"Poker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and gazing in space. By this, La Chesnaye had distributed so generous a treat that half the sailors were roaring out hilarious mirth. Godefroy astride a bench played big drum on the wrong-end-up of the cook's dish-pan. Allemand attempted to fiddle a poker across the tongs. Voyageurs tried to shoot the big canoe over a waterfall; for when Jean tilted one end of the long bench, they landed as cleanly on the floor as if their craft had plunged. But the copper-faced Le Borgne remained ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... they were over boiled. And the Deposition against Dorothy Dolittle runs in these Words; That she had so far usuped the Dominion of the Coalfire, (the Stirring whereof her Husband claimed to himself) that by her good Will she never would suffer the Poker out of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... example, it was at the Priory that I first saw a real alive American, in the shape of General Schenk, the United States Minister to the Court of St. James. I remember well his teaching the whole houseparty to play poker—a game till then quite ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... almost that. There was a long table, at which two white-smocked Literates drank coffee and went over some papers; a third Literate sprawled in a deep chair, resting; at a small table, four men in black shirts and leather breeches and field boots played poker, while a fifth, who had just entered and had not yet removed his leather helmet and jacket or his weapons belt, stood ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... for men who can learn. We have had so many Englishmen who know it all, that we'll welcome a change. But poker's ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... was not Charette," said Chapeau. "I saw M. Charette on horseback once, and he carries himself as though he had swallowed a poker; and this gentleman twists himself ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... hulking fellow, carrying a bar of iron, who had stood beside him, and who apparently had had his suspicions, asked, fiercely, "An' what did ye expect it wud amount to? An' what's the nonsense ye're growlin' at? By the holy poker oi belave you're ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... fresh-complexioned, and genial as men are wont to be who have reached a welcome resting-place on a damp and cheerless night. They stood by the stove, warming their hands; and one of them stooped, took up the little poker, and stirred the embers to ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... The poker party went out at the front just as Old Brin came in at the back, and Long Brown thoughtfully took the front pole with him, letting the canvas down over the bear and impeding pursuit. The lamps were broken in the fall, and the oil blazed up under the canvas. Col. Orndorff, ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... savagely, and flung his shoulders straight and caught the wooden shelf with a grip. "I don't hope—I just"—the voice dropped, and his head fell on his arms again. "I won't say it. I'm not utterly mad yet." He picked up the poker and stirred the fire, and put on coal from a scuttle, and went and sat down again in the chair. "Something has got to be decided," he spoke again to the coals in the grate. "I've got to know if I ought to stay at this job, or if it's an impertinence." For minutes then he ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... noise. The ceiling of the room was composed only of the flooring of the story above; so that the thumping and scuffling were most annoying, reminding one of the sound of a drum overhead. I rose in anger from my bed, and, seizing the poker, beat up upon the ceiling pretty smartly. The sound ceased for a short space, and I crept into bed again. I was just on the point of falling asleep when the beating and struggling were renewed, and with them my anger. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... book, Seth planted himself before Tilly, with the long poker in his hand, saying, as he ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... really occurred; as indeed how should she, till her eyes fell upon the door of the closet. Then she comprehended it all. You may imagine the rest, madame! Words couldn't paint it! When they came into the room, she was battering madly at the wall with the poker. But a few hours terminated her sufferings. She was already dead when Philippe was telling me ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... attempts to escape, and the bounds they gave from side to side struck the whole parsonage house community with a panic. The women screamed; the rector foamed; the squire hallooed; and the men seized bellows, poker, tongs, and every other weapon or missile that was at hand. The uproar was universal, and the Squire never before or after felt himself so great a hero! The death of the fox itself ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and her commonplace gray eyes fell to the ground. She took up the poker and began to trace a pattern on the floor: it was as intricate as her own fate just now. She was a little heroine, however, and her noble thoughts redeemed all plainness from her face when at ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... welcomed Rafael had gone back to the fields again. All the idlers had fled to the cafes, and as the deputy walked smartly by in front of these, warm waves of air came out upon him through the windows, with the clatter of poker chips, the noise of billiard balls, and the uproar ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Maximilian Harden said, the Germans think of us as a land of dollars, trusts and corruption; and other nations think of us as devotees of the cocktail and of poker. Their school boys dream of fighting Indians in Pittsburg and hunting buffalo in the deserts of ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... clamouring for it—as Hopkins had picturesquely expressed it—as though she had not strength to live another day without a cow. Her next proceeding would have been to buy a milking-stool. It was a tasteful milking-stool, this one she had selected, ornamented with the rough drawing of a cow in poker work: a little too solid for my taste, but one that I should say would wear well. The pail she had not as yet had time to see about. This galvanised bucket we were using was, I took it, a temporary makeshift. When ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... yer book, yer Jane Eyre as yer wor reading—lor, it were fine—the bit as you read to the Gen'ral and me, but she said as it wor a hell-fire book, and she burnt it—I seed her, and so did the Gen'ral—she pushed it between the bars with the poker. She got up in her night-things to do it, and then she got back to bed again, and she panted for nearly an ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... American gentleman and his wife stayed long in the enameller's shop. He could scarcely keep his eyes open. Presently, although he never moved a muscle of his back and sat up stiff and straight as a poker, he was sound asleep, and the reins in his grasp slipped lower ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... he was restless. He looked at the clock. "Too early for bed," he said. "I'd give a ten if Charley Biggers were here with his little cocktail laugh to try me a game of poker." ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... and day. One day an old highland woman having seen the child, and inspected it carefully, affirmed that it was a fairy child. She went the length of offering to put the matter to the test, and this is how she tested it. She put the poker in the fire, and hung a pot over the fire wherein were put certain ingredients, an incantation being said as each new ingredient was stirred into the pot. The child was quiet during these operations, ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... church it may have been I cannot tell,' Sir George said, 'but I imagine the one the household usually attended. The other detail that a fire burned in our pew, did impress itself definitely upon my mind. I was at least big enough to lift a poker, and what must I do but seize that instrument, and set to scraping the fire, to the confusion of those with me. Perhaps the idea of a fire in a church pew may be deemed curious at this date, so much later. But why not? It was really a great boon to those worshippers whom delicacy ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... house-maid is still a profound mystery to me, though the upper has explained to me for the twentieth time that she did only "the top of the work." My cook comes up to me every morning for orders, and always drops the deepest curtsey, but then I doubt if her hands are ever profaned by touching a poker, and she NEVER washes a dish. She is cook and HOUSEKEEPER, and presides over the housekeeper's room; which has a Brussels carpet and centre table, with one side entirely occupied by the linen presses, of which my maid (my vice-regent, only MUCH greater than me) ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... Sikes, seizing the poker in one hand, and deliberately opening with the other a large clasp-knife, which he drew from his pocket. 'Come here, you born devil! Come ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... yet,' said this creature, staggering up when I went in; 'I'll call him. - Halloa! Julius Caesar! Come and drink!' As he hoarsely roared this out, he beat the poker and tongs together in a mad way, as if that were his usual manner of ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens
... at the suggestion of someone, a poker game was started which lasted all night, and in the morning those who had indulged in the game were not feeling any too good—especially the losers—but, nevertheless, they all strolled over to the large adobe corral to see our party off. Mr. A——, the head ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... suitable gestures. It was on one of these occasions—when he had assumed at a moment's notice the role of the "Baffled Despot", in an argument with Kennedy in his study on the subject of the house football team—that he broke what Mr Blackburn considered a valuable door with a poker. Since then he had ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... enterprise. These outside activities were no hindrances to either pulpit or pastoral work; and, like that famous English preacher who felt that he could not have too many irons in the fire, I thrust in tongs, shovel, poker and all. The contact with busy life and benevolent labors among the poor supplied material for sermons; for the pastor of a city church must touch life at a great many points. Our domestic experiences in early housekeeping were very agreeable. The social conditions ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... up the poker, he gave a vigorous blow to a hard lump of coal in the grate, and split it ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... of the many thirst parlors that line Market Street. The bosun and I had stepped in to wet our whistles, and, looking out of the open door, I was astounded to perceive our truant cookie pass by. The bosun was occupied at the moment with a nickel poker machine. I did not disturb him—he is a hasty, straightforward person and unfitted for a subtle pursuit. I slipped through the door and fell into the wake of the Jap. But what a metamorphosed sea-cook I trailed! Resplendent in fine feathers, Ichi looked ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the verge of human endurance, and upsetting tongs, poker, and fire-shovel).—"What nonsense you are talking, all of you! For Heaven's sake consider what an important matter we are called upon to decide. It is not now the titles of those very respectable works which issued from the Minerva Press that I ask you to remember,—it is to invent ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... you what I'll do, Langdon. You owe me two thousand now, not counting that poker debt. We'll call it square if you'll attend to a little matter for me and I'll give you an extra thou. to make it worth ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... shall not like Mr. Learning," cried Matty; "for I have seen him two or three times, and I did not fancy his looks at all. He is as solemn and as grave as an owl; he wears spectacles, and has a very long nose, and his back is as stiff as a poker." Matty was a pretty little girl, with blue eyes, and golden curls hanging down her neck, but she had a conceited air, which spoiled her looks to ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... the nervous system in connection with the sense-organs. Kittens during the first nine days, whilst their eyes are closed, appear to be completely deaf; I have made a great clanging noise with a poker and shovel close to their heads, both when they were asleep and awake, without producing any effect. The trial must not be made by shouting close to their ears, for they are, even when asleep, extremely sensitive to a breath of air. Now, as long as the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... out of Sainte-Menehould, a corporal of the line, who had been forced to sit up as stiff as a poker for several hours, stretched himself at length on the compartment seat with a sigh of relief. But the jerks and jolts of the carriage, the hard seat, made sleep impossible: the epaulettes of his uniform were an added source of discomfort. The corporal sat up, rubbed the musty glass ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... the furniture is strangely vitalised. Masks laugh round the border of the tablecloth, the markings of the mantelpiece resolve themselves into rows of madly- racing figures, the tongs leers in a degage and cavalier way at the artist, the shovel and poker grin in sympathy; there are faces in the smoke, in the fire, in the fireplace,—the very fender itself is a ring of fantastic creatures who jubilantly hem in the ashes. And it is not only in the grotesque and fanciful that Cruikshank excels; he is master of the strange, the supernatural, ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... square, whitewashed room Gray and Flint were playing cut-throat poker; Gary was at the telephone, but the messages received or transmitted appeared to be of no importance. There had never been any message of importance from the Falcon Peak or to it. There was ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... between her record and his own. He had found fault with her—so he mused—HE! And what could he say for himself? When she built her first church what was he doing? Gathering other blase multimillionaires into a Poker Club; defiling his own palace with it; losing hundreds of thousands to it at every sitting, and sillily vain of the admiring notoriety it made for him. When she was building her first university, what was he doing? Polluting ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... clever, but semi-civilized! More "pretty things" are being redeemed—fans, gloves, lockets, handkerchiefs, and chatelaines,—all their owners being appropriately "done to:"—the Boa condemned to "bite a yard off the poker;" and the Visite to "salute the one he likes best"—which Garters fancies will be her; so, she embraces the table-pillar, and he the Berthe, instead—kissing her, sadly to the mortification of Garters, who did think the honour worth some trouble. Jemima and Angelina, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... says Bill, "I've stood by you without batting an eye in earthquakes, fire and flood—in poker games, dynamite outrages, police raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He's got me going. You won't leave me long with ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... scarcely see each other's faces," observed Sir Harry, cheerfully. "Will you allow me to take the liberty, though I have not known you for seven years—and hardly for seven minutes!" And then he seized the poker, and broke up an ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... previous practice with the same patient, the good couple poured a pitcher of water over his fallen head; hauled him smartly up and down the room, first by a hand and then by a foot; singed his whiskers with a hot poker, held him head-downward for a time, and tried various other approved allopathic remedies. Seeing that he still slept profoundly, though appearing, by occasional movements of his arms, to entertain certain passing dreams ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... tell me," said the good Mrs. Goodall once to a sympathetic circle, "that they dinna play poker at the taivern—an' in the daytime too—for I passed by this verra day, an' they were pokin' away, wi' their coats off, wi' lang sticks in their hands, pokin' at the wee white balls," and her ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... sheet-iron, covered with tin. Save up tomato-cans, cracker-boxes, condensed-milk cans, etc. The cracker-boxes are just as good as sheet-tin, as the pieces are large and clean. You can remove the solder from cans by heating them in the kitchen fire. Knock out the bottoms with a poker when the solder gets soft. Clean the tin ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... a match for a woman, except with a poker and a pair of hobnailed boots. Not always even then. Anyhow, I can't take the poker to her. I should ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... Garbetts was called in by Captain Costigan immediately after his daughter and Mr. Bows had quitted the house, as a friend proper to be consulted at the actual juncture. He was a large man, with a loud voice and fierce aspect, who had the finest legs of the whole company, and could break a poker in mere sport ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... use the andirons as a safeguard to keep the logs from rolling out on the hearth. If the fire has been replenished late in the evening with a fresh log, before retiring I pull the front or the ornamental parts of the andirons to the hearth and then lay the shovel and poker across them horizontally. When the burning log is covered with ashes and the andirons arranged in this manner you can retire at night with a feeling of security and the knowledge that if your house catches ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... the duties of Preachers, to make their hearers understand the Bible, so that the man who does not teach as well as preach has not done all that he has been called to do. That is the best kind of Preacher, who not only stirs up the people like a poker, but puts fuel on at the ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... inauguration day for my stationary fruit stand; but I don't think it's going to stand there long enough to deserve to be baptized with champagne. If you come up, therefore, we'll have a couple of steins at the Hermitage and call it square.—O, I would square myself with the doctors by thrusting a poker down my windpipe: I might be able to breathe better then. I pause to curse my ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... other day she appeared struck mad: she snatched the poker from the back of the stove, and flung it against the beam of the pigeon-house, and burnt it; and then she throwed it at the thatcher, and hurt his throat and hip-bone. There were no pigeons in the pigeon-house, and nothing but jack-daws; and so, after she had burned the beam, and the door-frame ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... very odd, comical picture, indeed! What a strange fellow, to put his hat upon the fire, and a saucepan on his head. I do declare he has his trowsers and waistcoat on wrong side before. See, he has taken the poker for a walking-stick, put a greasy candle in the book, and the eggs upon the floor. Why a small baby-boy would not do this: the poor fellow must be out of his right mind. You may laugh at this odd picture ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... and she opened it. He was stooping over his fire, poker in hand. She paused on the threshold, and, after breaking a hard lump of coal, he looked over his shoulder: "Miss Lisle! I beg your pardon. I thought they had come ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like a poker. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... his speech, his choice of subjects, his preferences. Much of the comedy of life lies here, in the way people imagine their characters for situations that are strange to them: the professor among promoters, the deacon at a poker game, the cockney in the country, the paste diamond ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... were six tables with layouts for games of chance. Faro, "klondike," roulette, stud-poker, almost anything possibly to be desired was there. All were in full blast. Three deep the men were gathered about the wheel and the "tiger." Gold money in stacks stood at every dealer's hand. Bostwick had never seen so much metal currency in all ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... guessed what possibilities lay behind that immobile face, with its heavy-lashed hazel eyes and plain, thin-lipped mouth that tilted up just a bit at the corners. We had parted in the Texas Panhandle five years before—an unexpected, involuntary separation that grew out of a poker game with a tough crowd. The tumultuous events of that night sent me North in undignified haste, for I am not warlike by nature, and Texas was no longer healthy for me unless I cared to follow up a bloody feud. But I'd left Mac a trail-boss for the whitest man in the South, likewise engaged ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... probably present you with a few from time to time. I have never noticed any pictures in a German kitchen, but there are nearly always Sprueche both in the kitchen, and the dining-room and sometimes in the hall: rhyming maxims that are done in poker work or painted on wood and ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... committed for trial—and that seemed to make us all afraid of being robbed; and for a long time, at Miss Matty's, I know, we used to make a regular expedition all round the kitchens and cellars every night, Miss Matty leading the way, armed with the poker, I following with the hearth-brush, and Martha carrying the shovel and fire-irons with which to sound the alarm; and by the accidental hitting together of them she often frightened us so much that we bolted ourselves up, all three together, in ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in good spirits. At the sight of him, Mr. O'Gree started from the fireside, snatched up the poker, brandished it wildly about his head, and burst into ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... more clearly shown by the way in which objects are guessed by some prominent quality or resemblance, not by any likeness of name—as poker guessed for walking-stick, fork for pipe, something iron for knife, etc. And the total failure in the case of names of towns is clearly explained by the fact that these would convey no distinct idea or concrete image that could be easily described. These last failures really give an important ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... lived on Motukoe, was in debt to his firm. This was partly due to his fondness for trade gin and partly because Bully Hayes had called at the island a month or so back and the genial Bully and he had played a game or two of poker. ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... smoking-room, after we left Burke, Kennedy and I came upon Erickson and Burleigh. They had just finished a game of poker with some of the other passengers, in which Burleigh's usual run of luck and ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... with us, Tom, shouldn't they? They'd have known what work is;" and I added, for the fun of watching his face: "I wonder whether we'll find any gentlemen playing poker downstairs, Tom." ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... embankments of the line, the blue pencil plunged remorselessly through the slips. He appeared to have dredged the dictionary for adjectives. I could think of none that he had not used. Yet he was a perfectly sound poker-player and never showed more cards than were sufficient to ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... for the Dead Man handled him as easily as if he were a child. Soon he was gagged and bound fast to a chair;—then the miscreant, with a diabolical grin, thrust the poker into the fire, and when it became red-hot, he drew ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... said the timber-merchant, and rose to go. David's voice changed to passion; memories of things he had seen came over him as in a red mist: an old man scalped with a sharp ladle; a white-hot poker driven through a woman's eye; a baby's skull ground under a True Russian's heel. 'Bourgeois!' he thundered, 'I will save you despite yourselves.' The landlord signalled in a frenzy, but David continued recklessly, ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... in specimens of it. Centerpieces of rose design. Mounds of cushions stamped in bulldog's head and pipe and appropriately etched in colored floss. A poker hand, upheld by realistic five fingers embroidered to the life, and the cuff button denoted by a blue-glass jewel. Across their bed, making it a dais of incongruous splendor, was flung a great counterpane of embroidered linen, in design as narrative as a battle-surging ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... heard in the sarvice of a frigate made to sail On Christmas-day, it blowing hard, with sleet, and snow, and hail? I wish I had the fishing of your back that is so bent, I'd use the galley poker hot unto your heart's content. Here Bet and Sue Are with me too, A shivering by my side, They both are dumb, And both look glum, And watch the ebbing tide. Poll put her arms a-kimbo, At the admiral's ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... cocked an ear toward the door. A faint hubbub was now percolating through from the receptionist's lobby. It grew louder. Suddenly the door opened, letting in a roaring babble, as Geraldine ... the usually poker-faced secretary ... leaped through and slammed it shut again. Her eyes, behind their thick lenses, were round and ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy
... reason we can't get little Judy a dress over to Louisville? Us old men can all chip in an' it wouldn't amount to mor'n a good nights losin' at poker." ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... Deary, Duck, and Love, I soon came down to simple "M!" The very servants crossed my wish, My Susan let me down to them. The poker hardly seemed my own, I might as well have been a log— What d'ye think of that, my cat? What d'ye ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the character of Henley gave the Irishman some relief. By the holy poker, said Mac Fane, but I always thought he was ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... equal to the emergency. Traffic became more or less clogged, and it was early the next morning when the regiment to which the preacher belonged was entrained. During the early part of the night the men were gathered in groups, some playing "shuffle the brogan," others busy at "nosey poker," while the greater part of them were smoking their pipes and telling yarns, or stretching their weary limbs on rolls of canvas, or ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... human beings which they are unable to bear. One afternoon in the city of Emporia ten tramps were arrested and thrown into the county jail. During the succeeding night one of these persons thrust a poker into the stove, and heating it red hot, made an effort to push the hot iron through the door, thus burning a large hole in the door-casing. The next morning the sheriff, entering the jail, perceiving what this vagrant had done, was displeased, ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... went in for all the vice there was in town, and to occupy his spare time he planned practical jokes. He was thirty years old, rather bald, had a pale and leathery skin, and a preternaturally serious expression. In his pranks he was aided by the group of young poker-playing, cigarette-smoking fellows known as ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... party, gentle reader, is your humble servant, Thomas Poker, Esquire, a native of Nova Scotia, and a retired member of the Provincial bar. My name will seldom appear in these pages, as I am uniformly addressed by both my companions as "Squire," nor shall I have to perform the disagreeable task of "reporting my own speeches," ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... celebrated fight with Dave Tutt. The fight put an end to Tutt's career. I was a personal witness to another of his gun exploits, in which, though the chances were all against him, he protected his own life and incidentally his money. An inveterate poker player, he got into a game in Springfield with big players and for high stakes. Sitting by the table, I noticed that he seemed sleepy and inattentive. So I kept a close watch on the other fellows. Presently I observed that one of his opponents was occasionally dropping ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... of the wicket-gate, the servant brought them into a large, square hall, in which a lamp, covered with a shade, gave a moderate light. She placed two chairs before the fire, which she drew together with the poker. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... The game was poker. The youth had won three straight games and now laid down the cards that ended the fourth ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... with every hundred weight of sugar to be employed, that is, one pint to every fourteen pounds weight of sugar, then add the sugar, light the fire, and keep it stirring until it boils, regulating the fire so as not to suffer it to boil over; as it begins to lessen in quantity, dip the end of the poker into it, to see if it candies as it cools, and grows proportionably bitter to its consistence; mark the height of the sugar in the boiler when it is all melted, to assist in judging of its decrease; when the specimen taken out candies, or sets hard pretty quickly, put out ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... the four aces; and Mr. Trew, after denying the suggestion that he had come prepared to play whist, admitted the young man was a masterpiece. Mr. Trew's watch was next borrowed and wrapped in paper; the poker borrowed in order to smash it; the violent blow given. Miss Radford was asked to be so very kind as to assist by looking in the plate of nuts that stood on the table, and there the watch was discovered, safe and sound. Some thought-reading followed, ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... well illustrates the inductive power of the earth's magnetism, may be made by placing a poker in one of these lines of force, whose direction can be found at any part of the earth's surface by means of proper instruments. When the poker is so placed, it will be seen that it has actually become magnetized by the magnetism of the earth, and it is itself able ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... of Orange, Henry had been determined, if possible, to obtain possession of the island of Walcheren, which controlled the whole country. "To give him that," said Herle, "would be to turn the hot end of the poker towards themselves, and put the cold part in the King's hand. He had accordingly made a secret offer to William of Orange, through the Princess, of two millions of livres in ready money, or, if he preferred it, one hundred thousand livres yearly of perpetual inheritance, if he would secure ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a post he stood over the stove, holding the poker in his hand, his eyes fastened upon the door as Watson sprang to open it. The cheerful voice of old Dr. Fiddler—the GREAT Dr. Fiddler—came roaring into the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... the room stood an escritoire, and from a lower drawer therein he took out a small box tightly nailed down. He forced the cover with the poker. The box contained a variety of odds and ends, which Pierston had thrown into it from time to time in past years for future sorting—an intention that he had never carried out. From the melancholy mass of papers, faded photographs, ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... when you are sitting in your friend's parlor, or in your own, and have nothing else to do, you may draw anything that is there, for practice; even the fire-irons or the pattern on the carpet: be sure that it is for practice, and not because it is a beloved carpet, or a friendly poker and tongs, nor because you wish to please your friend ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... classes, he managed to see something of Lola Montez. "I must," he says, "have had a great moral influence on her, for, so far as I am aware, I am the only friend she ever had at whom she never threw a plate or a book, or attacked with a dagger, poker, broom, or other deadly weapon.... I always had a strange and great respect for her singular talents. There were few, indeed, if any there, were, who really knew the depths of ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... and light the others, there's a good boy." Here she knocked down the tongs. "Tongs, be quiet; how dare you make that noise?" Then, as she replaced them, "Stand up, sir, in your place until you are wanted. Now, poker, your turn's coming, we must have a stir directly. Bless me, smoke, what's the matter with you now? can't you go up the chimney? You can't pretend to say the wind blows you down this fine morning, so none of your vagaries. Now, fender, it's your turn—stand still till I give you a bit of ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... its mouldering frame; the worn floor shook and creaked; a bit of the plastering dropped from above; the door and Tommy fell out together; and the old portrait of the pale proud lady started, and trembled, and pitched downward, caught and split from end to end upon the handle of the great steel poker. And suddenly, with a wild exclamation of inextinguishable certainty and exultation, Helen held up her apron to catch what came rattling and ringing and racing and jingling, as they tumbled down together into it, and danced a ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... of us were invited there to drink egg-nog, and, of course, found something stronger afterward. Then we had a game or so of poker, and ——, the grand finale is that I have had a deuced headache all day. Ah, my sweet saint! how shocked you are, to be sure! Now, don't lecture, or I shall be off ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... doubt of it your honour. It's the thief of the world who murdered us all, and by the holy poker ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... collection plate up the aisle on Sunday and plays poker all Saturday night till Sunday morning down at the Last Chance, in a room in front of the one in which poor Pat Burns, who carries a hod for his money, loses his all. Mary Burns sews all day and half the night to feed him and the children, ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... I told myself first thing," he added, taking up the poker and tapping the bright little stove with it; "I told myself she would be marryin' one of the boys most likely; I kep' that in mind steady, as you may say. I thought I was so used to the idee that it wouldn't jar me much of any when it come to the fact. But it did; yes siree, ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... hide to hang over the door. "Oh dogs!" said he; "the evil dogs!" He sat down near the door, and commenced sobbing like an aged woman. One observed, "Why don't you attend the sick, and not sit there making such a noise?" He took up the poker and laid it on them, mimicking the voice of the old woman. "Dogs that you are! why do you laugh at me? You know very well that I am so sorry that I am nearly out of ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... then, and do it together! Ten minutes instead of five. We'll be confederates, and show them tricks. I know a lovely one about telling the time from the position of a poker—no! How silly I am, I always give away the secret! You tell a card, not the hour. It's quite easy. You have an imaginary clock face on the hearthrug; twelve o'clock is the fire, and you lay the poker on the rug with the point on the number you want—one, two, three and ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... steel safe and a tent and was buying coal lands right and left. More young men drifted in from all points of the compass. A tent-hotel was put at the foot of Imboden Hill, and of nights there were under it much poker and song. The lilt of a definite optimism was in every man's step and the light of hope ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... up the pipe. As I expected, it opened funnel-wise into a room where the poor King was playing poker with Black Michael. It took me but a moment to dash through the window into the room, push the King aside, gag and bind Black Michael, and lower him by a stout rope into the pipe he had destined for another. Having him in my ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... undeniable malice aforethought, he kicked the nearest bunch of sea grass several feet in the air. His violence carried his leg high in the air and he partially lost his equilibrium. Simultaneously a white streak shot from beneath the porch and something like a red-hot poker thrust itself savagely into an extremely tender ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... to pieces as he attempted to execute them. He began to be aware of himself that anything that required skill in the execution was impossible to him. But to burn the will he was capable. He could surely take the paper from its hiding-place and hold it down with the poker when he had thrust it between the bars. Or, as there was no fire provided in these summer months, he could consume it by the light of his candle when the dead hours of the night had come upon him. He had already resolved that, when he had done so, he would swallow ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... when Beauclerc and Langton having supped together at a tavern determined to give Johnson a rouse at three o'clock in the morning. They accordingly rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the Temple. The indignant sage sallied forth in his shirt, poker in hand, and a little black wig on the top of his head, instead of helmet; prepared to wreak vengeance on the assailants of his castle; but when his two young friends, Lankey and Beau, as he used to call them, presented themselves, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... meanly enjoyed his discomfort—"you might call me that. It would all depend on whether the one telling it liked me or didn't like me. I haven't been in Tenison's rooms for months, nor played but one game of poker." ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... Iago, who I bleeve wants to git Otheller out of his snug government birth, now goes to work & upsets the Otheller family in most outrajus stile. Iago falls in with a brainless youth named Roderigo & wins all his money at poker. (Iago allers played foul.) He thus got money enuff to carry out his onprincipled skeem. Mike Cassio, a Irishman, is selected as a tool by Iago. Mike was a clever feller & a orficer in Otheller's army. He liked his tods too ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... the dull sound of many feet on the stone-stairs. Mr Cupples listened for a moment as if fascinated, then turning quietly in his chair, put the poker ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... hearthrug, grasping the poker firmly in one hand. Now and again she gave the fire a truculent prod with it as though to emphasise ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... clink of a bottle-neck against a glass. Norton, his body pressed against the wall, stood still, waiting for other voices, for Galloway's, for Vidal Nunez's. But after Kid Rickard's jarring mirth it was strangely still in the Casa Blanca; no noise of clicking chips bespeaking a poker game, no loud-voiced babble, no sound of a man walking ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... They named it poker and played hard. Reckless men with money were they all, men accustomed to big fast games. The most reckless of them, Jim Kendric, was in a mood for anything provided it raced. Betty's attitude, Betty's ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... think o' me at my time o' life a-fallin' a prey to Injuns, as you might say. Oh, if on'y my pore George D. Ransford was alive! He'd 'a' give 'em scalps. He was a man, sure, even though he did set around playin' poker all night when I was in labor with my twins. He was a great fighter was George D.—as the marks on my body ken show to this ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... putting up of bed-hangings, and did in no slight measure add thereto by strange outbreaks of riotous mirth, such as whooping and screaming; causing confusion, at the same time, by various demonstrations of his enjoyments, such as throwing nails against the windows, beating on the floor with the poker, and occasionally interrupting our operations by tumbling down stairs, and causing us for a moment to believe him killed outright, or at least maimed for life. But there is a special providence over happy children; and save that he fell ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... establishment threw aside an old wire that served as a poker, and demanded payment in advance. The child handed him the three cents, received his rum ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... to start out again gathering beef for the shipping season, Billy thought he had solved the problem—philosophically, if not satisfactorily. "I guess maybe it's just one uh the laws uh nature that you're always bumping into," he decided. "It's a lot like draw-poker. Yah can't get dealt out to yuh the cards yuh want, without getting some along with 'em that yuh don't want. What gets me is, I don't see how in thunder I'm going to ditch m' discard. If I could just turn 'em face down on the table and count 'em out uh the game—old Brown and his ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... so far as talk was concerned a very different fact ruled as first favorite. It was known all over the barracks by breakfast time that Case, the bookkeeper, had bluffed out the young swell from the Columbia who had come down to teach them how to play poker and fight Apaches. "Willett stock" among the rank and file had not been too high at the start, had been sinking fast since the affair at Bennett's Ranch, and was a drug in the market when the command, as was then the custom of the little army, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... can understand it only by remembering that we look down on all the United States. Into that problem of squares and circles and triangles wise men from the East plunge and see Beacon street; wise men from the West plunge and see Poker Flat; and from the highest ground we can find we will try to see the whole of Washington. We cannot distinguish a friend's house from an enemy's. The lines are mingled and the colors blended by our distance. Individuals are lost to sight ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... more than a match for the professional soldiers against whom they were pitted. He had the misfortune of meeting almost the only British leader then in South Africa capable of instinctively assessing him on the spot at his true valuation; and like a timid poker-player with a good hand, he allowed himself to be bluffed by the flourishes of his opponent. He held good cards, but he feebly threw them down. At Magersfontein he played his hand with skill, but lost ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... The last of the wine he finished in somber mood like an unbroken and defiant man who chews the straw that litters his prison house. During his dinner he was continually sending out messenger boys. He was arranging a poker party. Through a window he watched the beautiful moving life of upper Broadway at night, with its crowds and clanging cable cars and its electric signs, mammoth and glittering like ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... definition you may begin anyhow. An abrupt beginning is much admired, after the fashion of the clown's entry through the chemist's window. Then whack at your reader at once, hit him over the head with the sausages, brisk him up with the poker, bundle him into the wheelbarrow, and so carry him away with you before he knows where you are. You can do what you like with a reader then, if you only keep him nicely on the move. So long as you are happy your reader will be so too. But one law must be observed: ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... games of infinite variety: keno, rondo coolo, poker, faro, roulette, monte, chuck-a-luck, wheels of fortune—advertised, some, by their barkers, but the better class (if there is such a distinction) presided over by remarkably quiet, white-faced, nimble-fingered, steady-eyed gentry in irreproachable garb running much to white shirts, ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... and several nicks in the butts of their revolvers testified mutely as to their prowess. Their place was like all other dens, and consisted of the usual bar and lunch counter in one room, while in the adjoining one was the hall of gaming. Faro, roulette, hazard, monte, and the great national game, poker, held high carnival there nightly. Next to the "Goose" was a long narrow room used as a shooting gallery. The place was only a few doors around the corner from my office, and many a night on my way home I would stop at the lunch ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... a military gentleman, who having swallowed the mess-room poker, and found it insufficient, had added ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... this work. Therefore it seems to us that to add more here would be superfluous. True it is that some men have succeeded who have seemingly drifted about. Dr. Adam Clark has said: "The old adage about too many irons in the fire conveys an abominable lie. Keep them all agoing—poker, tongs and all." But Dr. Clark seems to forget that the most of the people who try to follow his advice, either burn their fingers or find their irons cooling faster than they can use them. We ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... the National Army in Georgia regarded the removal of Johnston as equivalent to a victory for us. Three months of sharp work had convinced us that a change from Johnston's methods to those which Hood was likely to employ, was, in homely phrase, to have our enemy grasp the hot end of the poker. We knew that we should be kept on the alert and must be watchful; but we were confident that a system of aggression and a succession of attacks would soon destroy the Confederate army. Of course Hood did not mean to assault solidly built intrenchments; but we knew that we could make good enough ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... his fiddle; then la chasse, the chase; the papegaie, or, as he called it, pad-go—the shooting-match; la galloche, pitch-farthing; the cock-fight; the five-arpent pony-race; and too often, also, chin-chin, twenty-five-cent poker, and the gossip and glass of the roadside "store." But for Madame 'Thanase there was only a seat against the wall at the Saturday-night dance, and mass a la chapelle once in two or three weeks; these, and infant baptisms. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... of the setting sun greets you! You, Beneficent Polecat—you, Devourer of Mountains—you, Roaring Thundergust —you, Bully Boy with a Glass eye—the paleface from beyond the great waters greets you all! War and pestilence have thinned your ranks and destroyed your once proud nation. Poker and seven-up, and a vain modern expense for soap, unknown to your glorious ancestors, have depleted your purses. Appropriating, in your simplicity, the property of others has gotten you into trouble. Misrepresenting facts, in your simple innocence, has ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fat Mary, Togg'd out in book muslin pure, [7] And Saucy Sam, surnamed 'The Lary,' Who did the 'Minuit-on-a-squre.' While Spifflicating Charley Coker, And Jane of the Hatchet-face divine, Just did the Rowdydowdy Poker, And out of Greasy took the shine. ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... heard a scream. Having by temperament considerable caution, but little fear, he waited till he heard another, and then got out of bed. Taking the poker in his hand, and putting on his spectacles, he hurried to the door. Many a time and oft in old days had he risen in this fashion to defend the plate of the "Honorable Bateson" and the Dowager Countess of Glengower from the periodical attacks of his imagination. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a man of convivial habits, and used to poke considerable fun at me because I would not drink or play poker. At the time when the select committee was to meet in Memphis, the home of Senator Harris, the prominent business men of that place waited on him and told him they understood a very eminent committee was coming ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... three inches above his chair, then reddened violently, and essayed to conceal his confusion by assiduous attention with the poker to the wants ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... poker, and amused herself by dashing the coals apart, and watching the flashing, dancing flames. The fire seemed to embrace her whole figure, and threw a rosy shimmer over her wan and fallen cheeks. She gazed deep down into the glowing coals, and murmured ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... returning puppets of his will had had time to compose themselves. It took them merely the briefest of periods, but it served to increase visibly the long ash at the end of Rance's cigar. At length he shot a hawk-like glance at Sonora and proposed a little game of poker. ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... letters usually were, with bits of interesting gossip about the comrades. It ran in part as follows: "Since I last wrote you Comrade Ritchie has killed a man in Colorado. I understand that the comrade was playing a poker game, and the man sat into the game and used such language that Comrade Ritchie had to shoot. Comrade Webb has killed two men in Beaver, Arizona. Comrade Webb is in the Forest Service, and the killing was in the line of professional duty. I was out at the penitentiary the other ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... a lot of good poker players in Port Sandor, but Professor Jan Hartzenbosch is not one of them. The look of disappointment would have been comical if it hadn't been so utterly pathetic. He'd been hoping ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... readiness she covered the table, and taking a package, she carried it on a couple of aluminium pie pans to where her fire was burning crisply. With a small field axe she chopped a couple of small green branches, pointed them to her liking, and peeled them. Then she made a poker from one of the saplings they had used to move the rocks, and beat down her fire until she had a bright bed of deep coals. When these were arranged exactly to her satisfaction, she pulled some sprays of deer weed bloom from her bundle and, going down to the creek, made a lather and carefully washed ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... hospitality was extended to six silent, overdressed, genial male friends, known as "the crowd." These he frequently asked to dinner on Sunday nights, a hard game of poker always following. Martie did not play, but she liked to watch her husband's hands, and during this winter he attributed his phenomenal good luck to her. He never lost, and he always parted generously with such ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... thinner still. But the real devil was the lashing of the tent door: it was like wire, and yet had to be tied tight. If you had to get out of the tent during the seven hours spent in our sleeping-bags you must tie a string as stiff as a poker, and re-thaw your way into a bag already as hard as a board. Our paraffin was supplied at a flash point suitable to low temperatures and was only a little milky: it was very difficult to ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... as those ancient damsels are expert in doing, and a smoking dish of rashers and eggs, flanked by a hissing tea-kettle, soon made their appearance, the hag assuring Kearney that a stout knock with the poker on the back of the grate would summon Mr. Donogan almost instantaneously—so rapidly, indeed, and with such indifference as to raiment, that, as she modestly declared, 'I have to take to my heels ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... with a soft lump, and poked it unskilfully, all but stabbing the life out of it. Canning, standing and staring half-absently into the soft glow, did not offer to relieve her of the poker. They knew each ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... be going," said the kidnapper, hesitating. "We'll make it poker, and the boy may take ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... On my arrival, both our servants were up. My hands and clothes were dyed with blood, and they looked at me with astonishment. I ran hastily upstairs, to avoid them, and took the writing-desk, the key of which I knew hung to his watch-chain. Seizing the poker, I split it open, and took out the packet he mentioned. At this moment his servant entered ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... they instantly seized each other; and then, Byron, myself, Frank, and all the waiters that could be found, were vigorously engaged in parting them,—which was in general only effected by thrusting poker and tongs into the mouths of each. But, one day, Nelson unfortunately escaped out of the room without his muzzle, and going into the stable-yard fastened upon the throat of a horse from which he could not be disengaged. The stable-boys ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Tried to take a nap, but failed. Hansen found a soiled deck of cards behind a pile of books on the mantelpiece, and we all cheered up, thinking of poker; but it was a Belgian deck of thirty-two cards, all the pips below the seven-spot being eliminated. Poker with that deck ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... cautioned. "Mrs. Blarcum is in her room, but she has good hearing in spite of her age, and I think she is somehow mixed up with the mystery. Now we'll go to the top floor," and he took up a big poker, which was on a chair ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... especially at dinner, amongst all the knives and forks. I believe, if I had been there, I should have hemmed in all the children with the chairs, as a chevaux de frise, and placed myself before them with the poker ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... various lines; of the delight of the voyage to any one not abnormally sensitive to sea-sickness; of the humors of the bagmen; of the occupations and amusements on board; of dolphins, fog-horns, icebergs, rope-quoits, grass-widows, and the chances of poker. It was all a holiday excursion, then? The two friends lit their cigars and went back to their arm-chairs. The tired and haggard look on George Brand's face had for ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... Nothing in that house, from the red woollen curtains to the bright poker, which did not have its part to play for Christmas. Nothing that did not say "Christmas," from Catty's eyes to the very supper-table. Of course, I don't mean the Christmas dinner, when I say supper. Tom could have told you. Somewhere in his paunchy little body he kept a perpetual ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... suddenly suspended by a violent knocking at the door, which threatened the whole house with inevitable demolition. Captain Crowe, believing they should be instantly boarded, unsheathed his hanger, and stood in a posture of defence. Mr. Fillet armed himself with the poker, which happened to be red hot; the ostler pulled down a rusty firelock, that hung by the roof, over a flitch of bacon. Tom Clarke perceiving the landlady and her children distracted with terror, conducted them, out of mere compassion, below stairs into the cellar; ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... joy in an air scrap; there is none in trudging along a mile of narrow communication trench, and then, arrived at one's unlovely destination, being perpetually ennuied by crumps and other devilries. And in the game of poker played with life, death, and the will to destroy, the airman has but to reckon with two marked cards—the Ace of Clubs, representing Boche aircraft, and the Knave Archibald; whereas, when the infantryman stakes his existence, he ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... business affairs, Dr. Parkman made more money than in the ten or twelve devoted to his profession. Men said he had financial genius, and he admitted that possibly he had, stipulating only that financial genius was an inflated name for devil's luck. He liked the money game better than poker, and played it as his pet dissipation, his one real diversion. But having more salt than he could use during the remainder of his days, did not tend toward an abatement of this war he waged against nature's ultimate design. He himself would analyse that as a species of ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... says time and again, they ain't big enough to fight the outfit, and the quicker they git out the less lead they'll carry under their hides when they do go. What they want to try an' hang on for, beats me. Why, it's like setting into a poker game with a five-cent piece! They ain't got my sympathy. I ain't got any use for a damn fool, no way ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... my temporary defeat," said Dunwody slowly. "We'll see. But come, now, Captain, time is passing and the tables are yearning for trouble. The army is distinguished not alone in love. Draw-poker hath its victories, not less than war. I told Jones and Judge Clayton and one or two others that I was pining for a little game of draw. What do you say? Should not all lesser questions be ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... quartz-mills in Sierra county, of which seven are at the Butte, two at Downieville, one at the Mountain House, and one at Sierra City. The principal mining towns are Downieville, Monte Cristo, Pine Grove, St. Louis, La Porte, Poker Flat, Eureka City, Forest City, Alleghany Town, and Cox's Bar. One of the most remarkable features of the placers of the state, is the blue lead, which was first discovered in Sierra county, and has been more ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... campstool inside the tent where the boys slept, Dave found a keen-eyed, hatchet-faced man. He sat stiff as a poker, and seemed to pierce Dave through and through with his glance as he looked him ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... gods. "I was ripping about the ego," said Bertie. "I was rather splendid myself," said Billy, "when I got going. And I gave him a huge steer about memory." After lunch both retired to their beds and fell into sweet oblivion until seven o'clock, when they rose and dined, and after playing a little poker went ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... ass!" Burton exclaimed. "Looks as though he'd swallowed a poker! You're never going to ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... poker, he stirred the fire into a blaze. Then he put it down and turned to her, as she ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... captivity,—at once intimidated by blows and enervated by taming. He punished for sensibility; he rewarded meanness; he encouraged vice; he made the child wait on him at table, sometimes striking him on the face with a knotted towel, sometimes raising the poker and threatening ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... boast of the Christian and the civilised man—that he is free and flexible, yet always returns to his true position, like a tempered sword. Now too much of the eulogy on a man like Kitchener tended to praise him not as a sword but as a poker. He happened to rise into his first fame at a time when much of the English Press and governing class was still entirely duped by Germany, and to some extent judged everything by a Bismarckian test of blood and iron. It tended to neglect ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton
... too Strong. He played the Self-Sacrifice Gag and threw in a Dash of Marital Solicitude, and made an awful Try at imitating one who has been soaked by a Great Sorrow. As the Missus looked at him through her Tears and held his Salary-Hook in hers, little did she suspect that he had framed up a Poker Festival for that Night and already the Wet Goods were spread ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... just like a woman. So she went into the kitchen for an opener and came back and said she couldn't find none. Then she took the jar and got her apron about it and screwed up her face and tried her best. But the top wouldn't budge. Mitch picked up the poker by the stove and says, "Hit it with this, Mrs. Ruddy." And she says, "I'll break the jar. Just wait, I'll set it in some hot water for a bit and then it'll come off." So she disappeared with the jar. And while she was gone the conductor came in and yelled, ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... I echoed with conviction. "Wynne and his wife brought me over; he played poker all the way, and she read novels in her berth. And I heard every one say that I was an orphan, and it was very, very sad. Well, I was never lonely after that, Dunny." My ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... Reading the Riot Act and then assaulting them with a poker is not the best way of getting the Bailiffs out of a house. Try gentle persuasion. If you have recently had a case of black typhus in the house, you might mention the fact to them, and see what ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... opening on the passage, and on his right (? left) the street window. The room itself could hardly have been more than twelve or thirteen feet square. I once told him he was too near the fireplace, and he said it was sometimes good to have the poker handy. At that I stared, and he told ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... Liberty of Riting those few lines to ask you the favour if a Greeable for me to Come to your House, as i Can do a great many different things i Can Sing a good Song and i Can Eat Boiling hot Lead and Rub my naked arms With a Red hot Poker and Stand on a Red hot sheet of iron, and do Diferent other things.—Sir i hope you Will Excuse me in Riting I do not Want any thing for my Performing for i have Got a Business that will Sirport me I only want to pass a Way 2 or ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... do, Carfon," said Malcolm Sage, as he walked over to the fireplace and, dropping on one knee, carefully examined the ashes, touching them here and there with the poker. ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... the poker and gave the fire such a punch that it must have blazed uninterruptedly for ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... will. This was power. Willems loved it. In another, and perhaps a lower plane, his days did not want for their less complex but more obvious pleasures. He liked the simple games of skill—billiards; also games not so simple, and calling for quite another kind of skill—poker. He had been the aptest pupil of a steady-eyed, sententious American, who had drifted mysteriously into Macassar from the wastes of the Pacific, and, after knocking about for a time in the eddies of town life, had drifted out enigmatically ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad |
