"Poke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pay social visits. Of his skill we knew fearsome stories, as that, by looking at Archie Allardyce, who had come to broken bones on a ladder, he discovered which rung Archie fell from. When he entered a stuffy room he would poke his staff through the window to let in fresh air, and then fling down a shilling to pay for the breakage. He was deaf in the right ear, and therefore usually took the left side of prosy people, thus, as he explained, making a blessing of an affliction. "A pity I ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... ominous words surprised her. Did he, too, believe in the fatal omen, though he was trying to mislead her and poke fun at the ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... this War. Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage Once more with pomp and greed and rage; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony; And children here will thrust and poke, Shoot and die, and laugh at the joke, With bows and arrows and wooden spears, ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... burning up some old papers, They do make a good deal of smoke: That's right, Dolly, open the window; They'll blaze if you give them a poke. I've got a lot more in the closet; Just look at the dust! What a mess! Why, read it, of course, if you want to, It's only ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... air, with the fierce shouts of murder ringing in his ear, woke in as great a fright as the women in the bed, and became a party in the terror he himself had produced; every plunge he gave under the bed inflicted a poke or a kick on his mother and cousin, which was answered by the cry ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... moment, and with the most dreadful howl that ever was heard, the National Guard was seen to rush forwards wildly, and with immense velocity, towards the foe. The fact is, that the line regiment behind them, each selecting his man, gave a poke with his bayonet between the coat-tails of the Nationals, and those troops bounded forward with an ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... like to see a fat deer; the fatter the better; he was accustomed, too, to poke his thumb into the dead plumage of a plump grouse when Malcourt's men laid out the braces, on which he himself never drew trigger; and which interested him only when ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Mr. Wicker's window to gaze at the strangely fascinating jumble of oddments that were displayed. Now, however, he felt in no mood to visit the curiosity shop and stood shifting his feet and looking aimlessly about. Mike, beside him, was becoming restive, and gave him a poke. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... the Indians it was the custom for one to linger behind, and poke up the grass with a stick after a party had passed along, to conceal all traces of their footsteps, so a pursuit was seldom successful. In deviating from a direct course in order not to get lost, they noticed the moss upon the trees, which always grows thickest ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... importance. When the young father arrived with food, which he did frequently, his spouse stepped to the nearest twig and looked on with interest, while he leaned over and filled one little mouth, or at any rate administered one significant poke which must be thus interpreted. He did not stay long; indeed, he had not time, for this way of supplying the needs of a family is slow business; and although there were but three mouths to fill, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... starting on the voyage with such a devil for a pilot. I was comforting myself, however, with the thought that in pious Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the act of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my first kick. Is that the way they heave in the marchant service? he roared. Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... and as methynketh also, Mizaldus in his Mirabile Centuries, doe affirme thatt not to bloshe is a sign of noble bloods and gentyl lineage—for itt may bee planely seene that every base-borne churle's daughter blosheth, if thatt yee give hir a poke under ye chinn, whereas ye countesse of highe degre only smileth sweetlie and sayth merily, 'Aha! messire—tu voys que mon joly couer est endormy!' for shee well knoweth that a gentyllman, like ye kynge, can ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... form a basis for action. Presently the men went away, and after waiting until he considered it safe, Whitey left the bunk house, followed by the faithful Bull. Whitey decided not to tell Bill Jordan what he had heard. Bill probably would only poke fun at him and hand him one of ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... come. On going near he saw a tall man with dark skin and straight black hair that was streaked with gray—undoubtedly an Indian. He held up a bag and said, "I got coon in that hole. You hold bag there, I poke him in." Rolf took the sack readily and held it over the hole, while the Indian climbed the tree to a higher opening, then poked in this with a long pole, till all at once there was a scrambling noise and the bag ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... have been more surprised if it had! It drummed on its diaphragm, and then suddenly boomed out, 'We are v-r-r-riends!' and gave its pushcart a vicious poke at me! I jumped aside, and away it went while ...
