minutes, kissed it—and the palm of her hand—and said, "You never can escape me! Eleanor, your voice played the deuce with me. I rushed home and read every poem in my volume of Blake. Go ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... on the loose, And All the Russias capped in red, And Demos hustling like the deuce, And Tsardom's day as good as dead— When on the Dynasty they dance And with the Imperial Orb play hockey, I feel that LITTLE WILLIE'S chance Looks, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... to where the Guards were stationed; the officers—amongst whom I remember Colonel Thomas and Brigade-Major Miller—expressed their astonishment and amazement on seeing me, and exclaimed, "What the deuce brought you here? Why are you not with your battalion in London? Get off your horse, and explain how ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... with his landlord stands deuce high And blocks his board bill off with I O U's, Touching the barkeep lightly for his booze, Sidestepping when a creditor goes by, Soaking his mother's watch-chain on the sly, Haply his ticker, too, haply his shoes, Till Mr. Johnson comes ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin
... my dearest Royal Highness, I had not previously noticed that there was any screw loose under your turban. Your conduct so far had led me, I trust not misled me, to believe that your head was screwed on quite safe. But what the deuce are you up to now, if you will ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... deuce does a caravan of camels want in Vincent Square?" said Horace, with a sudden qualm for which ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... "The wit of the company, next to the butt of the company," says Mrs. Montagu, "is the meanest person in it. The great duty of conversation is to follow suit, as you do at whist: if the eldest hand plays the deuce of diamonds, let not his next neighbour dash down the king of hearts, because his hand is full of honours. I do not love to see a man of wit win all ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... "What the deuce does this mean?" he burst out, in an angry tone. "I wrote both the Superintendent and McIntyre last week that it was a piece of folly to plant a man here, that we didn't require and didn't want a man. The community is well supplied already with church services, ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... to come Wednesday," he says, "shall be at the Mansion House, sketching dresses, and on Friday I start for Scotland, so as to be at the opening of the Exhibition on Saturday. It's bound to be all right this time. Where the deuce is that diary! Never mind, I'll make a note of it on this—you can see ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... "The deuce is in it!" said Savarus. "I am attached to you, and I could do a great deal for you, Father! Perhaps we may compound with the Devil. Whatever Monsieur de Watteville's business may be, by engaging Girardet, and prompting him, it will be possible to drag the proceedings out till the elections ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... 'nose.' In Russia it seems something unmentionable means the deuce knows what, one may say the indecent part of the body, and in French it means wedding." And indeed X.'s nose was an ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... 'A Necessary Explanation,' with the motto, 'Apres moi le deluge!' Oh, deuce take it all! Surely I can never have seriously written such a silly motto as that? Look here, gentlemen, I beg to give notice that all this is very likely terrible nonsense. It is only a few ideas ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "What the deuce!" he thought. "What a simpleton I am to worry myself blind! Whatever there is about Bela she doesn't exactly hate me. Why shouldn't I jolly her along? That's the best way to get square. Lord! I'm young. Why shouldn't I have my ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... deuce is she after?" he muttered. He wondered whether, if she happened to glance upwards, she would be able to see him. He stood away a little from the window, but as in the safer position he could no longer distinguish her he came again close to the glass. After all, there ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... he had been there before them. He appeared to have under his orders a dozen men, four of whom at least certainly belonged to the Rue de Jerusalem. All the detectives had met him; and he had spoken to them. To one, he had said: "What the deuce are you showing this photograph for? In less than no time you will have a crowd of witnesses, who, to earn three francs, will describe some one more like the ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... Occasional showers, however, are just what the farmers want. The Lord was therefore in a fix. Though the Bible says that with him nothing is impossible, he was unable to please both sides; so he favored the one he loved best, gave royalty unlimited sunshine, and played the deuce ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... Deuce take it! Was not this passion for similarity enough to madden one? Must everything be tainted by this damned, regular, grinding drill, this parade-march sort of principle? Must things everywhere run ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... separated them," Hardiman reflected uneasily as he raised and drank his cocktail. "But how the deuce could I without making everybody stare? This party wasn't got up to separate ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... "The deuce!" he cried out to his daughter when she at last paused and extended her hand to him. He leaned comfortably farther back in his arm-chair as he spoke, but she kissed him lightly on the forehead, while her large blue eyes ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Mabel after she has once seen this. Confound the fellow! Why the deuce couldn't he stay in the sea? It's just ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... plausible and not too grotesque. It would tax his invention, certainly, and I felt, this time, over his real embarrassment, a curious thrill of triumph. It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! He couldn't play any longer at innocence; so how the deuce would he get out of it? There beat in me indeed, with the passionate throb of this question an equal dumb appeal as to how the deuce I should. I was confronted at last, as never yet, with all the risk attached even now to sounding my ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... "What the deuce are you afraid of?" said Everett. They had then come up the greater part of the length of the Birdcage Walk, and the lights at Storey's Gate were just visible, but the road on which they were then walking was very dark. The trees ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... rest of the table. He appeared to be kind, she thought, and on his side he was thinking that she was a nice girl, with an attractive face and remarkable eyes. On the whole, he preferred brown eyes, though his wife's were the colour of slate. "Why the deuce did she marry that fool?" he ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... robber, eh? Thought I'd quit a game where I hold all the aces, an' horn in on one where I don't hold even a deuce to draw to? Bitin' off more'n he c'n chaw has choked more'n one feller. Right here in Choteau County they's some several of 'em choked out on the end of a tight one, because they overplayed their hand. I'm a horse-thief—an' a ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... Arno. What course we took I hardly remember, but we roamed slowly about for an hour, my companion delivering by snatches a sort of moon-touched aesthetic lecture. I listened in puzzled fascination, and wondered who the deuce he was. He confessed with a melancholy but all-respectful head-shake to ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... had to nab him, I can tell you, for he was three or four years older than I, and had travelled a good deal, and seen life. But every man has his weak side; and I found his was a sort of a High-Church Radicalism, and that suited me well enough, for I was always a deuce of a radical myself; so I stuck to him like a leech, and stood all his temper, and his pride, and those unpractical, windy visions of his, that made a common-sense fellow like me sick to listen to; but I stood it, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... and in all vital Chaos, there is new Order shaping itself free: but what a faith this, that of all new Orders out of Chaos and Possibility of Man and his Universe, Louis Sixteenth and Two-Chamber Monarchy were precisely the one that would shape itself! It is like undertaking to throw deuce-ace, say only five hundred successive times, and any other throw to be fatal—for Bouille. Rather thank Fortune, and Heaven, always, thou intrepid Bouille; and let contradiction of its way! Civil war, conflagrating universally over France at this moment, might have led ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... said Holmes, staring down the dimly lit street. "Now, I wonder who the deuce that could ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... land of heroisms and heroes. Yet he feels he has been cheated by the fat parson who stole sovereigns from his pocket to keep him out of h——! His spiritual bones fairly ache with the leagues he has travelled, hunting up the throne of God! "Where the deuce," he mutters, "is the showman?" He can't find the lake of fire and ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... ever saw in my life!" he panted. "But, you young scaramouch! what the deuce d'you mean by stopping to chatter ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... impression of a slaggy cliff and on it, in silhouette against menacing clouds, a lone and austere figure. He was dismayed by a sudden contempt for his surest friends. He grasped Louetta Swanson's hand, and found the comfort of human warmth. Habit came, a veteran warrior; and he shook himself. "What the deuce is the matter with me, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... deuce am I to do? I can't make civil little speeches. When once a man gets a reputation as an ogre, it is the most difficult thing in the world to drop it. I could have a score of men here every day if I liked it,—my title would do that for me;—but they would be men I should loathe, and ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... "I guess she'll have her little sick spells, as they all do, and it'll help wonderfully to have someone to call on. There's her teeth now," anxiously, "they'll be coming through in a few months, and then there'll be the deuce to pay." ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the devil with literature, I am sick of it; who the deuce cares if Gustave Kahn writes well or badly. Yesterday I met a chappie whose views of life coincide with mine. "A ripping good dinner," he says; "get a skinful of champagne inside you, go to bed when it is light, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... now. She liked me until she got tired of me and she died o' drink—not many like that nowadays." He gazed at the photograph whilst his eyes twinkled. "Legs—by Heaven! what legs!" He chuckled. "Wouldn't do for Clare to see that; she was shaking my pillows this mornin' and I was in a deuce of a fright—thought ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... and an infernally daring one,' said Mr Rattenbury; 'in Lealand Cove, not half an hour ago. And the deuce of it is we had warning of it ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... compliments," said the Idiot. "I am sorry I am so young, but I cannot be brought to believe that that is my own fault. One must live to attain age, and how the deuce can one live when ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... What the deuce am I up against now? I thought, and my heart beat quickly. Yet retreat was impossible, and I answered ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... Deuce take the foolish woman with her dreams! Was anything so preposterous ever heard of? I must go and ask the help of ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... man of middle age, clad in the uniform of a colonel in the United States Engineers. Mr. Temple with his wife emerged from the house to greet their guests, and all four were interested spectators of the two concluding games which were bitterly contested, went to deuce a number of times, but finally were ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... the hall, completed the octette. Corporal Smith, the orderly in question, recounted his adventures afterwards. "Never again," quoth he, "shall I jump at a matinee job if there are blind chaps in the party. They're the deuce." ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... passion—passion, clinging and self-devoted, not fierce and possessive—through all the more superficial suggestions of reticence and self-control. 'This little creature is only at the beginning of her life'—he thought, with a kind of pity for her very softness and exquisiteness. 'What the deuce will she have made of it, by the end? Why should ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his moustache thought-fully. "Now, how the deuce," said he, "am I to include that in ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... "Who the deuce asked you for your opinion?" rapped out the "senor" savagely. "And what are you doing in here, anyhow? If we want the service of a vet., we're quite capable of getting one for ourselves without having him shove his presence upon ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... soon came to himself, and was sure to make them some present or other—some said in proportion to his anger; so that the sexton, who was a bit of a wag (as all sextons are, I think), said that the vicar's saying, "The Devil take you," was worth a shilling any day, whereas "The Deuce" was a shabby sixpenny speech, only fit for ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the most amicable fashion possible. Never did he say outright, "You played the wrong card at such and such a point." No, he always employed some such phrase as, "You permitted yourself to make a slip, and thus afforded me the honour of covering your deuce." Indeed, the better to keep in accord with his antagonists, he kept offering them his silver-enamelled snuff-box (at the bottom of which lay a couple of violets, placed there for the sake of their scent). In particular did the newcomer pay attention to landowners Manilov and Sobakevitch; ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... said, after a perceptible pause. "It plays the deuce with one's nerves. I believe I need a change. This cursed country gets into one's bones if one stays out too long. I've forgotten what England looks like and I've got over the desire to go back there, and so I rot through the rains and the steam and the ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... meanness." But rising somewhat disconcerted—"really, early as it is, I think I must retire; my head," putting up his hand to it, "feels unpleasantly; this confounded elixir of logwood, little as I drank of it, has played the deuce with me." ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... ain't neighborly. Think of the lean years we've known. You can't do it. This war won't last forever—" Mr. Doolittle's voice was tinged with regret—"and it will be time enough to go in for playing the deuce with business when business gets slack again. That's the time for ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... Ah, now I remember. You made my acquaintance several weeks ago.— The deuce! You are in a bad way, if I must say so myself. You certainly do need my help. As I happen to have a few moments' time, ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... which simply said that the bearer, Gulab Lal Singh, would look after me and my belongings. So I paid attention to the man. He was a strapping fellow, handsome as the deuce, with a Roman nose, and the eye ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... you and Elizabeth into a deuce of an unpleasant position. I've told you what a fine woman my mother is, and how she'd welcome Elizabeth with open arms, and now I find I was all wrong. My mother isn't a fine woman; she's an ancestor-worshiping, heartless, ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... emanation and an excessive spiritualism ever aiming at the infinite, makes his imagery run mad. Thus we have Immoral Conduct embodied; the God of Death; Science; the Svarga-heaven; Evening; Untimeliness, and the Earth-bride, while the Ace and Deuce of dice are turned into a brace of Demons. There is also that grotesqueness which the French detect even in Shakespeare, e. g. She drank in his ambrosial form with thirsty eyes like partridges (i. 476) and it often results from the comparison of incompatibles, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... retorted Jim; "that's a deduction as they say in the school books. What in the deuce is that ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... "The deuce you say? Well, well, I never would have thought it of myself. Well, what's your name, mam?" but just as the old lady was about to answer, the thunder boomed and ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... told her everything—all sorts of things I haven't even told you, old chap! We used to go for strolls together in the summer evenings—once or twice we motored down to Richmond and went for a walk in the park ... we used to talk about all sorts of things ... women are the very deuce for leading men on to talk. They pretend to be so interested, ask such gentle little questions, are so sympathetic, so kind ... and when it comes to sport, a girl like Vivian can talk as ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... you expect that those poor creatures are to move naturally when the world and their parents have mutilated them so cruelly? As long as a COURT CIRCULAR exists, how the deuce are people whose names are chronicled in it ever to believe themselves the equals of the cringing race which daily reads that abominable trash? I believe that ours is the only country in the world now where ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... regards consequences, or measures accommodation. Who has not experienced that frame of mind; what thrifty wife has not seen and lamented her husband in that condition; when, with rather a heightened colour and a deuce-may-care smile on his face, he comes home and announces that he has asked twenty people to dinner next Saturday? He doesn't know whom exactly; and he does know the dining-room will only hold sixteen. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Why the deuce should Mrs. Botibol blow me a kiss? I wouldn't kiss her for the world. Why do I grin when I see her, as if I was delighted? Am I? I don't care a straw for Mrs. Botibol. I know what she thinks about me. I know what she said about my last volume of poems (I had it from a dear mutual friend). ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Jimmy. Then Gibson offered to do it, and with a very similar result. With suaviter in modo, sed fortiter in re, I informed him that I did not consider him a sufficiently crack shot to enable him to win a Wimbledon shield; and what the deuce did he—but there, I had to shoot the poor miserable creature, who already had two rifle bullets in his carcass, and I am sure with his last breath he thanked me for that quick relief. There was not sufficient flesh on his bones to cure; but we got a quantity of what there ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... point out one to me, I'll give you a kick or a half-penny, whichever you like. You will find some who have neither husband nor lover. Certain females have a lover and no husband. Ugly women have a husband and no lover. But to meet with a woman who, having one husband and one lover, keeps to the deuce without trying for the trey, there is the miracle, you see, you greenhorns, blockheads, and dolts! Now then, put the true character of this virtuous woman on the tablets of your memory, go your ways, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... benefit of foreigners! Though, to be sure, on the one occasion when Philip had visited the Rhine and Switzerland, he had grumbled most consumedly from Ostend to Grindelwald, at those very decimal coins which the stranger seemed to admire so much, and had wondered why the deuce Belgium, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland could not agree among themselves upon a uniform coinage; it would be so much more convenient to the British tourist. For the British tourist, of ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... me of the 'Searcher' Case, which I have sometimes thought might interest you. It was some time ago, in fact a deuce of a long time ago, that the thing happened; and my experience of what I might term 'curious' things was very ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... "Now why the deuce did she weather-cock round like that?" Lenox wondered, floundering in the quicksands ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... 'Deuce take the man!' exclaimed my aunt. 'Always fishing for motives, when they're on the surface! Why, to make the child happy ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... smiled and stepped toward the tea-table. His head once turned, the smile took on a wry twist. He was no squire of dames, no frequenter of afternoon receptions. Why the deuce had he come to this one? Why had he yielded so readily to the urgings of the professor of mathematics?—himself urged in turn, perhaps, by a wife for whose little affair one extra man at the opening ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... estate. Papa made me promise faithfully to look you up immediately after my arrival. It is merely due to the respect I owe you that I haven't kept my promise. As I know that you won't tell Papa I might as well confess to you that I've scarcely been sober the whole week.—Oh, Berlin is a deuce of ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... a conductor. There was a meeting of the dignitaries some years back; some argued in favour and some against it, and it ended in neither party being persuaded, and nothing being done. I met another Englishman here, to whom the question might so properly be put, "What the deuce are you doing here?" An old worthy, nearly seventy, who, after having passed his fair allowance of life very happily in his own country, must, forsooth, come up the Rhine, without being able to speak a word of French, or any other language but his own. He very ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... eight cards are down in a horizontal row. There are two kings among them, which is auspicious, for kings must be placed sometime at the top. There is a red queen, also auspicious, to be placed on one of the black kings. There is an ace of diamonds and its deuce. Good, again! The ace is placed above the row, beginning a row of aces to be placed there as fast as they fall, and the deuce is placed atop of it, for in that row the suits will be built up, each in its kind. In the lower rows the suits are ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... she was on her head or her heels. . . . All I can tell you, sir, is that me and Battershall"— Battershall is the vicarage gardener, stableman, and factotum—"was waitin' in the stables, wonderin' when in the deuce the Bishop would turn up, when we heard the whistle blown from the kitchen: which was the signal. Out we ran; an' there to be sure was the Bishop comin' down the drive in a hired trap. But between him and the house— slap-bang, as you might say, in the middle of the lawn—was ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... enunciated periods. 'I do mean in reference to Mrs. Tudor's reappearance. By the way, what the deuce are you burning all ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... repeated. "Deuce take me if I had not forgotten! Excuse me," he continued, "necessity compels ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... She therefore prepared a figure which she dressed in her own clothes, and placed on the balcony, under the pretext of being able to watch him better; slipped quickly into the chest, and had the maid put it on the Devil's back. "The deuce!" said he; "this chest is a great deal heavier than the others; and to-day, when she is sitting on the balcony, I shall have so much the less chance to rest." So by dint of the greatest exertions he carried it, without stopping, to his mother-in-law, and then hastened home to breakfast, ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... words," went on the Vere calmly. "Eat 'em up with sauce for dinner. The 'admired actress well known at the Brilliant,' has nothing to do with the Bruce-Errington man,—not she! He's a duffer, a regular stiff one—no go about him anyhow. And what the deuce do you mean by calling me an offending dama. Keep your ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Jelliffe, slowly. "The other chap will come and undo this thing, and hurt me a lot more. I'm inclined to let things slide. This practice of yours ought to be a great thing for a stout man needing a reducing diet. How the deuce do you keep ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... "The deuce you have!" exclaimed Penfield, actually showing something like excitement. "And is it really all ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... States thought about English battue-shooting. Seemed to think we shot pheasants perched in the trees, and went on to say that wasn't the sport for him; he liked to go after his game, and find it for himself. Who the deuce cares if he does? If he can't talk better sense than that, no wonder CLEVELAND beat him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... peninsula. They form the ninety-ninth part of the rock in this quarter. It is a most convenient formation, being worked almost as easily as clay, and yet it makes substantial walls. Frost, I presume, would play the deuce with it. But that is a thing not much known here. I have not yet had the pleasure to fix my northern eye on a piece of ice this winter, though there has been a cream thickness of it once or twice. A pitcher frozen over here makes ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... the satisfaction of sitting with M. de Bellegarde; more than any one else, apparently, he had the flattering but inconvenient privilege of exciting him. M. Ledoux, at this, swallowed a glass of wine in silence; he must have been wondering what the deuce Bellegarde found so exciting in ...
— The American • Henry James
... inn, I was not a little surprised to hear the smirking barmaid announce me by my christian and surname, directing the waiter to place candles for Mr. Bernard Blackmantle in the sanctum. How the deuce, thought I, have these people discovered my family nomenclature, or are we here under the same system of espionage as the puerile inhabitants of France, where every hotel-keeper, waiter, and servant, down to the very shoe-black, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... {der tausend!} or {potz tausend!}) According to "Grimm's Wrterbuch," {der tausend} stands for {der Tausendknstige} (the One with thousand tricks), a euphemistic designation of the devil, analog. to English; deuce! Trans., ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel
... I, or what does any one else care about society? My motto is, Every one for himself, and the deuce take the hindmost. And that's the motto of the ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... that worthy, 'Morris and Levison would never have given you such a deuce of a tick unless they knowed your resources. Trust Morris and Levison for that. You done up, sir! a nob like you, that Morris and Levison have trusted for such a tick! Lord! sir, you don't know nothing about it. I could afford to give them fifteen ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... ez dear'z the deuce, But it wun't leave no lastin' traces, Ez't would to make a sneakin' truce Without no moral specie-basis: Ef green-backs ain't nut jest the cheese, I guess ther' 's evils thet's extremer,— Fer instance,—shinplaster idees Like them put out by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... Newcome for some man of high rank. Old Lady Kew is a monstrous clever woman. Nothing could show a more deplorable ignorance of the world than poor Newcome supposing his son could make such a match as that with his cousin. Is it true that he is going to make his son an artist? I don't know what the deuce the world is coming to. An artist! By Gad, in my time a fellow would as soon have thought of making his son a hairdresser, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... deuce have you got to do with this? You hiss like a snake. You want to wound me. Get out of here! Go, I tell ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... but I can't stop. By the way, have you heard of that air-ship that was over this way this morning? I wonder what the deuce it really is, ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... which Mary Howard has. Of course she'll be all the go. Every thing the Seldens take up is. Ain't I glad Moreland is in New Orleans; for with his notions he wouldn't hesitate to marry her if he liked her, poor as she is. Now if she only had the chink, I'd walk up to her quick. I don't see why the deuce the old man need to have got so involved just now, as to make it necessary for me either to work or have a rich wife. Such eyes too, as Mary's got! Black and fiery one minute, blue and soft the next. Well, any ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... the second kiss from Arthur. Come, better late than never." She knelt before him and put out her forehead instead of her lips. "There," said the general, "that kiss is from Arthur Wardlaw, your intended. Why, who the deuce is this?" ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... she was a kind girl. She's trying to pull old Charlie up a peg or two. He's had the deuce of a ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... be going home for some time to come," said another, a seraphic-faced nudity contemplating his biceps in the small looking-glass that adorned the inside of his chest, "so I shouldn't worry. I say, I'm sweating up a deuce of an arm on me. Shouldn't wonder if I pulled off the Grand Fleet Light-weights next month," he added modestly, "if this sort of thing goes on. I just mention it in case any of you are thinking of putting your names ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... "Why the deuce should I bore you with myself, when you're hot and tired? I've been a confounded fool; if not worse, and the devil's in the luck wherever ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... putting down his saucer without tasting its contents, is laughingly beginning, "Why, what the deuce, Phil—" when he stops, seeing that Phil is ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... not say that this trick produced greater stupefaction than the ones preceding it: at any rate, my spectators, palsied by surprise and terror, looked round in silence, seeming to think, "Where the deuce have ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... deuce didn't you keep the precious monster in a paddock, and let people know him for a ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... to Hendrik, added, "I wish Arend had let the horse go to the deuce. It was not worth following into ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... "The deuce he can't!" returned Mr. Schulemberg. "I'll see about that very soon, I can tell you. He promised to pay me cash for fifty thousand dollars' worth of Holland linens a week ago; I have not seen the color of his money yet, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... he, musing; "but the postmark is Plymouth. How the deuce—!" The two first lines of the letter were read, and the old man's countenance fell. Susan, who had been all alive at the mention of McElvina's name, perceived the alteration in her ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... man, and suddenly ran his fingers through his hair with a distraught gesture. "I'm in the deuce of a jam—! Aunt Ocky, ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... did perceive something yesterday evening; what the deuce was his meaning with those stupid questions he put to her? 'Does cousin like this?' or 'Is cousin fond of that?' I don't like that at all myself. Louise is not yet full-grown, and already people come and ask her, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various |