— A Martian Odyssey • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... Rinconete, who was of a very inquiring disposition, begged leave to ask Monipodio in what way two persons so old, grave, and formal as those he had just seen, could be of service to their community. Monipodio replied, that such were called "Hornets" in their jargon, and that their office was to poke about all parts of the city, spying out such places as might be eligible for attempts to be afterwards made in the night-time. "They watch people who receive money from the bank or treasury," said he, "observe where they go with ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... we all a merry joke At Archedemus poke, Who has not cut his guildsmen yet, though seven years old; Yet up among the dead He is demagogue and head, And contrives the topmost place of the rascaldom to hold? And Cleisthenes, they say, Is among the tombs all day, Bewailing for ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... to come and back me," said Tom to a small School-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just stopping for a moment to poke his head into the School-house hall, where the lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, "Fight! Tom ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... I'd slipped a stitch in the wrong place—it hardly showed a bit—and because one sock was an inch longer than the other. War isn't a bit like I thought it would be," she sighed plaintively, with a vengeful poke at the knitting, which Migwan had just ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... of Spenser's style was its spaciousness, that he habitually dilates rather than compresses. But his way of measuring time was perfectly natural in an age when everybody did not carry a dial in his poke as now. He is the last of the poets, who went (without affectation) by the great clock of the firmament. Dante, the miser of words, who goes by the same timepiece, is full of these roundabout ways of telling us the hour. It had ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... have heard the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple; "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles! Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats!"—when suddenly, up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a "First, if you ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... was caught and tied by the legs, and when all the Madangs were assembled in Tama Usun Tasi's house, the pig was brought in and placed in front of the chiefs. Then one of the head men from a neighbouring village took a lighted piece of wood and singed a few of the bristles of the pig, giving it a poke with his hand at the same time, as if to attract its attention, and calling in a loud voice to the supreme being, "Bali Penyalong." Then, talking at a great rate and hardly stopping for a moment to take breath, he asked that, if any one had evil intentions, the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... three hours I took my eyes off the nest only to follow the movements of the owners thereof; and I learned that sitting had begun, and that the brooding bird was fed by her mate. He came, always from a distance, directly to the nest, alighted on the edge, leaned over and gave one poke downward, while low yearning or pleading cries reached my ears. Without lingering an instant he flew to a perch a foot above, stood there half a minute, and then went to the ground. Not more than thirty seconds elapsed before ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... brave man, and fear neither man nor beast. I am your servant, and for you am ready to give my life. I have brought with me two long bamboos, and with them I shall go and poke in the drain, rouse the ferocious beast, and as he jumps out you will kill him. If I shall lose my life, which I am ready to do for you, please think of my ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... we wore low-necked dresses and the thinnest of slippers in the street, our heads being about the only part that was completely covered. I was particularly proud of a turban surmounted with a bird of paradise, but Lady B—- affected poke bonnets, then just coming into fashion, so large and so deep that when one looked at her from the side nothing was visible except two curls, ‘as damp and as black as leeches.’ In other ways our toilets were absurdly unsuited for every-day wear; we wore light scarves over our necks, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... the sweet perfume of the fresh flowers. Millie paused in the act of pouring coffee into big blue cups to "get a sniff of the smell," but Aunt Rebecca was impatient at the momentary delay. "My goodness, but you poke around. I like to get the supper out ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... a slow-poke who keeps right on doing a thing without wasting any time always gets somewhere sooner or later, very often sooner than those who are naturally quicker, but who waste their time. So it was with Old Mr. Toad. He kept right on, hop, hop, hipperty-hop, while ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... Shakespeare seems to poke fun at the way in which the Elizabethans overdid the use of 'element' in this sense, in Twelfth Night, III, i, 65, and in 2 Henry ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... soldiers, and what may or may not really happen to all my sensations put together, which I call me? Should I bear apples if a phantasm seemed to come and plant me? Then why should I die if another phantasm seemed to come and poke me in ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... you to, all by yourself, Just," Huge told him. "Poke the end of it down here, and keep a good stiff grip on the butt. Then we'll hold on, and find places to set our feet. Inch by inch, and foot by foot, we'll manage to climb up. You can help a little by keeping the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... up painting? Oh, no! I daub a little in oils, slop a little in watercolors, sketch now and then, and poke about the studios when the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... full of ingenuity—for barbarians, that is. Not in the same class with you seaboard nobles, of course, but we poke along." The Barbarian stood up, and his expression turned serious. "Look, son—you remember that knife of mine you borrowed for a while? I'll have to lend it to you again, in about twenty minutes. Your friend Dugald's going to have one just ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... Bridges. We was raised up children together and married. I had five sisters. My brother died here in Oklahoma about two years ago. He was a Fisher. Mary Russell, my sister, she lives in Parish, Texas; Willie Ann Poke, she lives in Greenville, Texas; Winnie Jackson, lives in Adonia, Texas, and Mattie White, my other sister, lives in Long ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... characteristic of the large mass of the English people—for after all, the rather low-Church section WAS the largest single mass—in early Victorian times. She had dreams, I suspect, of going to church with him side by side; she in a little poke bonnet and a large flounced crinoline, all mauve and magenta and starched under a little lace-trimmed parasol, and he in a tall silk hat and peg-top trousers and a roll-collar coat, and looking rather like the Prince Consort,—white angels almost ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... "I'll hold your legs so you won't fall in, and you can fish for it with a stick." She ran for a stick to poke with, while Jan bravely mounted the box again, and, firmly anchored by Marie's grasp upon his legs, he soon succeeded in ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... ours? I am glad of it! Associate ourselves to make everybody else behave as we do. Chilly drafts and sarcasms on what we call the temperate zone Criticism by comparison is the refuge of incapables Crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire Don't know what success is Each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance Enjoyed poor health Enthusiasm is a sign of inexperience, of ignorance Fallen into the days of conformity Few people know how to make a wood-fire Finding the world disagreeable to themselves ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... else they poke a finger in your neck, and expect you to laugh at the fun. I do laugh sometimes at the absurdity of their ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a howling mistake," Collins told them, "that's when you all pull the wires like mad and poke the leader and whirl him around. That always brings down the house. They think he's got a real musical ear and is mad at ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... it. [1390] Axius, or as now called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si polui ducas, L. Aubanus Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the Alps, and [1393]Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, to proceed from the same cause, "and that the filth is derived from the water to their ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... his environment; after all, he might force the conversation to soar far above the mere materialities. His hobbies began to poke forth their noses, to whinny, to neigh; but some force stronger or more dexterous than himself seemed to be guiding the talk, and the name of Medora Giles began to mingle with the click of silver on china and to weave itself into the progress ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... do the best he could for them, and the Confirmation made a good opportunity; but the boys did not like to be interfered with—it made them shy to be spoken to; and they liked lounging about much better than having to poke into that mind of theirs, which they carried somewhere about them, but did not like to stir up. They had no notion of going to school again—which no one wanted them to do—nor to church, because it was like little boys; and they wouldn't ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... money into Jenny's pocket I cannot say. But it's a feature; and while I'm in England, I'll ask you to keep your eyes skinned and try and find out as much about Giuseppe as you can. Not from his wife, however. I needn't tell you that. You'll be free to poke about and try and surprise 'Red Waistcoat.' Perhaps you'll do the trick; but take care he doesn't surprise you. All I ask is that you don't believe a quarter you hear, or half you see. We must get under the appearances if we're ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... possibly have punctured her tire—that would delay her fifteen or twenty minutes. Don't worry, my dear boy. I showed her how to fix a punctured tire all right. It's simple enough—you take the rubber thing they give you and fasten it in that metal thingumbob, glue it up, poke it in, pull it out, pump her up, ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... about to be washed, the water reaching up to his middle. Then Alan saw a terrifying thing, for suddenly the horrid, golden head of Big Bonsa, towing Little Bonsa behind it, began to swim with a deliberate motion across the stream until, reaching the man, it seemed to rear itself up and poke him with its snout in the chest as a turtle might do. Then it sank again into the water and slowly floated back to its station, directed by some agency or power ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... artificial, iron, or composition logs in it, hacked and painted, in which gas is burned, so that it has the appearance of a wood-fire. This seems to me blasphemy. Do you think a cat would lie down before it? Can you poke it? If you can't poke it, it is a fraud. To poke a wood-fire is more solid enjoyment than almost anything else in the world. The crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire. I do not know how any virtue whatever is possible over an imitation gas-log. What a sense of insincerity ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... perhaps without knowing it. Unadulterated truth sometimes comes off second best in the theatre, as is proved by the ancient story of the actor who was hissed because instead of imitating the squeaks of a pig he pinched the tail of a real porker in a poke; upon the stage a little truth is sometimes dangerous, a great deal often fatal. As a last word, in these as in all other germane matters our British productions are vastly more accurate than those that come from the other side of the Atlantic. It may be the fact that the good Americans, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... her cover. Hour after hour passed by, but I could hear no sounds except the notes of the birds in the trees, the woodpeckers searching for insects in the bark, and the cries of the squirrels as they skipped from branch to branch. I really wished that one of them would poke his nose into my nest, that I might have the chance of capturing him, for I was getting very hungry, and would have eaten him raw without compunction; but none came ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... the men's broad hats and the women's poke bonnets, seen dimly against the pale light of the windows as they passed, plainly revealed their sect. The similarity of their garments almost obliterated the personal ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... before in the post-office. Then he would have given much to be possessed of the opportunity which was now in his power; but many pause on the brink of a crime, who have contemplated it at a distance without scruple. Lord Etherington's first impulse had led him to poke the fire; and he held in his hand the letter which he was more than half tempted to commit, without even breaking the seal, to the fiery element. But, though sufficiently familiarized with guilt, he was ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... and people never like me. There is an old saying that you should know a man seven years before you poke his fire. I want to know persons seven years before I can ask them how they do. To take me out to dine in this way was of ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... amusements in Tengu-land are very curious. A pair of young tengus will fence with their noses as if they were foils. Their faces are well protected by masks, for if one tengu should "poke his nose" into the other's eye he might put it out, and a blind tengu could not walk about, because he would be knocking his nose ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... poke in the general direction of Barcelona and found that the mental noise was too much to stand. I withdrew just a bit and closed down the opening until the racket was no more than a mental rumor, and I waited. I hunched that ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... couple of boys. The Shawanoe delighted to tease the noble creature, who delighted to have him do so. One habit of the youth was to pretend he was offended with the stallion. He would turn his back upon him and repel his advances toward a reconciliation. Whirlwind would poke his nose first over one shoulder and then the other, rubbing it against the cheek of Deerfoot. If the latter sulked too long, Whirlwind would show his impatience by flirting his head against that of the youth, whirling about, kicking up his heels and galloping off. No words could ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... whittle nicely, made some little canoes, and when Billy was looking through the hose for savages, it was Teddy's part to poke the canoes with a long stick like a fish-pole, so they would float right in front of Billy's hose. Then Billy would scramble down the wall, and come running to us 'round behind the chimney, and tell us to lie very still, for there were seven canoes full of cruel savages ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... remarked coming thither daily. It was Miss Briggs and little Rawdon, whose business it was to see to the inward renovation of Sir Pitt's house, to superintend the female band engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke and rummage in the drawers and cupboards crammed with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a couple of generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take inventories of the china, the glass, and other properties ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that dog of yours will give you the slip. You can't keep a street-dog tied up all his life. It's against his natur'." The head groom is a nice old gentleman, but he doesn't know everything. Just as though I'd been a street-dog because I liked it! As if I'd rather poke for my vittles in ash-heaps than have 'em handed me in a wash-basin, and would sooner bite and fight than be polite and sociable. If I'd had mother there I couldn't have asked for nothing more. But I'd think of her snooping ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... he got back to camp. One of the patrol leader's lips was puffed. Tim looked away quickly. A cup of hot coffee would have put the early morning chill to route, but not for anything would he have suggested a fire. He pretended to poke through his things, trying to kill time, trying not to look at his companion, trying to figure out how they were going to get through breakfast. That Don was sore on him for keeps he did ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... shore suit of quiet gray. With the widow's ready aid Polly Candage had made her own attire presentable once more. When they walked down to the shore she smiled archly at Mayo from under the brim of a very fetching straw poke. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... went back to the fireside. He began to poke the fire in protest, but a smile gave the lie to the moroseness and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... case with the Poke or Garget (Phytolacca decandra). Some which stand under our cliffs quite dazzle me with their purple stems now and early in September. They are as interesting to me as most flowers, and one of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... bound to try to get me. Do you think that if I'd gone to the sheriff at Las Vegas, an' told him about Pickett, he'd have done anything but poke fun at me? An' that word would have gone all over the country—that I was scared of Pickett—an' I'd have had to pull my freight. I had to stand my ground, ma'am. Mebbe I'd have been a hero if I'd have let him shoot me, but I wouldn't have been here any more to know about it. An' I'm ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... find his trail all cluttered up with folks in here,' thought Howard. 'Wonder who was the last man to poke his fool nose into this ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... can't read without being interrupted by a child who knows no better than to poke her impudent little nose in ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... slept upon a bedstead after he growed up a hard boy-chap—never could get one long enough. When 'a lived in that little small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open his chamber door every night at going to his bed, and let his feet poke out upon ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... little too much like General Triscoe's pessimism," said Mrs. March; and she added: "But whether we have any national melodies or not, we don't poke women out in the rain and keep ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "Let's poke a hole in their gas bag," proposed Sam. "That will make them think they're not so smart as ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... choose fuel. Food nourishes the body; but fuel, warming the body, warms the soul too. I do not wonder that the hearth has been regarded from time immemorial as the centre, and used as the symbol, of the home. I like the social tradition that we must not poke a fire in a friend's drawing-room unless our friendship dates back full seven years. It rests evidently, this tradition, on the sentiment that a fire is a thing sacred to the members of the household ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... demanded an explanation of what proggin' meant, Moses said he wasn't quite sure. He could "understand t'ings easy enough though he couldn't allers 'splain 'em." On the whole he thought that prog had a compound meaning—it was a combination of poke and pull "wid a flavour ob ticklin' about ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... noticed, at the other end of the pueblo from her quarters, a large room which was frequented by men alone. It might be a temple; it might be a hall for the transaction of public business; such were the diverse guesses of the travellers. Into the mysteries of this apartment Aunt Maria resolved to poke. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... stap ye in her poke, I wot she wadna fail; And boil ye in her auld brass pan, And ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... wine, on a little table at her side, and a volume of Blair's sermons, which were both agreeable sedatives, and conducive to a prolonged sleep. Bryda then went hastily upstairs, and tying on her high poke bonnet, slipped out at the front door, and found, as she expected, Jack awaiting her at the corner of the square. The sight of his friendly, honest face had never been so welcome before, and she showed her pleasure by the ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... ranged in a double line along a spacious, well-aired sleeping-room; some, too young for this, rocked in cosy cradles; but all clean, safe, and happy. What needs it to say whether the good ladies who tended them wore the habit of St. Vincent de Paul, the poke-bonnet of the Puseyite "sister," or the simple garb of unpretending Protestantism? The thing is being done. The most helpless of all our population—the children of the working poor—are being kept from the streets, kept from harm, and trained up to habits of decency, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... mixture. By degrees, the singularities which distinguished him were softened; his thee and thy yielded to the common forms of speech; his drab suit altered its cut and hue; his hat came off occasionally; his women abated the rigor of their poke bonnets; he was able to say to the enemy of his country, "Friend, thee is standing just where I am going to shoot." The disintegration of his individuality set free the good that was in him to permeate surrounding society; his fellow flowers ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... suddenly unties the poke, Which out of it sent such a smoke, As ready was them all to choke, So grievous was the pother; So that the knights each other lost, And stood as still as any post; Tom Thumb nor Tomalin could boast Themselves of ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... dining-room at the "Vittoria" is not in use just now. We take our meals in two smaller rooms adjoining each other, one of which leads into the kitchen where privileged guests may talk secrets with the cook and poke their noses into saucepans. At a table by herself sits the little signorina who controls the establishment, wide awake, pale of complexion, slightly hump-backed, close-fisted as the devil though sufficiently vulnerable to a bluff ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... shameful trait? May not a Boob expect to see angels in the shimmering blue of heaven? Is he more disreputable than the knave who frisks his watch meanwhile? And suppose he does see an angel, or even only a blue acre of sky—is that not worth as much as the dial in his poke? ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... eat them Christmas. They put a little one on the table with an apple in its mouth. And they pick out the fattest turkeys and ducks and geese and chickens; and they go to the smoke-house and punch and poke the hams and things; and the oysters come from the river; and Mammy Malaprop comes up from the gate, where she lives now, and helps make the cakes and the, pies and plum-puddings and beaten biscuits; and Cousin Claudia ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... hanging all out of the fashion. Yet if she had entered before a still audience as Imogene or Cato's daughter, the dress might have seemed right enough: the grace and dignity were in her limbs and neck; and about her simply parted hair and candid eyes the large round poke which was then in the fate of women, seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold trencher we call a halo. By the present audience of two persons, no dramatic heroine could have been expected with more interest than Mrs. Casaubon. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... people began to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, and a couple hanging from each brawny arm, sent the spectators into shrieks of amusement, and they there ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... poke hole in hornets nest had best be prepared with long legs." Ishie grinned. "You don't think anybody would really appreciate our doing that, do you Mike? Outside of the people themselves, that is, that aren't directly concerned with man's welfare? We haven't done this ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... on his overalls an' said He'd work down in the cellar till 'twas time to go to bed. He started in to rattle an' to bang an' poke an' stir, An' the dust began a-climbin' up through every register Till Ma said: "Goodness gracious; go an' shut those things up tight Or we'll all be suffocated an' the house will be ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... continued for 68 hours, everything used being carefully weighed and measured. One day the machine was worked for 151/4 hours on end; the other days it was worked with an interval of half an hour every 12 hours to clear the hearth, poke the fire and lubricate the machine; and it was clearly established that with a big enough generator it would be quite possible to work continuously for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... and a plenty of frigates, too. The Frenchy must have suspicioned where I was bound, for he has followed us up sharp, and as we came by South Head I seen him jest a bilin' along 'bout ten mile astarn, and now he'll poke into every hole of the bay till he finds us. Anyhow, there won't be no chance to trade long as he's round, for you folks don't dare say your soul's your own when there's a ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... away his weapon,' said the Marquis; 'and he wished for nothing better than to poke about in the gutters for insects; it was only Redgie that teased him into ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a full stop. The natives then retired from those rocks, and commenced their attack by throwing spears through the tea-tree from the opposite side of the creek. Here we had the back of our gunyah for a shield, and could poke the muzzles of our guns and rifles through the interstices of the boughs. We were compelled to discharge our pieces at them to ensure ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... into a hearty fit of laughter. Tom at first felt inclined to quarrel with him, but a poke in the ribs from his messmate, and the word "humbug," made him instead join in Desmond's cachinnations. Adair had invited his midshipmen to dine with him, and had by his kind remarks succeeded in driving Tom's absurd notions out of his head. Tom, who really felt grateful to him, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... her propensity to poke fun. "I have been detailed for that service for more than two years. Moreover, I was a good enough scout to pass within the lines of your army to-night, and to travel the whole length of ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... neither the police nor anybody else must be allowed to poke a nose into our concerns," said Herrera in a low voice, as he lighted his cigar from Lucien's. "It would not agree with us. I have hit on a plan, daring but effectual, to keep our Baron and his agents quiet. You must go to see Madame de Serizy, and make ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... flock of geese, and, on the green, Poke out their foolish necks in awkward spleen, (Ridiculous in rage!) to hiss, not bite, So war their quills, when ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the judge said sharply, with a suspicious frown. Then he recovered himself with a start. For a moment he had half fancied that fellow, Forbes-Ewing, meant SOMETHING by what he said—meant to poke innuendoes at him. But, after all, it was a mere polite form. How frightened we all are, to be sure, when we know ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... you have heard of working on the 'stop,' most likely. Which means picking pockets when the party is standing still; but it is more difficult on the 'fly.' You must remember that. I remember once going along Oxford Street, and I prigged an old woman's 'poke,'[17] on the 'fly.' She missed it very quick, and was coming after me when I slipped it into an old countryman's pocket as I was passing. She came up and accused me with stealing her purse. I, of course, allowed her to search me, and asked her to fetch a 'bobby,' if she was not satisfied. ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... thing. There are others too numerous to mention. There's just one reason why a man and a woman should join themselves together in matrimony, and that is love, the love that the poets sing and the rest of us poke fun at, the love that is the nearest thing to Heaven we find on earth." The Doctor sat silent a moment, looking past the girl's grave face into the green blur of the garden. Then he stirred, sighed, and looked at his watch. "Well, well, I must be on my way," he said briskly. ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... was a signal to withdraw," suggested Dan. "I hope it was." But Poke Stover shook his head, for he had seen much of the Comanches and understood ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... Fe caravan was a noble sight: the enormous hooded wagons, flaring like poke bonnets, each drawn by twelve and sixteen oxen or mules, lumbering on in a long double file or sometimes four abreast; the booted teamsters trudging beside the fore-wheels, cracking their eighteen-foot lashes; the armed out-riders guarding the flanks—galloping here and there in quest of ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... came to Warren's Grove, had put her treasure into so secure and out-of-the-way a hiding place that she felt quite easy about it. Lydia would never, never think of troubling her head about that attic sloping down to the roof, still less would she poke her fingers into the little secret cupboard where the ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... said, emphasizing every word with a poke. 'He's too smooth and handsome, his eyes ain't true, and his tongue's too smart. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Aunt Jane pushed her glasses up on her forehead, and looked with a dreamy, retrospective gaze through the doorway and beyond, where swaying elms and maples were whispering softly to each other as the breeze touched them. "She had on her old black poke-bonnet and some black yarn mitts, and she didn't come nigh up to Job's shoulder, but Job set and listened as if he jest had to. I heard Dave Crawford shufflin' his feet and clearin' his throat while Sally Ann ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... no farther?' said the Captain, making a poke at the door with the knobby stick to assure ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... w'ich I never seen a mug ever do. Las' thing of 'is I see, 'e was tellin' 'ow a mug gets out o' the spike, wi' a crust in 'is pockit. An' w'en 'e sees a nice ole gentleman comin' along the street 'e chucks the crust into the drain, an' borrows the old gent's stick to poke it out. An' then the ole gent ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... little humorously caught at, to paint her a picture of former heroes of fiction, who win their trying lady by their perfection of good conduct on a background of high birth; and who are not seen to be wooden before the volume closes. Her fatigue of sleeplessness plunged her into the period of poke-bonnets and peaky hats to admire him; giving her the kind of sweetness we may imagine ourselves to get in the state of tired horse munching hay. If she had gone to her bed with a noble or simply estimable plain ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Take of poke root 3 ozs., lard 1 lb., boil for a quarter of an hour and strain. This ointment has quite a reputation in Virginia, with the old ladies, for all kinds of old sores and ulcers, and it is an excellent application to indolent and ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... eye on them, and gave an occasional poke with his cold nose to be sure they were there as they drove through the bustling streets of New York to a great house with an inscription ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... are leisurely growing, which may be a good thing. Trees like the Manchurian walnut which grow 6 to 8 feet of new wood in a year, seem to freeze back and start over more frequently than the trees which poke along but harden their wood before cold weather. In 1946, a few more seedlings from D. C. Snyder, Center Point, Iowa, were set out and most of them have survived the first winter. Carl Weschcke reports that chestnuts do best for him at River Falls, Wisconsin, in sandy soil with an ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... both missionaries, also poke offering to associate themselves ] changed to: [ both missionaries, also spoke offering to associate ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... this, I grew pharisaical. I ventured to pity my less fortunate neighbors, bound hand and foot to the slavery of mothers-in-law. I attempted to joke them, and poke them severely in the ribs with my knuckles, when the magic name was mentioned. So often did I congratulate myself on the shrewd stroke of genius displayed, that I fear even her respectability became sadly impaired in my mind, and depreciated to such an extent that ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... down-hearted, he was nearly ready to give up when he happened to poke his head in the hollow end of a tree whose roots were pinioned down by the huge rock. The small heart of the trunk had decayed, offering an entrance just large enough for ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... brakesman at the Dolly Pit. For convenience' sake, he took lodgings at a small farmer's in the village, finding his own victuals, and paying so much a week for lodging and attendance. In the locality this was called "picklin in his awn poke neuk." It not unfrequently happens that the young workman about the collieries, when selecting a lodging, contrives to pitch his tent where the daughter of the house ultimately becomes his wife. This is often the real attraction that draws the youth ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles |
