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More "Ace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... table the one nearest to the light. Two dice-boxes are required, one for each player, and a pair of dice, which are used by both players. The dice are marked with numbers on their six sides, from one to six, number one being called, "ace"; two, "deuce": three, "trey." Formerly the [v.03 p.0134] four was called "quatre" (pronounced "cater"); the five, "cinque" (pronounced either "sank" or "sink"); and the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... up on his fingers elaborately. "The way I figure it, you lose one more ship and you're an enemy ace." ...
— Dogfight—1973 • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... they promenaded the street, to have the joy of seeing a light in the radiant being's window. The pretty girls of the household vanished with murmured excuses, leaving us at the mercy of the boy, who sighed grievously, dropped a sugar bowl, and spilled coffee within an ace ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a bright little fellow, as black as the ace of spades, and possessing to the full the mercurial temperament of the Southern negro. Full of fun and drollery, he attracted plenty of attention when he came into the village, and earned many a penny from the boys by his plantation songs ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... The Ace, the King, and the Knave were the three highest castes. The fourth Caste was made up of a mixture of the lower Cards. The Twos and Threes were lowest of all. These inferior Cards were never allowed to sit in the same row with the ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... back to Kentuck and being a worry to her? Before I'd been there a week I'd be spending most of my time down at the track or the stables; I could no more keep away from the horses than I could from a square game, and she hates both,—they swamped my father before I knew an ace from an ant-hill. No, sir! The more I think of it the more I know the only place for me is right here with the old regiment. What's more, the livelier work we have in the field and the less we get of garrison ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... an even more ridiculous couple than their kind usually are. And, when the gentleman squeezed the lady, she laughed so foolishly that Archie Pennybet was within an ace of forgetting himself and heartily laughing too. It was worse still, when they began the pernicious practice of "rubbing noses." For the operation was so new and unexpected, and withal so congenial to ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... corners.| |He was like a cat on his feet, quick and sure, never| |making a false move. There were times when he | |nipped the best drives that the Comet sent over, and| |turned them back for passes. Repeatedly McLoughlin | |overhanded the ball for what to him seemed a certain| |ace, so that he relaxed and dropped his racquet to | |rest, as if the point were finished. Johnston made | |his recovery, however, and sending the ball back | |found McLoughlin off his guard and so scored the | |point. | | | |The cross volleys into the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... right bell,' says I. 'I'll tell you exactly what we'll do. I go for the doctor. Savvy? Well, I bring back the minister at the same time. Angevine, he loses the Jersey cow over in the cane-break, and uncle and Angevine go hunting her, for not even Loys is ace high in uncle's mind alongside that ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... on I found a little wayside station. Therefore I turned the car into a small wood, and destroying my genuine license and hiding the genuine number-plate, I took the next train to Winchester, and thence by express to Waterloo after a very wild and adventurous night. That I had been within an ace of capture ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... hand in the business. The Germans deliberately forced on the war. They knew perfectly well that when they put up a German Prince as candidate for the throne of Spain it would bring on a war with France. Why, we ourselves were within an ace of going to war with France when Guizot brought about the Spanish marriage, although it was comparatively of slight importance to us that Spain and France should be united. But to the French this thing ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... and Tim returned about the time the dishwashing process was complete. Janet proposed a hand of bridge; Tim suggested poker, James voted for pinochle, and Martha wanted to toss a coin between canasta or gin rummy. They settled it by dealing a shuffled deck face upward until the ace of hearts landed in front of Janet, whereupon they played bridge until about eleven o'clock. It was interesting bridge; James and Martha had studied bridge columns and books for recreation; against them were aligned Tim and Janet, ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... a whit; I cannot spare them a jot; I cannot bate them an ace. Let them stay in their own barren mountains, and puff and swell, and hang their bonnets on the horns of the moon, if they have a mind; but what business have they to come where people wear breeches, and speak ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the same time when Colonel Barrington stood talking with his niece and sister in Silverdale Grange. "And the man threw that trick away, when it was absolutely clear who had the ace—and wished me to believe ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... presented by a central plate in the cuirass of the Pterichthys. It is of a lozenge form, and, occupying exactly such a place in the nether armature of the creature as that occupied by the lozenge shaped spot on the ace of diamonds, it comes in contact with four other plates that lie around it, and represent, so to speak, the white portions of the card. And Sir Philip now found, that instead of lying over, it lay under, the four contiguous plates: they overlapped it, instead of being overlapped by it. This, he ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... not wait for a second hint, but shoved the lever over so hard that the wheels spun and the whole train came within an ace of bucking off the track. And before the caboose had passed us Ayisha was alongside Grim abusing him for not having broken the locks ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... of a country solicitor, she married early—for love, and the issue was disastrous. Above her right temple, just at the roots of the hair, a scar was discoverable; it was the memento of an occasion on which her husband aimed a blow at her with a mantelpiece ornament, and came within an ace of murder. Intimates of the household said that the provocation was great—that Mrs. Lessingham's gift of sarcasm had that morning displayed itself much too brilliantly. Still, the missile was an extreme retort, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... Darby's[3] coadjutor; And, as you in commission sit, To rule the dairy next to Kit;[4] In each capacity I mean To sing your praise. And first as Dean: Envy must own, you understand your Precedence, and support your grandeur: Nor of your rank will bate an ace, Except to give Dean Daniel[5] place. In you such dignity appears, So suited to your state and years! With ladies what a strict decorum! With what devotion you adore 'em! Treat me with so much complaisance, As fits a princess in romance! By your example and assistance, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... my master was within an ace of divulging his secret to a philosopher who knew nothing of it. I warrant you, I showed that gentleman the door, with a dose of cudgel given with ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... doubt but that Tom would add another count to his score, though he was already reckoned an ace, being ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... etc. Machine shot to pieces, but Martin Dockerill has it pretty well repaired. He and the doc and I play poker every day, Martin always wins with his dog-gone funeral face no matter tho he has an ace full. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... time, tended my poor wife in her lying-in, and doctored our Betty in the fever. You ain't a-going to be very hard with them poor boys? Though I seen 'em both shoot: the fair one hunts well, as you know, but the old one's a wonder at an ace ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thought—didn't tell him much, luckily, but we hadn't parted five minutes when he was 'wanted,' and there was no end of a hunt, but he managed to get clear, and a genuine English major was within an ace of being shot in mistake for him if he hadn't been recognised by one of the staff ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... never have noticed that the piece of paper wrapped round the crescent was peculiar in any way, or she would not have left it on the table among the others. She turned it off well when Evelyn recognized it, and made the most of her time. She was within an ace of success, but fate was against her. And Carr lost no time, either, for that matter; for I have since found out that the telegram she sent was to Birmingham, where he was no doubt hiding, bidding him meet her in London earlier than had been arranged. Of course he set off for the scene ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... men all took to their arms, and it was within an ace that they would fall to blows. But Asgrim and his friends and their followers would have no hand in it, and rode to their booths; and now all was quiet that day, so that they had naught to do with one another. Thither were come chiefs from all the Quarters of the land; ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... It would have paralyzed all growth and development in this country for twenty years if he had thought it 'nasty,'" said Job. "Foreigners can't be too particular how they express their opinions about us. Over and over again we have come within an ace of putting up the shutters and confessing that it was no use pretending that we could go on independently having a country of our own, with distinct institutions, peculiarities, customs, manners, and even productions. It would be so much better and easier to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... that the Querist deals or has had much to do with a Man of fair skin and light type, of good temperament. Influenced by an Ace of like suit, one notably unselfish. By Knave, a Lover, Husband, Friend. By a Queen, a Love-match. By a Diamond, a Man of Wealth or artistic nature. By a high club, a Man of Energy withal; by a low club, one of Prudence. ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... was so eager to be off that he was within an ace of leaving me there bound to the tree. As soon as he had released me, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... three against 97, give or take a few out on other jobs. It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make. It gave us a day and a ...
— Dead World • Jack Douglas
... and fiercer day by day, and Mr. Kruger's threat to "stagger humanity" was by some declared to be within an ace of being fulfilled. The Boer is inherently as tough as the Briton, and as obstinate: he was now well equipped for warfare, well led, and the chances of a terrific and bloody struggle seemed hourly to become more and more ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Turkish side have suggested that the naval operations were within an ace of succeeding, and that they only had to be pressed a little further to achieve their object. An examination of the books by Mr. Morgenthau and others does not bear this out. The Turks imagined that our fleet had been ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... A short without either rule or reason before a Consonant or two, with e after, as ace, acre, able, unstable, father, with A long, and solace, massacre, constable, ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... from the exhibition I've just been watching, that you're in the habit of seeing farther than to the end of your own nose. However, I may as well point out to you that if you had killed yourself, as you richly deserved, and as you came within an ace of doing, the run would have been stopped for the season. We should all have been deprived of the Grand National, and I, who come up here solely to ride the Cresta, which I have done regularly every winter for twenty years, would have had my favorite ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... answered Piet cheerfully, as he took my coat and rifle from me; "I'll remember all that you say. But I ain't afraid, baas; you're not goin' to die just yet. You'll beat that black nigger all right." (The fellow was himself as black as the ace of spades.) "All you got to do, baas, is to take care that he don' work roun' you so's to get the sun in ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... garment of far-flung amplitude, woven on the shadowy loom of night and the sea, and from such mysterious warp and weft is often produced the sable robe of tragedy and death. It was so now, within an ace. At one instance, the restless plain of the ocean seemed to bear no other argosy than the Andromeda; in the next, Hozier's quick-moving glance had caught the pallid sheen of some small craft's starboard light. No ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... crossed the plain and then the stream, and halted at the Cachoeira Grande (Grand Rapid) farm, 2,950 ft. above the sea level. A pure negro was in charge of the place, whose wife was also as black as the ace of spades. Curiously enough, they possessed a child much discoloured and with golden hair and blue eyes. Such things will happen in the best regulated countries. The black man swore it was his own child, and we took—or, rather, did not ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... orders and did the best he could, And soon a corporal he came to be; He was known throughout the country as the army's fighting ace, Beloved in ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... Possible to retire?" Chilcote broke into a loud, sarcastic laugh. "You don't know what the local pressure of a place like Wark stands for. Twenty times I have been within an ace of chucking the whole thing. Once last year I wrote privately to Vale, one of our big men there, and hinted that my health was bad. Two hours after he had read my letter he was in my study. Had I been in Greenland the result would have been the same. No. Resignation is a meaningless word ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Knight and Squire, in hot dispute, Within an ace of falling out, Are parted with a sudden fright Of strange alarm, and stranger sight; With which adventuring to stickle, They're sent away ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... interest. There were five dice; each dice with its six surfaces had six different numbers. While he beamed into the veiled eyes of the old Mexican he was figuring upon the various combinations possible and the likelihood, the theory of chances, of a six or an ace upon the second throw. From the jump the game fascinated him; it is to be questioned, however, if ever before a man knew just the sort of fascination which enthralled him. No matter who won or lost, when the rolling cubes behaved in conformity with the mathematical laws, he fairly sparkled. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... for K. Rhodes, and I hike across the border with our outfit; highest cards for Miguel and my trail is blazed for the red gold of Alisal. This is Miguel's hand—ace ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... lady, Took one of her maids, Who chanced to be black As the ace of spades, And said she'd have her washed white, By the other maids; She was put in a tub, And with water and towels Her skin they did rub, Through a long summer day till the night; But the more they did rub her, The blacker ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... ace of it. Luckily for himself, the governor found out how few of us there were in the party before we got our ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... half-heathen, a lover of but one thing in this world, the joyous god of Chance. Pierre was essentially a gamester. He would have extracted satisfaction out of a death-sentence which was contingent on the trumping of an ace. His only honour was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the danger can be cured by breaking an Act; but substantially the same danger existed before the Act. In 1825, when only coin was a legal tender, and when there was only one department in the Bank, the Bank had reduced its reserve to 1,027,000 L., and was within an ace of stopping payment. ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... cards apiece had been dealt, young Vaneski was ahead with a king high. On the fourth round he grinned when he got a second king and Mike dealt himself an ace. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... commander" has not an ace of a chance. Grancey and I saw some Working Men (you have to write them in capitals, king and queen small); they were reading the Address on a board carried by a red-nosed man, and shrugging. They are ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... injured reputation, went out with Sir Kit as his second, and carried his message next day to the last of his adversaries: I never saw him in such fine spirits as that day he went out—sure enough he was within ames-ace of getting quit handsomely of all his enemies; but unluckily, after hitting the tooth-pick out of his adversary's finger and thumb, he received a ball in a vital part, and was brought home, in little better than an hour after the affair, speechless on a hand-barrow, to my lady. We got the key out ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... gang!" said the cook, who was a negro black as the ace of spades named Job. "Dey am comin' to take off everybody dat looks like a Britisher. Golly! do ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... shower. The assent to the Laram Kotal is easy, and though the south face of this range is somewhat denuded of both fir and pine, yet the soil is sufficiently rich to allow of cultivation on its slopes. On this pass, whilst taking some plane-table observations, I was within an ace of being detected from an unexpected quarter. Four men armed with matchlocks showed themselves. Much quicker than it takes me to record it, the rule or sight vane was run up my long and open sleeve, and I began to pretend to be looking about for stray roots; the intruders were ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... was pleased with this story, and said, "O Hercules, you have been within an ace of making me forget my hereditary hatred to Anytus for his behaviour to Socrates and philosophy,[116] since he was so mild and noble to his love." "Be it so," said my father, "Love also makes peevish and gloomy persons kind and agreeable to those they live with; for as 'when the fire blazes ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... sub-lieutenant, some of us had a drop too much. That very night there was an alarm, and out we went to the front, half seas over! We did catch it, I can tell you, when Aleksei Petrovich came to hear about us! Heaven save us, what a rage he was in! He was within an ace of having us court-martialled. That's just how things happen! You might easily spend a whole year without seeing a soul; but just go and have a drop and you're a ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... back. Ace-of-trumps may it prove to you, Captain Paul; may it be impossible for you ever to be taken. But for me—poor deuce, a trey, that comes in your wake—any king or knave may take me, as before now ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... first take one suit, count one, two, three, &c. in it, up to 13, and then begin another suit. This is not the Mexican idea, however. Their reckoning is 1 tochtli, 2 acatl, 3 tecpatl, &c., just as it may be made with the cards thus: ace of hearts, two of diamonds, 3 of spades, 4 of clubs, 5 of hearts, 6 of diamonds, and so on through the pack. The correspondence between the cycle of 52 years, divided among 4 signs, and our year of 52 weeks, divided among 4 seasons, is also curious, though as entirely accidental ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... and smelt of perfumed soap. I threw up the window at once, but it opened so close to the floor and worked so clumsily that I came within an ace of pitching out, where I should certainly have ruined a rather lop-sided laburnum below. As I set about washing off the journey's dust, I began to feel a little tired. But, I reflected, I had not come down here in this weather and ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... men abuse good liquor and addle their silly pates to fill my purse. And I have something, boy, put snug away in Dorchester town that will give us bread to eat and beer to drink, even if the throws run still deuce-ace. But we must seek a roof to shelter us when the Why Not? is shut, and 'tis best we leave this Moonfleet of ours for a season, till Maskew finds a rope's end long enough to hang himself withal. So, when ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... cards, stripped the aces from the deck, and had a little conference with the judge. The two contestants, Sinclair and Du Sang, were ordered back thirty-five paces on their horses, and the railroad man, walking over to the targets, held out between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand the ace of clubs. The man that should first spot the pip out of the card was to take the prize, a Cheyenne saddle. Sinclair shot, and his horse, perfectly trained, stood like a statue. The card flew from Smith's hand, but the bullet had struck ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... strange mood. A few minutes before I had been at Pavannes' door, at the end of our journey; on the verge of success. I had been within an ace, as I supposed at least, of executing my errand. I had held the cup of success in my hand. And it had slipped. Now the conflict had to be fought over again; the danger to be faced. It would have been no more than natural if I had felt the disappointment ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... produced from an Ace Books paperback, 1973. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... husband, if no one got drunk, or gambled, or smoked, or hunted, in a word if we had neither vices, passions, nor maladies in France, the State would be within an ace of bankruptcy; for it seems that the capital of our national income consists of popular corruptions, as our commerce is kept alive by national luxury. If you cared to look a little closer into the matter you would see that all taxes are based upon some moral malady. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... bet it like I had an ace full, can't I? Anybody can play poker when he's got a mitt full of big ones. Show me the man that can make two pair back an all-blue hand ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... darkening Earth's bright face. 'Tis my only fear that his heart is harmed, * Brent by Love-fires lacking of mercy and grace: By Allah, albeit man's soul thou rule * Among stranger folk thou art but an ace!" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... are dyce, and ile begin to ye. Have at your head, Sir John! dewce ace[206]; a doggs-head![207] The devill turnd this ace up. Farwell, velvet gowne! Thou hast mist the luckiest hand ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... The glaring gaslight gave him a deeper paleness and cut the lines of his face to a sharper edge. He was talking with great animation, his hands moving constantly in eager gesture. I was within an ace of springing forward to greet him—so my heart went out to him—but the sight of his companion restrained me, and I sat chuckling and wondering in my corner. There they were, large as life, true to Varvilliers' description; the big stomach and the locket that a hyperbole, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... that he never appropriated to himself the fruit of these little dishonesties, for at the end of the game he gave up all his winnings, and they were equally divided. Gain, as may readily be supposed, was not his object; but he always expected that fortune would grant him an ace or a ten at the right moment with the same confidence with which he looked for fine weather on the day of battle. If he were disappointed he ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... and this is his tale of how it was. He and some farm hands were playing at cards in a small cabin that stood against the end of a big barn. A wicked woman had once lived in this cabin. Suddenly one of the players threw down an ace and began to swear without any cause. His swearing was so dreadful that the others stood up, and my friend said, "All is not right here; there is a spirit in him." They ran to the door that led into the barn to ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... and Minnesota, to both of which the Missouri restriction applied, had, without its repeal, each in succession, territorial organizations. And even the year before, a bill for Nebraska itself was within an ace of passing without the repealing clause, and this in the hands of the same men who are now the champions of repeal. Why no necessity then for repeal? But still later, when this very bill was first brought in, it contained no repeal. But, say they, because the people had demanded, or rather ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... worked, all right. You see, when Mike was doin' his heavy courtin' I'd planted my ace in the hole; I'd took off the outer soles of his runnin'-shoes and filed the spikes almost in two, close up to the plate. When I sewed the leather back on, it never showed, but the minute he struck his gait ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... and no sorrow was spared to him that belonged to what the Jews and Jewish Christians called 'the pangs of the Messiah.' It is true, crucifixion does not appear among Baha-'ullah's pains, but he was at any rate within an ace of martyrdom. This is what Baha-'ullah wrote at the end of his stay at Adrianople:—[Footnote: Browne, A Year among the ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... apparatus by the handle and putting the eye to the aperture, provided or not with a lens, we see a series of dominoes extending along the rule, from the double ace, which occupies the extremity most distant from the eye, to the double six, which is very near the eye (Fig. 2). The numbers from two to twelve, simply, are indicated, but this original means of representing them has been chosen in order to call ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... leader of note who never could play the ace of Quebec. The Laurier Cabinet knew how to play politics by imagination. Borden had nothing but a demoralized remnant, which the Liberals pillaged when they discarded Free Trade, helped themselves to a high, virtually protective, tariff for revenue only, took a reef out of the Tory "old flag" monopoly ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... with the xylophone music of their chopping, the solid surf ace vibrating beneath the blows of the axe and giving forth a clear tintinnabulation which is most delightful to the ear. It is not all xylophonic, but there is in it, too, the clink of musical glasses and also a certain weirdness, a goblin withal that seems to belong with the mystery surrounding ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... When you go to bed, place under your pillow a prayer-book open at the part of the matrimonial service 'with this ring I thee wed'; place on it a key, a ring, a flower, and a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread, and the following cards:—the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and the ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin handkerchief of gauze or muslin, and on getting into bed, cross your ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... not personally know what a run of bad luck is judge another. What color is a lemon? Why, it is lemon-colored, to be sure. And behold, fortune produces you a lemon black as the ace of spades. When fortune goes against you, you cannot be right. The favorite falls down; the great jockey uses bad judgment for the first time in his life; the foot-ball team that ought to win is overtrained; ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... cue every time; but when I'm needed to do the solid pardner stunt then you don't need to holler for me—I'm there. Well, I'm giving you a straight line of talk. Ever since the start I've taken a strong notion to you. You've always been ace-high with me, and there never will come the day when you can't eat on my meal-ticket. We tackled the Trail of Trouble together. You were always wanting to lift the heavy end of the log, and when the God of Cussedness was doing his best to rasp a man down to his yellow streak, you ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... West timber, i[ng]i[ng]ace naai. North timber, naqokosce naai. Doorway timbers ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... card. Beneath it was the trey of spades. Glenister said no word nor made a move. Some one coughed, and it sounded like a gunshot. Slowly the dealer's fingers retraced their way. He hesitated purposely and leered at the girl, then the three-spot disappeared and beneath it lay the ace as the king had lain on that other wager. It spelled utter ruin to Glenister. He raised his eyes blindly, and then the deathlike silence of the room was shattered by a sudden crash. Cherry Malotte had closed her check-rack violently, ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... and having gone three in "no trumps" and found seven to the ace, king, queen in hearts lying before her in dummy, she wore a smile of beatific satisfaction. So also did Alice—for two reasons. The deal obviously spelled money, and Vere Millet could be trusted to get every trick out of it. There were four ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... with English.—In December, 1808, Ranjit Singh was warned that by the issue of the war with Sindhia the Cis-Sutlej chiefs had come under British protection. The Maharaja was within an ace of declaring war, or let the world think so, but his statesmanlike instincts got the better of mortified ambition, and in April, 1809, he signed a treaty pledging himself to make no conquests south and east of the Sutlej. The compact so reluctantly ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... he had again retired, the deacon, dropping his last box on the woven table, elevated his hands toward the skies and fervently asked the Giver of All Good Things to aid his draw. But he received a third ace, only to see O Lalala put down four of the damnable bits of paper with three ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... was saying: It was a cinch to see that Sandy's girl thought you was ace high, alrightee. She kept her eyes glommed onto ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... me, Davie, ace o' hearts! [note] (To say aught less wad wrang the cartes, [cards] And flatt'ry I detest) This life has joys for you and I; And joys that riches ne'er could buy; And joys the very best. There's a' the pleasures o' the heart, The lover an' the ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... that, however, our damp, cold hero gave not a thought, for all his mind was fixed upon bed. Indeed, the britchka had hardly come to a standstill before he leapt out upon the doorstep, missed his footing, and came within an ace of falling. To meet him there issued a female younger than the first, but very closely resembling her; and on his being conducted to the parlour, a couple of glances showed him that the room was hung with ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... fifty-two playing cards, unlike any I have hitherto heard of. Each of them illustrates a proverb, which is engraved at the bottom of a pictorial representation of figures and objects, and the cards consist of the ten of diamonds, the ace of hearts, the seven of hearts, and the eight of spades: the number is in Roman figures at the left-hand corner, and the subject, a diamond, heart, and spade, at the right-hand corner. I will ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... of course be delighted to prove his metal when opposed by a famous ous "ace;" whose name and reputation had long made him a terror to the French and British airmen. Nevertheless he recognized the wisdom of what the captain was telling him, and promised to restrain his eagerness until given the prearranged signal that his ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... sixth round the lead came to me. Now, what should I have done? Finessed for the ace, or ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... staring at the other. He pushed aside some bones that were in the niche and dealt an ace ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... at him with her finger. "Tis you they threaten! Your rascal and mine have laid their heads together and condemned you. But they reckoned without you and me. We make a PARTIE CARREE, Prince, in love and politics. They lead an ace, but we shall trump it. Come, partner, shall ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a man that wouldn't give up a big slice to get him for a manager," he said. "He's in right, too. He's the ace!" ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... and then, in his despair and remorse, he deserted. He was around Frederick a day or two in disguise, and sought to see you and her. Failing in that, he sent you by the landlady the packet that was afterwards taken from your overcoat by the secret-service men; and the next thing he came within an ace of being captured by his own colonel. Escaping, he was believed to be a rebel spy, and so implicated you. It was to search for him I was sent to Boston. There Miss Winthrop formally broke our engagement, and I would be a free man to-day, doctor, but for your daughter; and now ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... the king?" Miss Allonby was saying, as I made my adieus to the company. "Then I play queen, knave, and ace, which gives me the ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... explain to you. Perhaps man is mistaken in thinking that he is obliged to resist evil and has a right to do so, just as he is mistaken in thinking, for instance, that the heart looks like an ace of hearts. It is very possible in resisting evil we ought not to use force, but to use what is the very opposite of force—if you, for instance, don't want this picture stolen from you, you ought to give it away rather than lock it ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... his face as black as the ace of spades, (which, by the way, is blue.) "I might go to Nova Zembla for a quiet smoke, and some sneaking politician would crawl out from the ice with a petition. I went fishing in Pennsylvania, and I found twenty of those fellows to every trout. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... lace for Aunt Cordelia, a jet necklace for Aunt Patty, a prison-camp brooch for Helen. All afternoon he held them with tales of his adventures in the air, rolling up his sleeve to show them a scar on his arm, and bending his head down so they could see where a German ace had nicked a ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... happened to one of the soldiers.... He called ace of diamonds, lost his reckoning and dropped his cards. He started and laughed stupidly ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... his series are irresistible. As a delineator of types, accurate beneath the caricature, he is deadly; particularly, perhaps, when he turns his attention to the Senior Service. But his Brigadiers and his Clubmen are also always within an ace of being identifiable. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... end. He came out of his theories and clevernesses; his premature man-of-the-worldness, on which he had prided himself on his travels, "shrank like a thing ashamed" before this real sorrow. Pride, wounded honour, pity and respect tussled together daily in his heart; and now he was within an ace of throwing himself upon his father's mercy, and now of slipping forth at night and coming back no more to Naseby House. He suffered from the sight of his father, nay, even from the neighbourhood of this familiar valley, where every corner had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "The ace of spades; we always choose that gloomy card in secret societies. There is something deadly and suggestive about it," I ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... he'll receive you on board the Liffy frigate, which, by a combination of circumstances, is now lying in Cork Harbour,—fortunate for us, but which might have proved disastrous to her gallant officers and crew, for she was dismasted in a gale, and was within an ace of being driven on shore. But a miss is as good as a mile; and when under jury-masts she scraped clear of the rocks, and got into port in safety. Here my letter, after wandering about for many a day, found him, and he has lost no time in replying to it. One of his midshipmen having gone ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... waistcoat pocket he seems to signify that the end of such torment is not yet even nigh at hand! Vain is the hope, if hope there be, to disturb that meagre doctor. With care precise he places every card, weighs well the value of each mighty ace, each guarded king, and comfort-giving queen; speculates on knave and ten, counts all his suits, and sets his price upon the whole. At length a card is led, and quick three others fall upon the board. The little doctor leads again, while with lustrous eye his partner absorbs ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... took it to one of the greatest, best and most learned of Divines [Rev. Joseph H. Twichell] and read it to him. He came within an ace of killing himself with laughter (for between you and me the thing was dreadfully funny. I don't often write anything that I laugh at myself, but I can hardly think of that thing without laughing). That old Divine said it was a piece of the finest kind ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a certain extent in your power," he said. "You have discovered my identity at a time when I could sacrifice thousands for it not to be known that I am in England. How you have discovered me matters as little as how a card-player gets the ace of trumps. And I understand that the price of your silence is the betrayal ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... three times, but I yielded at last; take courage from that, and 24, Pleasant Terrace, may shortly become that Elysium—a woman's home," whispered Mrs. W., as she rolled gracefully to a card-table; and accidentally, of course, cut the ace of spades, which she exhibited to Collumpsion with a very ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... humour. — He never laughs in his own person; nor can he bear that other people should laugh at his expence. Besides, if the subject had been properly chosen, the joke was too severe in all conscience.' ''Sdeath! (cried the knight) I could not have bated him an ace had he been my own father; and as for the subject, such another does not present itself once in half a century.' Here Mrs Tabitha interposing, and bridling up, declared, she did not see that Mr Lismahago was a ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... overcoats, just pushing forth through the front door into the fierce blast without. One was Doctor Schuchardt, the other Lieutenant Ennis, joint occupant with Lanier of the tiny premises. As Corporal Cassidy later expressed it, he felt "like I'd lost a bulging pot on an ace full." He couldn't run after and beg them to come back, yet he and his comrades were stiff from cold and almost breathless from exhaustion. Suddenly Number Five's carbine slipped from his frozen glove and fell with a crash on the kitchen floor. The next instant the ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... Behind the line a man in citizen clothes hovered uncertainly, and dim as the light was I made him out only too plainly. It was the Government spy, Weir. My goose was cooked. I had played for life's highest stake, and thrown amb's ace. It was good-bye ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... wedding-day fix'd, both the parties agreed, That the peasants should dance German waltzes, And drink to the future mix'd long-and-short breed Of the Donderdronckdickdorffs and Quoltzes. To the church, then, on foot, went the ace with his size— "What's this crowd for?" cries one of the people. "For a baron, who's taking," an arch wag replies, "A morning's walk under the steeple." ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... General, his face as black as the ace of spades, (which, by the way, is blue.) "I might go to Nova Zembla for a quiet smoke, and some sneaking politician would crawl out from the ice with a petition. I went fishing in Pennsylvania, and I found twenty ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... and heard. This den of ours opens on the river's edge, and, two days since, his Indians came within an ace of nabbing me. 'Twas just at dusk, and I made out to dodge them by doubling past in ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... fiercer day by day, and Mr. Kruger's threat to "stagger humanity" was by some declared to be within an ace of being fulfilled. The Boer is inherently as tough as the Briton, and as obstinate: he was now well equipped for warfare, well led, and the chances of a terrific and bloody struggle seemed hourly to ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... game last night, I'll tell the world! One hand we had four jacks out against four aces, and right after that I held four kings against an ace full. Say, one time there I was about two-eighty to the good, but I didn't have enough sense to quit. Hear about Gus Giddings? They got him over in the coop for breaking in on a social out at the Oak Grove schoolhouse last night. Say, he ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... sahib, within an ace of being too late. They had left them in a valley bottom with a guard of but twenty or thirty men, who mistook us at first for Kurds, I suppose, for they took no notice of us. I have spent much time wondering whence ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... have got at the books, he would have spent his days and nights in studying the evidences of Christianity, but the ship was bare of any such books, and he never thought of turning to the most obvious of all, the Bible itself. His unbelief was shaken; it was within an ace of falling in pieces to the very foundation; or rather he began to suspect how foundationless it had been. It came at last to one point with him;—If there were a God, he would not have left the world without a revelation,—no more would he have suffered that revelation ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... all Bill could do to say the right thing. Finally he remembered that some people are always car-sick when they travel, and on being asked, Frank admitted that he didn't feel so very good. So Bill let him alone and things went better. Bill made a good many friends that day and came within an ace of being kissed by a pale little lady who found a chance to take a much needed nap because Bill took charge of her two-year-old terror of a baby boy while she slept. There was an old gentleman too, who asked him a million or more questions, and enjoyed himself very ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... giving the least heed to his cards. It was true his eyes were resting on the ace, king, and queen of spades; but his mind was tortured by the belief that by his fantastic conceit in sending Helen to this Alpine fastness he had delivered her bound to ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... had them coopered," finished he. "Well, just as I was going to grab the kitty he played the ace of spades, produced an old document he held ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... and spake an elder mon, That held the Spade its Ace— "God save the lad! Whence comes the licht "That wimples on ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... were crying aloud for their prince, who remained concealed in Lorraine, when at last he resolved to set out and traverse France secretly. Agents, posted by the English ambassador, Lord Stair, were within an ace of arresting him, perhaps of murdering him. Saved by the intelligence and devotion of the post-mistress of Nonancourt, he embarked on the 26th of December at Dunkerque, too late to bring even moral support to the men who ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... were.—Then I saw no chance of getting at them. But for the rest of that year at Cambridge, I beat every bush in the university, to find some one who knew them; and as fortune favours the brave, at last I hit off this Lord Lynedale; and he, of course, was the ace of trumps—a fine catch in himself, and a double catch because he was going to marry the cousin. So I made a dead set at him; and tight work I had to nab him, I can tell you, for he was three or four years older than I, and had ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... against my wish," she said in a firm voice, "but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive you my death, on condition that you ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... throughout all Salerno that Ruggieri had been taken a thieving in the house of the usurers. Whereat the lady and her maid were all amazement and bewilderment, insomuch that they were within an ace of persuading themselves that what they had done the night before they had not done, but had only dreamed it; besides which, the peril in which Ruggieri stood caused the lady such anxiety as brought ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... her too!" nodded Spike, warming to his theme. "Hermy's ace-high on the face and figure question! Why, there ain't a swell dame on Fift' Av'ner, nor nowheres else, got anything on ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... to re-establish his sister's injured reputation, went out with Sir Kit as his second, and carried his message next day to the last of his adversaries: I never saw him in such fine spirits as that day he went out—sure enough he was within ames-ace of getting quit handsomely of all his enemies; but unluckily, after hitting the tooth-pick out of his adversary's finger and thumb, he received a ball in a vital part, and was brought home, in little better than an hour after the affair, speechless on a hand-barrow, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... stopped to tell her we had come as he went down with the cart, and she exclaimed, "Pray day come for me go see Miss Hayiut." In the morning she came early into my chamber, bright and eager. I knew Robert was black as the ace of spades, but they both of them did look blacker than anything I ever saw before, but it was good ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... ichthyic organisms of his princely collection, by the appearance presented by a central plate in the cuirass of the Pterichthys. It is of a lozenge form, and, occupying exactly such a place in the nether armature of the creature as that occupied by the lozenge shaped spot on the ace of diamonds, it comes in contact with four other plates that lie around it, and represent, so to speak, the white portions of the card. And Sir Philip now found, that instead of lying over, it lay ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... seems to me to point most clearly to the whole key of the situation. Anything which cannot be brought into such a simple number series, for instance, a colour impression, can never be transmitted. If the mother looks at the ace of diamonds, Beulah says that she sees the red of the diamond before her in her mind, but if the mother looks at the picture of a blue lake, this blue impression can never arise in Beulah's mind, but ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... breast, back, culet, gorget, tasses, sword, musket and bandoliers, in the hottest sun that ever roasted a blackamoor, or stand up to my knees, six months, in snow, without my mandilion, than lie a day longer in that ace—I mean that ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... mutton, which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, 'while her Husband was paying a Debt of several Guineas incurred by the Ace of Trumps being in the hands of his Adversary'—a scene which it is impossible to read aloud without a certain huskiness in the throat." [6] The last great cause of crime which the Enquiry considers, and with much learning and detail, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... in the open, walking quickly towards the gates, and not looking about him, he heard a burst of voices that bore no pleasant meaning; and then a body of tennis-balls flew all round him—some hitting him smartly, some whizzing within an ace of him. ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... companions; while the other was an outlaw, a half-heathen, a lover of but one thing in this world, the joyous god of Chance. Pierre was essentially a gamester. He would have extracted satisfaction out of a death-sentence which was contingent on the trumping of an ace. His only honour was the honour of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... others who would not leave them in peace. For anon the chief announced that this time a Kookwes—a burly, beastly villain, not two points better than his cousin the Chenoo—was coming to play at rough murder with them. And, verily, by this time the Micmac began to believe, without bating an ace on it, that all of these tall people were like the wolves, who, meeting with nobody else, bite one another. So they were bound and bundled up as before, and put to bed like dolls. And again they heard the horrible shout, the moderate shout, and the smaller shout, until sooel moonoodooahdigool, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... exhibition I've just been watching, that you're in the habit of seeing farther than to the end of your own nose. However, I may as well point out to you that if you had killed yourself, as you richly deserved, and as you came within an ace of doing, the run would have been stopped for the season. We should all have been deprived of the Grand National, and I, who come up here solely to ride the Cresta, which I have done regularly every winter ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... America produced a number of other brilliant aces, an ace being one who brought down five enemy planes, each victory being attested by ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... degradation of color. The poor white man might have said, If I were Robert Purvis, with a good bank account, and could live in my own house, ride in my own carriage, and have my children well fed and clothed, I should not care if we were all as black as the ace of spades. But he had never tried the humiliation of color, and could not understand its peculiar aggravations, as he did those of poverty. It is impossible for one class to appreciate the wrongs of another. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... who commanded the garrison with great gallantry, was one of the few victims to yellow fever last year. The Yankees attacked the fort three times with much bravery and determination, and actually reached the superior slope of the parapet before they were driven back. They were within an ace of being successful; and although they deserved great credit for their behaviour on that occasion, yet it is understood that the officer who organised the attack has either been dismissed the service or ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... Here Leonard lay dead in the garden, from natural causes; yet life was a deep, deep river, death a blue sky, life was a house, death a wisp of hay, a flower, a tower, life and death were anything and everything, except this ordered insanity, where the king takes the queen, and the ace the king. Ah, no; there was beauty and adventure behind, such as the man at her feet had yearned for; there was hope this side of the grave; there were truer relationships beyond the limits that ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... under your pillow a prayer-book open at the part of the matrimonial service 'with this ring I thee wed'; place on it a key, a ring, a flower, and a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread, and the following cards:—the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and the ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin handkerchief of gauze or muslin, and on getting into bed, cross ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... appeared to the summons, but instead of opening the gates seized a long boat-hook, and rushed towards our hero, calling upon him to mind the mill-stream, and pull his right-hand scull; notwithstanding which warning, Tom was within an ace of drifting past the entrance to the lock, in which case assuredly his boat, if not he, had never returned whole. However, the lock-keeper managed to catch the stern of his skiff with the boat-hook, and drag him back into the proper channel, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... freshened upon us, and presently down it came, half a gale of wind, burying us half bulwark deep and making everything crack again as the boat gathered way and darted off like a startled dolphin. And here Carera was within an ace of making a mess of the whole business; for whilst we had been tumbling about becalmed a current had got hold of us and had set us so close in with the land that whilst rounding the point we actually passed ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... Quiximir or Cashmire and Mount Caucasus, which divides India from the provinces of Tartary in the north. This kingdom of the Moguls now reaches to the mountainous regions of Parveti and Bagous which they call Angou [199]. As in this dominion there ace great mountains, so there are likewise very large and fruitful plains, watered by five rivers which compose the Indus. These are the Bet, Satinague, Chanao, Rave, and Rea[200]. The cities of this country are numerous and, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... jaun'dice clev'er das'tard jos'tle si'lex paint'er scab'bard but'ton mas'tiff way'ward scaf'fold pic'nic sar'casm di'gest sham'bles grum'ble tar'nish light'ning tran'script hus'tle tar'tar por'trait nest'ling mur'rain ha rangue' nov'ice men'ace rum'ble re lapse' Tues'day pen'ance troub'le pro fess' cli'mate shep'herd ar'gue re venge' ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... Took one of her maids, Who chanced to be black As the ace of spades, And said she'd have her washed white, By the other maids; She was put in a tub, And with water and towels Her skin they did rub, Through a long summer day till the night; But the more they did rub her, The blacker she got; And while they did scrub her, She mourned her hard ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... evidently had just left the gaming-table, leaned down and pulled open Bain's shirt. He had the ace of spades in his hand. He laid it on Bain's breast, and the black figure on the card covered the two bullet-holes just ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... and ace of clubs, queen and knave of diamonds, and king of hearts. Clubs were trumps, mark you, and I had but one point between me and freedom. He knew it was the crisis, and he undid his tunic. I threw my dolman on the ground. ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with Wisdom Hely's sandwich-boards, shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out, muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... pointed with hard wood instead of iron, the metal being scarce among the Shir tribe. The most valuable article of barter for this tribe is the iron hoe generally used among the White Nile negroes. In form it is precisely similar to the "ace of spades." The finery most prized by the women are polished iron anklets, which they wear in such numbers that they reach nearly half-way up the calf of the leg; the tinkling of these rings is considered ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... discuss that with Mr. Carter, of course!" It was always ace of trumps, and Harriet only blamed herself for ever beginning a conversation with anything else. Now she retired from the field with all honours, forcing herself to dismiss the unpleasant memory the instant she was out of reach of Madame Carter's voice. ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... us all. The card-players had thrown down their cards just as the plumber was about to trump an ace. The others had tossed aside their papers and laid down their cigarettes. The Turco—"Muley Hafid" he was called, because those were the only words of his any one could understand—who had been deploying imaginary ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... not kill me, after having overcome me and taken me prisoner: that would never bring thee praise or glory. If thou shouldst touch me more, thou wouldst do great villainy. Take here my sword; I yield it thee." Erec, however, does not take it, but says in reply: "I am within an ace of killing thee." "Ah! gentle knight, mercy! For what crime, indeed, or for what wrong shouldst thou hate me with mortal hatred? I never saw thee before that I am aware, and never have I been engaged in doing thee any shame or wrong." Erec replies: "Indeed you have." "Ah, sire, tell me when! ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... We see that the rule has been that everywhere the lower forms of life precede the higher. In the plant world flowerless plants precede the flowering ones. The coal we burn to-day is mainly the remains of the wonderful growth of the flowerless vegetation of the Paleozoic Ace. When flowering plants appear, it is the lower ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... faith. The mistress broaches the subject of the lease to Joggeli, but he will not hear to it. Freneli, however, is not disturbed, but outlines the plan of action, which succeeds admirably. Now comes the son-in-law and makes a scene, but Freneli trumps his ace by getting word to Johannes, who, already suspicious of the cotton-dealer, is glad to have a chance to spoke his wheel for him. A frightful turmoil ensues, with Johannes pounding the table and threatening the cotton-dealer, while the latter, unterrified, calmly admits marrying ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... of stary, pop eyes, a high colored beak that might be used as a danger signal, and a black, shoebrush beard, trimmed close except for a little spike under the chin, that gives the lower part of his face a look like the ace of spades. His mornin' costume is a faded blue jumper, brown checked pants, and an old pair of rubber soled shoes that Swifty had donated ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... sooner or later. I was within an ace of death two months ago. The gallows wouldn't have been worse than a ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... it may prove," was the reply; "for the company of this house ace as various at times as can be met with in any other situation. However, this appears to wear the form of one of our fashionable, high-life Gentlemen; but appearances are often deceitful, we shall perhaps hear more of him presently—he may turn out to be one of the prodigals who calculate ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... her lips gently with the back of her hand to hide the fact that she was sleepy, and nudged her father's elbow. "You shouldn't have put the deuce there," she said, "you should have used it to build with on the ace." ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... ignorant of the way in which her prospects had been prejudiced by the trend of events at Melkbridge House since Mrs Devitt had replied to Miss Mee's letter. To begin with, Mavis's visit had been within an ace of being indefinitely postponed; it was owing to Harold's expressed wish that the original appointment had been allowed to stand. The reason for this indifference to Mavis's immediate future was that, the day after the schoolmistress had written, Harold had been seriously ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... the immense power they had conferred on Rome by passing the words Legatis proponentibus.[43] The principle involved in this phrase continued to be hotly disputed all through the sessions of the Council. But Pius knew that so long as he stuck fast to it he always held the ace of trumps, and nothing would induce him ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... every way poorer in resources than themselves. They had the whole fleet with which to compel the other cities in their empire to give them money just as if they had their base in the capital, having a city in Samos which, so far from wanting strength, had when at war been within an ace of depriving the Athenians of the command of the sea, while as far as the enemy was concerned they had the same base of operations as before. Indeed, with the fleet in their hands, they were better able to provide themselves with supplies than the government ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... fatigue after a long journey, sank down at the very brink of a deep well and presently fell asleep. He was within an ace of falling in, when Dame Fortune appeared to him and touched him on the shoulder, cautioning him to move further away. "Wake up, good sir, I pray you," she said; "had you fallen into the well, the blame would ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... parson's name, and, what is very remarkable in it, (as appears from a most ancient account of the family, wrote upon strong vellum, and now in perfect preservation) it had been exactly so spelt for near,—I was within an ace of saying nine hundred years;—but I would not shake my credit in telling an improbable truth, however indisputable in itself,—and therefore I shall content myself with only saying—It had been exactly so spelt, without the least variation or transposition of a single ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... in a hurry and forgot 'em!" said the Captain, charitably. "Anyhow, not speakin' her language, I didn't ask her. And she was as black as the ace of spades, and ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... tears in spite of myself. Visions of my wife and family at home, waiting and momentarily expecting "Daddy," who had notified them of his return, flitted through my brain. A lump rose in my throat and for the first time I was within an ace of breaking-down. But smothering my thoughts, I pulled myself together. Assuming a bravado I was far from feeling, I demanded to see the Commandant. To my surprise the request was granted. This functionary was seated at his desk ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... trey of spades. Glenister said no word nor made a move. Some one coughed, and it sounded like a gunshot. Slowly the dealer's fingers retraced their way. He hesitated purposely and leered at the girl, then the three-spot disappeared and beneath it lay the ace as the king had lain on that other wager. It spelled utter ruin to Glenister. He raised his eyes blindly, and then the deathlike silence of the room was shattered by a sudden crash. Cherry Malotte had closed her check-rack violently, at the same instant crying shrill and clear: "That bet is ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... He seemed to be the luckiest fellow in the world in drawing cards. He would hold up one ace on a large jackpot and catch two more aces and a small pair. It seemed the greatest ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... They were monkeying with the sashes and panes all night long, and I imagined that I could hear them breathing—as though from effort of intense eagerness. Ouch! I came as near losing my nerve as I care to. I came within an ace of hurling those cursed pies through the window at them. I'd bolt to-day if I wasn't afraid to ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... the Coldstream country in a bitter temper, for the job was far beneath his professional dignity as he looked at it, and he knew that in the meantime others would get better work to which he considered himself entitled. Indeed, he had come within an ace of resigning, and had insisted, as a condition, on a definite promise of something very good in ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... for although I have had my little Mariguita laid up with an inflammation of the eyes that was within an ace of leaving her blind, when I obtained our old remedy, the pito-real, it cured her as if ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she realized, from the look in the pale, set, freckly, almost comical face ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... soul, Deacon Tubman, I don't know but that you are right!" answered the parson. "Sixty? I don't know as I am sixty," and he began to rub his own hands, and came within an ace of executing a wink ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... says, the answer is no secret, but open to all of us: We must risk the whole on the chance of throwing, as they say, thrice six or thrice ace, and I am willing to share with you the danger by stating and explaining to you my views about education and nurture, which is the question coming to the surface again. The danger is not a slight or ordinary one, and I would advise you, Cleinias, ...
— Laws • Plato
... cannot gallop after a lady without ceremony, and command her to stand and deliver as if he were a highwayman. Yet I was within an ace of doing it—within an ace. I have beheld her! I had best ride back ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... us sing: Long live the King, Long live the Queen and Jack, Long live the ten-spot and the ace, And also all ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... systematised for the benefit of others the results of the experience of a lifetime! With books or no books, it is quite true, however, that some men, otherwise of great intelligence, can never be taught whist; they may have had every opportunity of learning it—have been born, as it were, with the ace of spades in their mouth instead of a silver spoon—but the gift of understanding is denied them; and though it is ungallant to say so, I have never known a lady to ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... into a small wood, and destroying my genuine license and hiding the genuine number-plate, I took the next train to Winchester, and thence by express to Waterloo after a very wild and adventurous night. That I had been within an ace of capture was palpable. ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... anxious and his serves broke high and Amy killed two at the start. Then came a rally with both boys racing up and down the court like mad and the white ball dodging back and forth over the net from one side to the other. Holt finally secured the ace by dropping the ball just over the canvas. Amy, although he ran hard and reached the ball, failed to play it. Another serve was returned low and hard to the left of the court, came back in a high lob almost to the back line, ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... "They've let me know as much a'ready. There be two captains to their crew; one's the smoke-dried old sinner as brought yer in; the other a big nayger, as black as the ace o' spades. You saw the swab? He's inside the tent here. He's my master. The two came nigh quarrelling about which should have me, and settled it by some sort o' a game they played wi' balls of kaymal's dung. The black won me; an' that's why I'm kep by his tent. Mother av Moses! Only ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... the quarrel last recorded, Aldo, against his father's wish, left Pavia and returned to Milan. Cardan used every argument he could bring forward to keep his younger son with him, but in vain; and, as he was unwilling to put constraint upon him, Aldo departed. Cardan says that he was within an ace of going with him, for the University was then in vacation: then the crowning catastrophe might have been averted, but the same fate which was driving on the son to destruction, kept the father at Pavia. Thus it happened that Aldo was an ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... right. You see, when Mike was doin' his heavy courtin' I'd planted my ace in the hole; I'd took off the outer soles of his runnin'-shoes and filed the spikes almost in two, close up to the plate. When I sewed the leather back on, it never showed, but the minute he struck his gait they ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... the business. The Germans deliberately forced on the war. They knew perfectly well that when they put up a German Prince as candidate for the throne of Spain it would bring on a war with France. Why, we ourselves were within an ace of going to war with France when Guizot brought about the Spanish marriage, although it was comparatively of slight importance to us that Spain and France should be united. But to the French this thing was an absolutely vital question, ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... and a capital way it is to encourage liberality in children. I gave mamma a very neat brass thimble, and she gave me a half-guinea piece. Then I gave her a very pretty needle-book, which I made myself with an ace of spades from a new pack of cards we had, and I got Sally, our maid, to cover it with a bit of pink satin her mistress had given her; and I made the leaves of the book, which I vandyked very nicely, out of a piece of flannel I had had round my neck for a sore throat. It smelt a little ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... money is an essential factor in the social fabric and the form in which it comes to us seems as inevitable as the moon or our ten fingers; humanity has gone on for hundreds of years considering the knave of greater value than the ten-spot and the ace of higher worth than all the rest of the pack, because it is content to believe that the rules that have been handed down apportioning these values are the best that could be devised. With a hundred other elements and details of our ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... big proposition to offer you. One that will beat Mascola's like an ace beats a deuce. Because this one is ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... friend, with whom he had made a pedestrian tour in France and Switzerland, during his last Cambridge vacation; then, in November of 1791, he crossed to France, ostensibly to learn the language, made the acquaintance of revolutionaries, sympathized with them vehemently, and was within an ace of throwing in his lot with the Brissotins, to give them the steady direction that they needed. When it came to this his relatives cut off his supplies, and he was obliged to return to London toward the close of 1792. But still he resisted all pressure ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Andy Angel's white folks had him put in jail a heap of times, because he was a rogue and stole everything he could get his hands on. Nearly everybody was afraid of him; he was a great big double jointed man, and was black as the ace of spades. No, mam, I never saw any slaves sold, but my father's mother and his sister were sold on the block. The white folks that bought 'em took them away. After the war was over my father tried to locate 'em, but never once did he get on ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... Society was in the habit of entertaining visiting lecturers, many a golfer had foozled his drive owing to sudden loud outbursts of applause coinciding with his down-swing. And not long before this story opens a sliced ball, whizzing in at the open window, had come within an ace of incapacitating Raymond Parsloe Devine, the rising young novelist (who rose at that moment a clear foot and a half) from any further exercise of his art. Two inches, indeed, to the right and Raymond must inevitably have handed in ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... them downstairs like a giant; she was never so startled in all her life! It was explained to me that, as in the South only negroes handle trunks, the lady could not regard me exactly as a gentleman. She was within a short ace of being burnt up, trunks and all, but could not forget that she was from the "Sa-outh," and must needs ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... and did the best he could, And soon a corporal he came to be; He was known throughout the country as the army's fighting ace, Beloved in every branch ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... He doesn't talk about himself or his affairs though he is a frank outspoken youngster in other ways. But there was a look in his eyes when he came to us that most boys of twenty don't have, thank the Lord! And it is that look or what is behind it that has made him ace high here. That boy struck bottom somewhere and struck it hard. I'll bet my ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... Liszt seemed a sacrilege, but we played, all the same. I was very distraite, seeing Grieg and his wife (who do not play cards) wandering restlessly around the room, and sometimes I put on an ace when a two would have ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... warm, and smelt of perfumed soap. I threw up the window at once, but it opened so close to the floor and worked so clumsily that I came within an ace of pitching out, where I should certainly have ruined a rather lop-sided laburnum below. As I set about washing off the journey's dust, I began to feel a little tired. But, I reflected, I had not come down here in this weather ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... trace De cem'ber mace sol'ace brace in ces'sant clot tac'tic curd en act'ment acts ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... dear, brave, blessed ace of hearts in a world where hearts are trumps! If you ain't one of the right old girls, then they don't ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... conceal his thoughts,' and led someone—commonly believed to be Mr. Labouchere, who made no attempt to hide his own opinions—to say, 'How is it possible to play with an old sinner who has got an ace up each sleeve, and says God Almighty put them there?' What Gladstone wanted to do was, in fact, never exactly known; all that could be made out was that he was prepared to grant whatever the Irish Nationalist ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... had proved successful beyond hope. Artistic and critical London had hailed him as a newcomer of promise, amounting to genius: and Lilamani Sinclair, daughter of Rajputs, had only escaped becoming the craze of the moment by her precipitate withdrawal to Antibes, where she had come within an ace of losing all, largely through the malign influence of Jane—her evil genius during those wonderful, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... said, "on the sixth round the lead came to me. Now, what should I have done? Finessed for the ace, or led straight ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... us a lesson, Roscorla," said the old general. "Gad! some of you West Indian fellows know the difference between a ten and an ace." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Man alive, why didn't you play your Ace of Spades? If you had brought out that Ace you'd have a trump- -then you'd beat this with a trump ... ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... pleasure in exhibiting my skill and the method of its operation to the assembled company. Then the whole party would follow me to an open space, and I would call for a pack of cards, and possibly—for I was a good shot in those days—pink the ace of hearts at fifteen paces. At any rate, my performances usually called forth plaudits, and this involved a further interchange of compliments and explanations, and the production of my sketch-book, which soon procured me the ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... 'barrier reef,' that a few days more at sea must have terminated the existence of many of them. This stoppage, however, had likewise been nearly productive of fatal consequences to the whole party. In fact, another mutiny was within an ace of breaking out, which, if not checked at the moment, could only, in their desperate situation, have ended in irretrievable and total destruction. Bligh mentions, in his printed narrative, the mutinous conduct of a person to whom ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... surprised to find, was expecting him, in a state of high ferment. Jeffreys would fain have avoided an interview. For he was constantly discovering that he was still far from sure of himself. That afternoon his passion had been within an ace of mastering him; and at any time he dreaded something might happen which would undo all the penance of those last six months. He therefore resolved wisely in the present instance to avoid altercation ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... came within an ace of blazing away at you, but I happened to recognize your figure and step just ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... discussion they cut cards. One of the Bergen County boys drew the black ace. "What do I know about being a ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... us this time," declared little Robey, the youngest subaltern, to whom the nights were a torment unspeakable. He had been within an ace of heat apoplexy more than once, and his nerves were stretched ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... he not to resuscitate a theme and make it immortal, because some botcher had tried his hand upon it before, and left it for stone-dead? Because he could not help throwing sizes, was he to avoid the dice which for others would only come up ames-ace? ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... my hand on the wrist that held the bottle. He shook it off angrily, and began to pour. Grim, over the way, looked anxious. It was up to me to play this hand, so I led my ace of trumps. ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... the German tumbled to earth. This made the fifth enemy machine which was officially credited to Lufbery. When a pilot has accounted for five Boches he is mentioned by name in the official communication, and is spoken of as an "Ace," which in French aerial slang means a super-pilot. Papers are allowed to call an "ace" by name, print his picture and give him a write-up. The successful aviator becomes a national hero. When Lufbery worked into this category the French papers made him a head liner. ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... was made, and up was lugged the redoubtable ace of hearts from under one of Jack's feet, who had hoped, by covering it, to escape detection. Detected, however, he was, and, as they all knew him well, the laughter was loud accordingly, and none of them laughed louder ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... during the sermon, but sometimes they do. The choir is furnished with the numbers of the hymns that are to be sung, by the minister, and they put a bookmark in the book at the proper place. One morning they all got up to sing, when the soprano turned pale, as an ace of spades dropped out of her hymn book, the alto nearly fainted when the queen of hearts dropped at her feet, and the rest of the pack was distributed around in the other books. They laid it onto the tenor, but he swore, while the minister ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... the three strung, one below the other, from the end of the fore-yard-arm, were shattered by three successive bullets in almost the same number of seconds. Pistol practice succeeded that of the rifle, and the ace of hearts at 15 paces was a mark ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... to it wi' th' rope all ready, but just as he was going to slip it over its leg it seemed to stand on its head, feint wi' its left an' get an upper-cut wi' its right under Ratty's chin. A shadow passed across th' fa-ace o' the moon, which I judged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... lesson until, in almost the last week of the nineteenth century, the three successive defeats of Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Colenso aroused it to a knowledge of the fact that we had been within an ace of losing South Africa. Many, indeed, would question whether even now the lesson had been thoroughly learnt. But, however this may be, it is certain that throughout the nineteenth century the Home Government wished to treat both the natives and the Dutch in South Africa on ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... have said, If I were Robert Purvis, with a good bank account, and could live in my own house, ride in my own carriage, and have my children well fed and clothed, I should not care if we were all as black as the ace of spades. But he had never tried the humiliation of color, and could not understand its peculiar aggravations, as he did those of poverty. It is impossible for one class to appreciate the wrongs of another. The ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... 1/1000, or (generally) 1/m. The denominator represents the number of times that an event happens, and the numerator the number of times that it coincides with another event. In throwing a die, the probability of ace turning up is expressed by putting the number of throws for the denominator and the number of times that ace is thrown for the numerator; and we may assume that the more trials we make the nearer will the resulting ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... have been, we have only to turn away from the mission counties to the foothills of the Sierras, where the mining-camps of the Anglo-Saxon bear such names as Fiddletown, Red Dog, Dutch Flat, Murder Gulch, Ace of Spades, or Murderer's Bar; these changing later, by euphemistic vulgarity, into Ruby City, Magnolia Vale, Largentville, Idlewild, and the like. Or, if not these, our Anglo-Saxon practically gives us, not Our Lady of the Solitude, nor the City ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... carelessly, as he proceeded to deal the cards for Casino. "There, you have an ace and little Casino right before you. Go ahead, ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... sprang up as mortal mariner rarely encountered even off such a coast—a violent north-easterly hurricane—still known in Algiers as "Charles's gale"—such as few vessels cared to ride off a lee shore. The immense flotilla in the bay was within an ace of total destruction. Anchors and cables were powerless to hold the crowded, jostling ships. One after the other they broke loose, and keeled over to the tempest till their decks were drowned in the seas. Planks gaped; broadside to broadside ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... too well to believe that he would have any love left to give the woman who had despoiled him of all a man values—broken his faith, destroyed the ideals that had once been his. Moreover, she had seen clear down into his soul that day at Berrier Cove, when Ann had come within an ace of death, and she knew that on the ruins of the old love ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... in Chevalier Creek, Surville was overtaken by a frightful tempest, which brought him within an ace of destruction, but his sailors had such confidence in his nautical ability that they felt no anxiety, and obeyed his orders with a sang froid of which, unfortunately, the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... cards. For with them she was pleased enough, but only delighting to bite at them, and flip them about with her paws, and never considering for a moment whether they were diamonds or clubs, or hearts, or spades or whether the card was an ace or not. So it was evident that she had forgotten the ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... you against my wish," she said in a firm voice, "but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... breaking in]. Man alive, why didn't you play your Ace of Spades? If you had brought out that Ace you'd have a trump- -then you'd beat this with a trump ... and then ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... plateau resembled the ace of clubs. The center and side wings were high and well wooded with heavy pines; the middle wing was longest, sloped west, had no pine, but a dense growth of cedar. Numerous ridges and canyons cut up this central wing. Middle Canyon, the longest and deepest, bisected the plateau, headed near ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... lordship," he went on, scanning the judge still harder. "I do mind his vurry voice. It was 'im, no doubt about it. I've zeed a zight o' people, since I zeed 'im that day, but I do mind his voice, and I do mind his 'ands, and I do mind his ve-ace the zame as if it wur yesterday. Now I come to look, blessed ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... issue was disastrous. Above her right temple, just at the roots of the hair, a scar was discoverable; it was the memento of an occasion on which her husband aimed a blow at her with a mantelpiece ornament, and came within an ace of murder. Intimates of the household said that the provocation was great—that Mrs. Lessingham's gift of sarcasm had that morning displayed itself much too brilliantly. Still, the missile was an extreme ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... just old lightnin' on chuck-a-luck. Now the way I bet is this: I lay down, say on the ace, an' it don't come up; I just double my bet on the ace, an' keep on doublin' every time it loses, until at last it comes up an' then I win a bushel o' money, and mebbe bust the bank. You see the thing's got ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... was represented by a medium which even Montesquieu would not set down as a certain mark of civilization. The horse-shoe of Loggun (Denham and Clapperton), the Fan fleam, the "small piece of iron like an ace of spades on the upper Nile" (Baker), and the iron money of the brachycephalic Nyam-nyams described and drawn by Schwein furth (i. 279), here becomes a triangle or demi-square of bast-cloth, about 5 inches of max. length, fringed, coloured ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... probably have rolled over the narrow ledge on which he stood, and gone bounding down, down the mountain side, to her death. But he did catch her, and broke the fall, so that she landed lightly beside him, and within an ace of being on ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... the reader with Bob's experiences during the next few hours. In the letter he wrote to me about them, he gave but few details. Nevertheless, he told me enough to make me realise that for hours he was within an ace ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... round, then: here are dyce, and ile begin to ye. Have at your head, Sir John! dewce ace[206]; a doggs-head![207] The devill turnd this ace up. Farwell, velvet gowne! Thou hast mist the luckiest hand to scratch ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Winnie have a gardener, and that gardener is black—as black as the Ace of Spades or the King of Ashantee. He dwells in a corner of the Rakata Cottage, but is addicted to spending much of his spare time in the Krakatoa one. He is as strong and powerful as ever, but limps slightly on his ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... What between the shouts of the runners and the clatter of the chaises men, women and children made haste to clear a track, snatching their little ones back and then staring at us as we swept past. Indeed, the teams put their best feet foremost for local effect, and more than once came within an ace of running over some urchin who either would not or could not get out of the way. Fortunately no casualties occurred. For it would have been ignominious to have been arrested by the police during our first ten minutes in the town, not ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... turned up the Ace of Hearts was to stay. You could have heard a pin drop after that. I have never before felt what I felt then. If I had to return and leave Semyonov here! They say that the attack may develop in this direction at any moment. If Semyonov were to be here and I not.... And yet what was it ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... carrier suddenly came charging out of the brush to his left. While Ed dealt with that one, the Harn played its ace in the hole. The two special units it had been developing to deal with Ed were not quite done yet, but they were done enough to work for the few minutes the Harn needed them. Ed heard a coughing grunt behind him and spun around to see something new crawling out of the flame and smoke ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... measure the peril that menaced him. So, surveying the number of cards that remained in stock, he guarded carefully three aces of trumps which might help him to avert disaster. But, playing the only ace that would allow him to score again, Paul Landry announced coldly, laying on the table four queens of spades and ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... cruise there were a few adventures more directly touching the "Rattlesnake." Twice the landing parties, including Huxley, were within an ace of coming to blows with the islanders of the Louisiades, and on one occasion a portly member of the gun-room, being cut off by these black gentry, only saved his life by parting with all his clothes as presents to them, and keeping ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... of a card-player who trumps his opponent's ace, he placed on the pouch a pipe. And, to make the matter, if possible, worse, the pipe was not a new pipe. It was caked within and coloured without, a pipe that had seen long service. The only mitigating circumstance that could possibly have been urged in favour ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... spot, and Chia Huan was so exasperated that putting out his hand, he speedily made a snatch at the dice, and eventually was about to lay hold of the money, arguing that it was six spot. But Ying Erh expostulated, "It was distinctly an ace," she said. And as Pao-ch'ai noticed how distressed Chia Huan was, she forthwith cast a glance at Ying Erh and observed: "The older you get, the less manners you have! Is it likely that gentlemen will cheat you? and don't you yet put down ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Lyons included the Lyons electric light and gas plant. On this side trip we met an entire regiment of Algerian soldiers, black as the traditional ace of spades, but fine specimens of manhood. Their uniforms were almost identical with the uniform worn by our soldiers in the Civil War. They wore light blue overcoats, such as Governor Tod furnished the first company ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... "and he gave me some tips. One of them was to shout at your scout for at least a week to show that you are not an infant, another was not to row, and the last was not to play cards all day and night. My brother's an odd kind of chap, the sort of man who doesn't know the ace of spades by sight, but it's as easy to shout as it is not to row. Your ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... all around before that wretched affair was explained. Gleason came within an ace of court-martial, but escaped it by saying that he knew of "Burnham's" threats against the life of Lieutenant Baker, and that he went to the ranch in search of the latter and to get him out of danger. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... him dealing from the wrong end of the pack," he said. "I understand they suspected him from the first—seems our surgeon recognized him—and to-night they had outsiders watching him. The outsiders claim they saw him slip himself an ace from the bottom of the pack. It's a pity! ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... 'ware, all's right and fair, Barred balls I bar when goaded; The deuce an ace is out of place! The deuce a die is loaded! Then make your game, Your color name; Success attend the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Slave of the Bed.... "Dat fat feller" had one of the prisoners perform his corvee for him. "Dat fat feller" bought enough at the canteen twice every day to stock a transatlantic liner for seven voyages, and never ace with the prisoners. I will mention him again apropos the Mecca of respectability, the Great White Throne of purity, Three rings Three—alias Count Bragard, to whom I have long since introduced ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... school before I got through with it. Hal told his mother and she took it to the school board. I was a pretty tough little rascal in those days I guess and no doubt needed some lickings myself occasionally. But I remember I almost lost my nerve when I got back to school that day and came within an ace of stuffing the rose in my pocket instead of throwing it on your desk. I never dreamed the rose would be anything to you. It was only my way of paying tribute to you. You seemed to me something like a rose yourself, just dropped down out of heaven you know, you were so little and pink ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... doant ye," said the honest fellow, and was within an ace of blubbering for sympathy. "We ain't a lot o' babies, to see our squire kidnaped. If you would lend Abel Moss there and me a couple o' nags, we'll catch ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... been trying to tell him—that love and happiness were not for him. He was consecrate to great causes: His Will, entangled with that of others, grew feeble, fruitless. Women were truly enfants du diable. He had been within an ace of abandoning his historical mission. Now he would arise, strong, sublime: a mighty weapon forged by the gods, and tempered ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... and dreary position for men whose ordinary lives ran through the lighted places of the world. The wind swept sadly over the dark fields. The mud clung to the squelching, dragging boots; now Mr. Fishwick was within an ace of the ditch on one side, now on the other, and now he brought up heavily against one of his companions. At length the servant gave him an arm, and thus linked together they reached the crest of the hill, and after taking a moment to ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... is true, by an oversight. She could never have noticed that the piece of paper wrapped round the crescent was peculiar in any way, or she would not have left it on the table among the others. She turned it off well when Evelyn recognized it, and made the most of her time. She was within an ace of success, but fate was against her. And Carr lost no time, either, for that matter; for I have since found out that the telegram she sent was to Birmingham, where he was no doubt hiding, bidding him meet her in London earlier ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... Deacon Tubman, I don't know but that you are right!" answered the parson. "Sixty? I don't know as I am sixty." And he began to rub his own hands, and came within an ace of executing a wink at the ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... Coldstream country in a bitter temper, for the job was far beneath his professional dignity as he looked at it, and he knew that in the meantime others would get better work to which he considered himself entitled. Indeed, he had come within an ace of resigning, and had insisted, as a condition, on a definite promise of something very good in the ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... her head a little. She was within an ace of handing over to Karl Steinmetz the rod of power held over her by the Frenchman. There was something in Steinmetz that appealed to her and softened her, something that reached a tender part of her heart through the coating of vanity, through ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... cut, and he dealt me an ace, king, queen, jack, ten and deuce of spades. He shuffled again and dealt ...
— Goodbye, Dead Man! • Tom W. Harris
... seven at the latest," I said to myself, holding my breath and starting in terror at every noise. Once a great noisy bee was within an ace of waking her, but I caught him with inspired dexterity, and he buzzed ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... the horse-thief in voice softened by the vapors of his steaming dinner, "that friend of yours with the whiskers all over him is ace-high over here in this end of the dump! And say, friend, they could keep me here for life if they'd send purty girls like that one down here to see me once in a while. You're in right, friend; you certainly air ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... let me know as much a'ready. There be two captains to their crew; one's the smoke-dried old sinner as brought yer in; the other a big nayger, as black as the ace o' spades. You saw the swab? He's inside the tent here. He's my master. The two came nigh quarrelling about which should have me, and settled it by some sort o' a game they played wi' balls of kaymal's dung. The black won me; an' that's why I'm kep by his tent. Mother av Moses! Only to think ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... Colony. It was the superbly grandiose expression, and all the more insidiously seductive in that it was so grandiose, of a principle which all thinking men now know, or ought to know, is the negation of Empire, which lost us America, which came within an ace of losing us Canada, which might well have lost us South Africa, and which has in very fact lost us, though not yet irrevocably, the "affection," to use Burke's word, of Ireland. We may call local patriotism "narrow and insulated," if we please, but we ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... place. Every great picture brings a high price. Every great book has a large sale. That is what greatness in art means." Her own brand of talk was not in conflict with what she would have called her then creed. She never said a thing was very black. She never said it was as black as the ace of spades. She always said it was as black as the proverbial ace of spades. Once I ventured to insinuate that perhaps it would be more nobly new to say "as black as the proverbial ace of proverbial spades," but the suggestion ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... After he was made overseer he was paid. That was a honor for being good all his life. When freedom come on he had ten thousand dollars. He was pure African, black as ace of spades. He give papa and the other four boys five hundred dollars a piece to start them farms. Papa died when he was sixty-five and grandma was about a hundred. Mama was seventy-five when she died. Grandpa ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... but somebody finally called, and I turned over my ace in the hole. "Aces and sevens, gamblers," I grinned, ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... of the highest rated authors of science-fiction adventure now writing. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, a book collector, and s-f fan, Ace Books have had the pleasure of presenting her best ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... Sam. That proves how you stand with me. A one! Ace high! First! Nobody can ever take your place with me. Don't be a boob coming and going, Sam; you're one now not to see things and you'll be another one spelled backward if you don't help yourself to your ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... the poor took counsel. Undoubtedly he would get certain results, some of which were very unpleasant to contemplate, but behind it all he felt something yet to come, some counter-proposal involving peace. For no man starts out by laying his cards on the table unless he has an ace in the hole—or unless he is running a bluff. And he knew, and Wunpost knew, that the thing which irked him most was that sure-fire Prospector's Contract. There Eells had the high card and if he played his hand well he might tame this impassioned young orator. His lawyer was not ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... for at the end of the game he gave up all his winnings, and they were equally divided. Gain, as may readily be supposed, was not his object; but he always expected that fortune would grant him an ace or a ten at the right moment with the same confidence with which he looked for fine weather on the day of battle. If he were disappointed he wished nobody ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... shall not have last word as you think,—all the 'risk' shall not be mine, neither; how can I, in the event, throw ambs-ace (is not that the old word?) and not peril your stakes too, when once we have common stock and are partners? When I see the unicorn and grieve proportionately, do you mean to say you are not going to grieve too, for my sake? And if so—why, you clearly run exactly the same risk,—must,—unless ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... smiled Madison, "my pulse is quite normal now, thank you. Listen. This is where we call the first showdown on cold hands—and the dealer slips himself an ace." He drew a key from his pocket and put it in Pale Face Harry's hand. "That's the key of the small trunk in my room at the hotel—front room, right hand side of the hall. There's a check-book in the tray—and I'll give you twenty minutes to get back here with it. You'll find me somewhere around ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... another bit of magnetized iron in the ship. The government had been very shy of providing instruments of any kind for Confederate cruisers. Poor Ethan had traded off two compasses only the day before for whalebone spears and skin breeches, neither of which knew the north star from the ace of spades. And this thing proved of more importance than you will think; it really made me feel that the stuff in the books and the sermons about the mariners' needle was not ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... all, what did it matter? They had the ace in their hands now. There was no horse on the plains could run with Blazing Star; and, training with him, in the best of care, was the Red Rover, only a little less swift than the Star, now that careful methods had brought him his full-grown strength and speed. Microscopic studies were ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... stary, pop eyes, a high colored beak that might be used as a danger signal, and a black, shoebrush beard, trimmed close except for a little spike under the chin, that gives the lower part of his face a look like the ace of spades. His mornin' costume is a faded blue jumper, brown checked pants, and an old pair of rubber soled shoes that Swifty had ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... as ace of trumps, you should take your wife with you. Now for the excuse: I would sit down and write such a letter as you alone can write to The Times. You should set forth how you have been insulted by the Marquis of Queensberry, and how you went naturally ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... not; for the speaker was as black as the ace of spades,—being a sturdy specimen, the knave of clubs would perhaps be a fitter representative,—but the dark freeman looked at the white slave with the pitiful, yet puzzled expression I have so often seen on the faces of our wisest men, when this tangled question ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... frigate, which, by a combination of circumstances, is now lying in Cork Harbour,—fortunate for us, but which might have proved disastrous to her gallant officers and crew, for she was dismasted in a gale, and was within an ace of being driven on shore. But a miss is as good as a mile; and when under jury-masts she scraped clear of the rocks, and got into port in safety. Here my letter, after wandering about for many a day, found him, and he has lost no time in replying to it. One of his ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... as he cut for deal, and he thrilled when he found the deal was his. He shuffled and dealt, and Uri cut him the Jack of Spades. They laid down their hands. Uri's was bare of trumps, while he held ace, deuce. The outside seemed very near to him as they stepped off the ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... and the deal fell to Uncle Billy. He turned up Jack of clubs. He also turned a little redder as he took up his cards, looked at them, and glanced hastily at his partner. "It's no use playing," he said. "Look here!" He laid down his cards on the table. They were the ace, king and queen of clubs, and Jack of spades,—or left bower,—which, with the turned-up Jack of clubs,—or right ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... once set about imitating both, studying with great industry and energy. All his spare hours were devoted to drawing, modelling, and self-improvement, and he often carried his labours far into the night. Before his apprenticeship was out—at the ace of twenty-one—he paid over to his master the whole wealth which he was able to muster—a sum of 50l.—to cancel his indentures, determined to devote himself to the career of an artist. He then made the best of his way to London, and with characteristic good sense, sought employment as an assistant ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... fon' of it," responded the Creole. "I was making seve'al i'onies ad those fwen' of mine juz now. We was 'unning a 'ace. An' thass anotheh thing I am fon' of. I would 'ather 'un a 'ace than to wuck faw a livin'. Ha! ha! ha! I should thing so! Anybody would, in fact. But thass the way with me—always making some i'onies." He stopped with a ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... gains, for he lowers the whole affair to the level of a flirtation, and destroys any belief the girl may have had in him. He also forces her to do the same thing, in self-defence. Flirtation is the only game in which it is advisable and popular to trump one's partner's ace. ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... movement had certainly been fostered, and probably originated, by wealthy German employers in Petrograd, Moscow and other industrial centres. They had hoped to frustrate the mobilization order, retard Russia's entry into the field, and possibly bring about civil strife. And they were within an ace of succeeding. On the very eve of hostilities reports reached Berlin and Vienna that the revolution was already beginning. But the declaration of war against Germany purified the air, absorbed the redundant energies of the people, and fused all classes ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... through in the opposite direction. Lord De Roos, long suspected of cheating at cards, would never have been convicted but for the resolution of an adversary, who, pinning his hand to the table with a fork, said to him blandly, "My Lord, if the ace of spades is not under your Lordship's hand, why, then, I beg your pardon!" It seems to us that a timely treatment of Governor Letcher in the same energetic way would have saved the disasters of Harper's Ferry and Norfolk,—for ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... playing at Vingt-et-un. It is true they are somewhat soiled and worn, as your worship sees; but for him who knows how to handle them, they possess a marvellous virtue, which is, that you never cut them but you find an ace at the bottom; if your worship then is acquainted with the game, you will see what an advantage it is to know for certain that you have an ace to begin with, since you may count it either for one or eleven; and so you may be pretty sure that when the stakes are laid at twenty-one, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... quarter of an hour Hester was as black as the ace of spades—neck, hands, and arms, as well as face—her fair hair was effectually covered and concealed by a cotton kerchief, and then her dress was changed for the characteristic ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... nest that the Reverend Orme built by the sweat of his brow to harbor his little family, which, at the beginning of this history, consisted of himself; Ann Leighton, his wife; and Mammy, black as the ace of spades without, ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... was in the habit of entertaining visiting lecturers, many a golfer had foozled his drive owing to sudden loud outbursts of applause coinciding with his down-swing. And not long before this story opens a sliced ball, whizzing in at the open window, had come within an ace of incapacitating Raymond Parsloe Devine, the rising young novelist (who rose at that moment a clear foot and a half) from any further exercise of his art. Two inches, indeed, to the right and Raymond must inevitably ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... talents rich and rare, Lies at this spot at finish of his race. Alike to him if it is here or there: The one spot that he cared for was the ace. ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... she saw him sitting with two other men: one of them, Dick Nichols, looking very much at home; the other a distinguished, saturnine man with an English air to him, in spite of being burnt as black as the ace of spades. She was aware that Sarle saw her, and had a trembling fear that he might join her. It was almost a relief when Bellew came in towards the end of the meal, for she knew he would prove an effective barrier. He looked hot and weary, and explained that he had been obliged to go back down ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... reduced them again to a submission. Against these did the king of Assyria send an army, and in a hostile manner overrun all Phoenicia, but soon made peace with them all, and returned back; but Sidon, and Ace, and Palsetyrus revolted; and many other cities there were which delivered themselves up to the king of Assyria. Accordingly, when the Tyrians would not submit to him, the king returned, and fell upon them again, while the Phoenicians had furnished him with ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Royal, it seems to me, upon reflection, to be rather a quixotic undertaking to go in pursuit of them. You know it's a difficult job to catch a slave after he gets to the North, if he's as black as the ace of spades; and all Yankeedom would be up in arms at any attempt to seize such white ladies. Of course, I could obtain them in no other way than by courting them and ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... a bank. I've no more idea what it is you're tryin' to run off with than I know what an ace is goin' to do when there's a joker in the pack," remarked Sibley; "but I thought I'd tell you that Bradley and his lot are watchin' you gettin' ready to run." Then he hastily told what ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of manliness is the characteristic of sea-faring men. This often gives an appearance of want of feeling, and even of cruelty. From this, if a man comes within an ace of breaking his neck and escapes, it is made a joke of; and no notice must be taken of a bruise or a cut; and any expression of pity, or any show of attention, would look sisterly, and unbecoming a man who has to face the rough and tumble of such a life. From this cause, too, the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... surfaces had six different numbers. While he beamed into the veiled eyes of the old Mexican he was figuring upon the various combinations possible and the likelihood, the theory of chances, of a six or an ace upon the second throw. From the jump the game fascinated him; it is to be questioned, however, if ever before a man knew just the sort of fascination which enthralled him. No matter who won or lost, when the rolling cubes behaved ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... found a little wayside station. Therefore I turned the car into a small wood, and destroying my genuine license and hiding the genuine number-plate, I took the next train to Winchester, and thence by express to Waterloo after a very wild and adventurous night. That I had been within an ace of capture was ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... clevernesses; his premature man-of-the-worldness, on which he had prided himself on his travels, 'shrank like a thing ashamed' before this real sorrow. Pride, wounded honour, pity and respect tussled together daily in his heart; and now he was within an ace of throwing himself upon his father's mercy, and now of slipping forth at night and coming back no more to Naseby House. He suffered from the sight of his father, nay, even from the neighbourhood of this familiar valley, where ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... King always boasted that honesty was the best policy and that he was invariably willing to put his cards on the table. The Millionaire had once professed himself likely to be satisfied if the Iron King would only remove the fifth ace from his sleeve, and a certain coolness between the two men resulted. In general, however, he had the reputation ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... problem that she meant to solve. If her first husband was at the bottom of it, no matter how indirectly, and if she had been married for the dead man's sake, to give his widow a home, then Rachel felt that the last affront had been put upon her, and she would leave this man as she had been within an ace of leaving his friend. So ran the wild and unreasonable tenor of her thoughts. He had not married her for her own sake; it was not she herself who had appealed to him, after all. Curiosity might consume ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... stands before us, at once so earthly and yet more spectral than her sisters; for time has marred her features, injured her skin, dotted her chin with hail-specks, vulgarized her mouth, injured her nose, making it look like the ace of clubs, and put the stamp of death on ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... full moon 'mid stars * Disappeadng and darkening Earth's bright face. 'Tis my only fear that his heart is harmed, * Brent by Love-fires lacking of mercy and grace: By Allah, albeit man's soul thou rule * Among stranger folk thou art but an ace!" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... glorious excitement, those pell-mell onslaughts and hand-to-hand struggles. Twice we were within an ace of being driven from our stronghold, when General Harris and his staff leapt recklessly upon the ramparts and hurled the besiegers heels ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... infinite. What wilt thou do? Thou hast created to thyself a world of needless miseries. I call them needless, because thou hadst more than enough before. Thou hast set thyself against God in a way of contending; thou standest upon thy points and pantables:15 Thou wilt not bate God an ace, of what thy righteousness is worth, and wilt also make it worth what thyself shalt list. Thou wilt be thine own judge, as to the worth of thy righteousness; thou wilt neither hear what verdict the word has ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... home, but Rodwell stopped to tell her we had come as he went down with the cart, and she exclaimed, "Pray day come for me go see Miss Hayiut." In the morning she came early into my chamber, bright and eager. I knew Robert was black as the ace of spades, but they both of them did look blacker than anything I ever saw before, but it was ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... by the handle and putting the eye to the aperture, provided or not with a lens, we see a series of dominoes extending along the rule, from the double ace, which occupies the extremity most distant from the eye, to the double six, which is very near the eye (Fig. 2). The numbers from two to twelve, simply, are indicated, but this original means of representing them has been chosen in order to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... I'm in the game. She's an ace-high trump just the same. Wonder if she would have any use for a maverick rancher from the alkali country? I got a pretty good outfit ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... sides upwards. He had another knack of leaving an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity for an amateur. He could, when occasion seemed to make it profitable, discard with a fair air of unconsciousness. An ace dropped out of sight a hand or two earlier, was followed by a valueless card dropped openly. The ace was taken to supply its place with a perfect smiling effrontery. But Mr. Barter's favourite trick came out when he had a weak ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... they cut cards. One of the Bergen County boys drew the black ace. "What do I know about being a ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... as he surveyed his victim, "because a man looks sad at the opening of a jack-pot, it doesn't necessarily follow that he's only got ace-high." ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... get to the shop." Then he thought—"What an opportunity I'm losing. Have I any right to turn tail because he plays his game from the outset with trumps? No, I've a small trump somewhere about me to lay on this trick. It isn't an ace, but it'll show I'm not chicane." And smiling, though not with his usual cheerfulness, Sweetwater added, "Is the coffee all made? I might take a drop of that. But you mustn't ask me to eat—I ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the Turkish side have suggested that the naval operations were within an ace of succeeding, and that they only had to be pressed a little further to achieve their object. An examination of the books by Mr. Morgenthau and others does not bear this out. The Turks imagined that our fleet had been beaten off by gun-fire on the 18th, and they appear to ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... his race, and the majority of mankind for that matter, he was intensely superstitious. Three times in succession he cut and dealt the cards, and three times the ace of hearts, the luckiest card in the pack, turned face upwards on ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... Mowbray, as he looked after him, "a d—d cool fellow, this brother-in-law of mine, that is to be—takes a shot at his father's son with as little remorse as at a blackcock—what would he do with me, were we to quarrel?—Well, I can snuff a candle, and strike out the ace of hearts; and so, should things go wrong, he has no Jack Raw to deal with, but ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... thar's my answer, And here stays Banty Tim: He trumped Death's ace for me that day, And I'm not goin' back on him! You may rezoloot till the cows come home, But ef one of you tetches the boy, He'll wrastle his hash to-night in hell, Or my ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... pictures moving inside the emblems on their faces. The clubs in my hand ran into higher figures than the spades; these came next in number, and diamonds next. I had no picture-cards of diamonds, but I had the Ace. And this was so bright I could not look at it. Except the two queens of Clubs and Hearts I think I had no picture-cards in my hand, and very few red cards of any kind. There were high figures in the spades. It was the personage behind my chair who dealt the ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... that, growing recklessly in the thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... had expected perhaps ten Companies, not three against 97, give or take a few out on other jobs. It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make. It gave us a day and a half. We would ...
— Dead World • Jack Douglas
... was making for Christmas. Claire played very well and, at five cents a point, he had to watch the game. On a specially big hand she piqued and repiqued. "That," she declared, "will pay you for caputting me." The jargon of their preoccupation, "A point of six; yes, to the ace; paid; and a quatorze, kings," was the only sound until Fanny rose, decidedly. "I am going to bed." She hesitated at the door. "I hope you'll be comfortable, Claire: I had some club soda and rye put ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... remember the pasting you got By the boys down in Callaghan’s store, When Tim Hooligan found a fifth ace in his hand, And you ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... of an idealized aviator was given by Lieutenant Lufbery, of the Lafayette Escadrille, who came to the United States to assist in training the new corps of American flying men. Lufbery himself was a most successful air fighter—an "ace" several times over. Though French by lineage, he was an American citizen and had been a soldier in the United States Army. In October of 1917 his record was thirteen Boches brought down within the allied lines. In the allied ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... can tell you frankly, Father, is displeased," von Wedel said to Rasputin reprovingly. "Only by an ace has the whole of our arrangements with your Empress, and with yourself as our agent, been suppressed from Downing Street. And that by steps taken by our friend here, Monsieur Azef. But we are not yet safe. I tell you quite frankly that though you are a good servant of ours, ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... effort to unseat me, and from then on his education was rapid. No horse ever learned more quickly the meaning of the rein and the pressure of the knees. I think he soon learned to love me, and I know that I loved him; while he and Nobs were the best of pals. I called him Ace. I had a friend who was once in the French flying-corps, and when Ace let himself out, ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... disgootet mit de boledics of dis land, Dat his friendts could barely keep him from trowin' oop his hand, Vhen he held shtraight-flush mit an ace in his poot- vitch phrase ish all de same, In de science of pokerology, ash if he ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... without either rule or reason before a Consonant or two, with e after, as ace, acre, able, unstable, father, with A long, and solace, massacre, constable, gather, with ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... used his "ace in the hole"—had hurled the bowie knife hidden in a sheath sewn inside the back of ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... Moffat merely condescended to remark, glancing disdainfully at a knot of hard riders disconsolately sitting their ponies in front of the saloon door, "We 've got them fellers roped and tied, gents, and they simply won't be ace-high with the ladies of this camp after our fandango is over with. We're a holdin' the hand this game, an' it simply sweeps the board clean. That duffer McNeil's the sickest looking duck I 've seen in a year, an' the whole blame bunch of cow-punchers is corralled ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... cheese. His company seven men (Captain Fenner and both Sir Williams among them) and seven women and all reasonable merry. But I beseeching Sam'l privately to eat and Drink sparingly for the pain in his Toe, he do so becall me that it was ten to an Ace that I did hurle the Spit and the birds withal into the fire. Yet knowing he would pay dear next day, I said the less and so continued on, bidding him take his own way and pay for his liking. But indeed great company ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... a hour, however, when my p'sition in the van of Kaintucky ton comes within a ace of bein' ser'ously shook. It's on my way to school one dewey mornin' when I gets involved all inadvertent in a onhappy rupture with a polecat. I never does know how the misonderstandin' starts. After all, the seeds of said dispoote is by no means important; ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... Galaxies itself. We were in for it. I had expected perhaps ten Companies, not three against 97, give or take a few out on other jobs. It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make. It gave us a day and a ...
— Dead World • Jack Douglas
... you came within an ace of being shot, pa says. The Kid's a dead shot, he is, and you were right in the way. Served you right for going where you ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... the day's doings are written up," Bluff put in, "be sure and put in that another of our gallant band came within an ace of being terribly bitten by a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... cards and the names of the numbers come as full words, seems to me to point most clearly to the whole key of the situation. Anything which cannot be brought into such a simple number series, for instance, a colour impression, can never be transmitted. If the mother looks at the ace of diamonds, Beulah says that she sees the red of the diamond before her in her mind, but if the mother looks at the picture of a blue lake, this blue impression can never arise in Beulah's mind, ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... pretty well, too. It only shows that women have no particular monopoly in the realms of diplomacy and finesse; in fact, if a man really chooses to put his mind to such matters, he can make it no trumps and win out behind a bum ace ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... through the lines and we were probably the last who will get so far. To-day all laisser-passers have been canceled, and nobody can set foot out of town to the east. It gave us a pretty good idea before we got through as to how the troops must be disposed. I came within an ace of putting off our trip for a day or two. If I had, it would have cut me out ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... was a table, and around it some half-dozen men were seated. Other half-dozen stood behind these, looking over their shoulders. The attitudes of all, and their eager glances, suggested the nature of their occupation. The flouting of pasteboard, the chink of dollars, and the oft-recurring words of "ace," "jack," and "trump," put it beyond a doubt that that occupation was gaming. "Euchre" ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... mariner rarely encountered even off such a coast—a violent north-easterly hurricane—still known in Algiers as "Charles's gale"—such as few vessels cared to ride off a lee shore. The immense flotilla in the bay was within an ace of total destruction. Anchors and cables were powerless to hold the crowded, jostling ships. One after the other they broke loose, and keeled over to the tempest till their decks were drowned in the seas. ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... of many a good shot; but the skill of Herr Rodiger, the author's father-in-law, was really wonderful. Though his hand trembled constantly from an attack of palsy, I don't know now how many times he pierced the centre of the ace of hearts. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... game a lot. But I lay this to the fact that they all fancy they're going to be reprieved and they keep waiting and listening for an announcement which will save them from the gallows. I've known some of them to lead a deuce thinking it was an ace and vice versa. But at that I can fully recommend a good, sociable game of cards as the best way for a doomed man to pass the few hours before the arrival of the ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... she said. "What a quaint, old-fashioned name! I shall invent some others. I shall tell my cook to make some gooseberry-idiot, or strawberry-donkey.... My play, I think. A ducky little ace of spades." ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... an ace farther: the whole world shall not bribe me to it; for my conscience will digest these gross ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... mustn't waken before seven at the latest," I said to myself, holding my breath and starting in terror at every noise. Once a great noisy bee was within an ace of waking her, but I caught him with inspired dexterity, and he buzzed ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... to see you again," she went on. "You came within an ace of being my husband. I might have belonged to you and counted your washing. It's ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... irresistible, only by a look: and turn me suddenly from free into a slave, the property of another, who is master of her body and her soul. And yet, only this very morning did I learn, how nearly I had lost thee: since thy servant that saw me in the wood, and was the cause of thy coming, came within an ace of perishing himself, before he ever got away to tell. And Atirupa said: How? And Aranyani told him. And then she said: And now I fear for thee also: for should Babhru chance to see thee, his reason will desert him. And I tremble to think of thy encounter, with such ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... heard abroad. There rose in the Court, I know not what confused murmurs, the origin of which could not be pointed out, publishing that either the State or Chamillart must perish; that already his ignorance had brought the kingdom within an ace of destruction; that it was a miracle this destruction had not yet come to pass; and that it would be madness to tempt Providence any longer. Some did not blush to abuse him; others praised his intentions, and spoke with moderation of faults that many people reproached him bitterly with. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... consequence of which, some accidents happened. The king pointed out to the prince the impropriety of his conduct. Radziwill added, that the bears were not cross, as whip, gold, and patience can put in order every thing; He added also, that, sometimes the ace beats the king at cards, and paid liberally the damages. After some time, he gave a splendid party, to which he invited all the ambassadors, and all the leading personages in Poland, and displayed extraordinary luxury. The dancing was kept up in several drawing rooms. After the supper, ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... disappointment, it was as well that Mavis was ignorant of the way in which her prospects had been prejudiced by the trend of events at Melkbridge House since Mrs Devitt had replied to Miss Mee's letter. To begin with, Mavis's visit had been within an ace of being indefinitely postponed; it was owing to Harold's expressed wish that the original appointment had been allowed to stand. The reason for this indifference to Mavis's immediate future was that, the day after the schoolmistress ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... very red at the insinuation. He was within an ace of seizing Lynch by the collar, and expelling him in a summary way from his premises, a feat which he was able to perform; and willing also, for he was sick of his client; but he thought of it a ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... development in this country for twenty years if he had thought it 'nasty,'" said Job. "Foreigners can't be too particular how they express their opinions about us. Over and over again we have come within an ace of putting up the shutters and confessing that it was no use pretending that we could go on independently having a country of our own, with distinct institutions, peculiarities, customs, manners, and even productions. It would be so much better and easier ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... so far it seems beyond me, while the golden hours glide swiftly away, and before many days have passed our visit with all its risks must have an end. I shiver sometimes, boy, as I stand close by and listen to our master's careless, light-hearted speech. Again and again he has been within an ace of betraying who he is, and at any moment some of the sharper-witted of the courtiers by whom we are surrounded may grasp the truth, and then, Denis, as Francis has said, we are in the lion's den and the risk ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... got us a big ace in th' hole—th' Range boys don't know as how I'm with Kitchell, not yet. That's how we took you so easy back to th' water hole. I jus' rode up to Jose—got that there Pima listenin' to me till Lutterfield sneaked up an' ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... contestants, Sinclair and Du Sang, were ordered back thirty-five paces on their horses, and the railroad man, walking over to the targets, held out between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand the ace of clubs. The man that should first spot the pip out of the card was to take the prize, a Cheyenne saddle. Sinclair shot, and his horse, perfectly trained, stood like a statue. The card flew from Smith's hand, but the bullet had struck the ace almost an inch above the pip, and a second ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... admire whatever bits of scenery happen to come in view. There are few spots in the "Golden State" from which views of more or less beauty are not to be obtained; and ere I am a baker's dozen of miles from Oakland pier I find myself within an ace of taking an undesirable header into a ditch of water by the road-side, while looking upon a scene that for the moment completely wins me from my immediate surroundings. There is nothing particularly ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... yer boots I am safe tew win, Es the chap thet's able tew smilin' smack The ace he's been hidin' up his sleeve Kerslap on top of a feller's jack! Es I wus sayin', the night wus dark, The lightnin' skippin' from star to star; Thar wa'n't no clouds but a thread of mist, No sound ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... could it not have had it as well without as with a repeal? Iowa and Minnesota, to both of which the Missouri restriction applied, had, without its repeal, each in succession, territorial organizations. And even the year before, a bill for Nebraska itself was within an ace of passing without the repealing clause, and this in the hands of the same men who are now the champions of repeal. Why no necessity then for repeal? But still later, when this very bill was first brought in, it contained no repeal. But, say they, because the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Oh, he is a devout and modest youth, who does not share his elder brother's gloomy and destructive theory of life. He has sought to cling to the 'ideas of the people,' or to what goes by that name in some circles of our intellectual classes. He clung to the monastery, and was within an ace of becoming a monk. He seems to me to have betrayed unconsciously, and so early, that timid despair which leads so many in our unhappy society, who dread cynicism and its corrupting influences, and mistakenly attribute all the mischief to European enlightenment, to return ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of leaves, lozenge-like in shape and bottle-green in color. In the center rose a rod at whose end a varnished ace of hearts swayed. As though meaning to defy all conceivable forms of plants, a fleshy stalk climbed through the heart of this intense vermilion ace—a stalk that in some specimens was straight, in others showed ringlets ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... I can tell you frankly, Father, is displeased," von Wedel said to Rasputin reprovingly. "Only by an ace has the whole of our arrangements with your Empress, and with yourself as our agent, been suppressed from Downing Street. And that by steps taken by our friend here, Monsieur Azef. But we are not yet safe. I tell you quite frankly that though you are a good servant ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... to me; it is when one laughs out at their idols that one angers people. I do not wonder now that Sir Philip Sydney was the darling hero, when Lord Herbert, who followed him so close and trod in his steps, is at this time of day within an ace of rivalling him. I wish I had let him; it was contradicting one of my own maxims, which I hold to be very just; that it is idle to endeavour to cure the world of any folly, unless We Could cure it ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... electricity ran through us all. The card-players had thrown down their cards just as the plumber was about to trump an ace. The others had tossed aside their papers and laid down their cigarettes. The Turco—"Muley Hafid" he was called, because those were the only words of his any one could understand—who had been deploying imaginary troops, with the aid ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... he said a little stiffly. The idea of stooping to such assistance had long been revolting to him. He was within an ace of breaking away from the ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... Broon to come on and have a drink of beer. Swipey was a sweep now, for Brown the ragman had added chimney-cleaning to his other occupations—plurality of professions, you observe, being one of the features of the life of Barbie. When Swipey turned out of the Fleckie Road he was as black as the ace of spades, a most disreputable phiz. And when Gourlay yelled his loud welcome to that grimy object, what he wanted to convey to the two girls was: "Ho, ho, my pretty misses, I'm on bowing terms with you, and ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... its face. And, watching them with close intentness, he understood that at least three of them were cheating at every opportunity. Henry, alone, was playing a square game; as for the heavy winner, Larry, Andrew had reason to believe that he was adroitly palming an ace now and then—luck ran too consistently his way. For his own part, he was no card expert, and he smiled ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... solar plexus blow to American womanhood. The heroine marries a German prince, merely because he is a Prince, discarding her honest and true lover in a scoundrelly fashion, while her beautiful stepmother comes within an ace of surrendering her person to her son- in-law, and is prevented only by the inopportune arrival of her idiotic husband. It is all very "elevating," and a good thing to take your wife and ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... as he proceeded to deal the cards for Casino. "There, you have an ace and little Casino right before you. ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... Monmouth's rising was easily put down, or that it was hopeless from the first, remember that I, who was concerned in it, say confidently that it really trembled in the balance, and that this handful of resolute peasants with their pikes and their scythes were within an ace of altering the whole course of English history. The ferocity of the Privy Council, after the rebellion was quelled, arose from their knowledge of how very close ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was tilted on its back legs as he spoke, and I assure you that I was within an ace of going over. Down like a pack of cards came all my dreams as to the grand results which were to spring from my journey to Avonmouth. Yes, Bertie, I am bound to confess it: my first thought was of my own disappointment, and my second ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... a low tone, "and I will show you something droll." Morcerf entered, and in place of the usual target, he saw some playing-cards fixed against the wall. At a distance Albert thought it was a complete suit, for he counted from the ace to the ten. "Ah, ha," said Albert, "I see you were preparing for a game ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... nine of diamonds. Other Doldrums and Tantrums had joined in and the little cabin was soon filled with flying cards. Harstrum Doldrum, one of the younger Doldrums, lay stretched on the floor writhing in agony, the ace of hearts crammed down his throat. Jem Tantrum, standing in the doorway; ran through suit after suit, his face alight with fiendish hatred. Old Mappy Tantrum stood on the table wetting down the Doldrums with hot whiskey. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... was quite aware that Tanty was not yet convinced to the desired extent. He therefore here interrupted her to play his last card—that ace he had up his sleeve, in careful preparation for this trial of skill with his keen-witted relative, and to the suitable production of which he had been ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the line a man in citizen clothes hovered uncertainly, and dim as the light was I made him out only too plainly. It was the Government spy, Weir. My goose was cooked. I had played for life's highest stake, and thrown amb's ace. It was good-bye ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... more ridiculous couple than their kind usually are. And, when the gentleman squeezed the lady, she laughed so foolishly that Archie Pennybet was within an ace of forgetting himself and heartily laughing too. It was worse still, when they began the pernicious practice of "rubbing noses." For the operation was so new and unexpected, and withal so congenial to Archie, that ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... other if the poor lieutenant was still alive, when he himself appeared among us. We put the same question to him, and he replied that he had not yet heard from Silvio. This astonished us. We went to Silvio's house and found him in the courtyard shooting bullet after bullet into an ace pasted upon the gate. He received us as usual, but did not utter a word about the event of the previous evening. Three days passed, and the lieutenant was still alive. We asked each other in astonishment: "Can it be possible that Silvio is not ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... bar-keeper, asked him if he would sell me a drink of whisky. "Can't do it," he answered, "the orders are strict against selling whisky to soldiers." I began moving away, and at that instant a big, greasy, colored deck-hand, or laborer of some sort, black as the ace of spades, crowded by me, brushing against me in the narrow passage on his way to the bar. "Boss," he called to the keeper, "want a dram!" A bottle and a glass were pushed towards him, he filled the glass to the brim, and drank the contents at a gulp. Then he smacked his big lips, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... Rome by passing the words Legatis proponentibus.[43] The principle involved in this phrase continued to be hotly disputed all through the sessions of the Council. But Pius knew that so long as he stuck fast to it he always held the ace of trumps, and nothing would induce him to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... always boasted that honesty was the best policy and that he was invariably willing to put his cards on the table. The Millionaire had once professed himself likely to be satisfied if the Iron King would only remove the fifth ace from his sleeve, and a certain coolness between the two men resulted. In general, however, he had the reputation of ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... sheer exhaustion. It was a strange and dreary position for men whose ordinary lives ran through the lighted places of the world. The wind swept sadly over the dark fields. The mud clung to the squelching, dragging boots; now Mr. Fishwick was within an ace of the ditch on one side, now on the other, and now he brought up heavily against one of his companions. At length the servant gave him an arm, and thus linked together they reached the crest of the hill, and after taking a moment to breathe, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... of spades. Glenister said no word nor made a move. Some one coughed, and it sounded like a gunshot. Slowly the dealer's fingers retraced their way. He hesitated purposely and leered at the girl, then the three-spot disappeared and beneath it lay the ace as the king had lain on that other wager. It spelled utter ruin to Glenister. He raised his eyes blindly, and then the deathlike silence of the room was shattered by a sudden crash. Cherry Malotte had closed her check-rack violently, at the same ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... anon the chief announced that this time a Kookwes—a burly, beastly villain, not two points better than his cousin the Chenoo—was coming to play at rough murder with them. And, verily, by this time the Micmac began to believe, without bating an ace on it, that all of these tall people were like the wolves, who, meeting with nobody else, bite one another. So they were bound and bundled up as before, and put to bed like dolls. And again they heard the horrible ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... meaning was not comprehended at first—brought the other boys to Clay's assistance. That is to say they paddled toward the dangerous spot and were within an ace of getting in the same fix, when Clay frantically ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... at the bottom of it, no matter how indirectly, and if she had been married for the dead man's sake, to give his widow a home, then Rachel felt that the last affront had been put upon her, and she would leave this man as she had been within an ace of leaving his friend. So ran the wild and unreasonable tenor of her thoughts. He had not married her for her own sake; it was not she herself who had appealed to him, after all. Curiosity might consume her, and a sense of deepening mystery add terrors of its own, but the resentful ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... children was one who, although as black as the ace of spades in body and face, had light curly flaxen hair. He ran about in a wild unaccountable manner, darting hither and ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... most stringent rule of etiquette at a card-party is to be punctual, that the tables may be filled up in good season. The second rule is to keep good-natured, even if your partner fails to return your lead or trumps your ace. Some people make themselves very disagreeable over cards, and are avoided as partners. If unfortunate enough to be paired off with such a person, at least ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... object to Sambo Should take his place and fight; An' it's betther to have a naygur's hue Than a liver that's wake an' white; Though Sambo's black as the ace o' spades His finger a thrigger can pull, An' his eye runs sthraight on the barrel sight From under its thatch o' wool. So hear me all, boys, darlins! Don't think I'm tippen' you chaff, The right to be kilt I'll divide wid him, An' ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... and draw, and hitch himself, while lying at full length, towards the spring, which he reached at last so exhausted, that he had barely put his lips to it and swallowed a mouthful, when his head dropped, and he almost fainted. He was within an ace of being drowned, but with a violent effort he drew his face out of the spring, and lay there in a half unconscious condition for some time, with the clear cool water playing about his temples. Reviving in a little time, he took another sip, and then crawled back ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... as I was told. There were seven left on the table. My aunt removed two from one end of the row and two from the other, and desired me to call the two outermost of the three cards now left on the table. I called the Ace of Clubs and the Ten of Diamonds. My aunt Chance lifted her eyes to the ceiling with a look of devout gratitude which sorely tried my mother's patience. The Ace of Clubs and the Ten of Diamonds, taken ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... had certainly secured an ace of trumps, but Sir James Fenwick, who during the whole of that day had seemed to take little interest in the proceedings, here rose from his seat, and I knew at once that he had got a tit-bit in the way of a 'point' up his sleeve. Gaunt, and unusually tall, and ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... know not, save that, wanting a witness, he chose me as being a little more friendly to him than most of the Stockbridge gentlemen. When we had ridden forward, he saluted us with great cordiality and good humor, as if forsooth, instead of being within an ace of murdering us all, he had but been ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... angrily. "It's too neat, Frank. It's clever, and it's powerful, whatever we've run up against. But I think we've got an ace in the hole. We ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... piloting the craft, was actually Oscar Gleeb, onetime noted Hun ace over in the Argonne, it might be Perk, with his past war history rising up to thrill him afresh, may have found himself half expecting to hear a terrific explosion close by on the shore as the German flier let drop some sort of bomb, with ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... equably remarked, "but, you see, Nannie had shown strength in diamonds, and I simply couldn't resist the finesse. So they made every one of their clubs. And I hadn't any business to take the chance of course at that stage, with the ace right in ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... still her cryptic valediction?), all at once, as his eye rested on the shimmer at the valley's end which he knew to be the lake, lifted up his hand and clapped his brow. "By Jove," he muttered, "if I wasn't within an ace of clean forgetting!" The sight of the lake had fortunately put him in mind that he was engaged to-day to lunch with ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... happened, turned up at one spot, and Chia Huan was so exasperated that putting out his hand, he speedily made a snatch at the dice, and eventually was about to lay hold of the money, arguing that it was six spot. But Ying Erh expostulated, "It was distinctly an ace," she said. And as Pao-ch'ai noticed how distressed Chia Huan was, she forthwith cast a glance at Ying Erh and observed: "The older you get, the less manners you have! Is it likely that gentlemen will cheat you? and don't you yet put ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Bridewell watched him quizzically, half suspecting that there was a touch of irony hidden somewhere. It gradually dawned on him that a man who was flat broke was refusing money which he had won fairly on a bet. The idea staggered Bridewell. He was within an ace of putting Bull Hunter down as a fool. Something held him back, through some underlying respect for the physical might of the big man and a respect, also, for the honesty which looked out of his eyes. ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... trouble all around before that wretched affair was explained. Gleason came within an ace of court-martial, but escaped it by saying that he knew of "Burnham's" threats against the life of Lieutenant Baker, and that he went to the ranch in search of the latter and to get him out of danger. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... to put his head in the way, then," I retorted with an angry laugh. I didn't restrain myself because her fixed stare seemed to express the purpose to daunt me. I was not afraid of her, but it occurred to me that I was within an ace of drifting into a downright quarrel with a lady and, besides, my guest. There was the cold teapot, the emptied cups, emblems of hospitality. It could not be. I cut short my angry laugh while Mrs. Fyne murmured with a slight movement ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... proved successful beyond hope. Artistic and critical London had hailed him as a newcomer of promise, amounting to genius: and Lilamani Sinclair, daughter of Rajputs, had only escaped becoming the craze of the moment by her precipitate withdrawal to Antibes, where she had come within an ace of losing all, largely through the malign influence of Jane—her evil genius during those wonderful, difficult, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... and Amy killed two at the start. Then came a rally with both boys racing up and down the court like mad and the white ball dodging back and forth over the net from one side to the other. Holt finally secured the ace by dropping the ball just over the canvas. Amy, although he ran hard and reached the ball, failed to play it. Another serve was returned low and hard to the left of the court, came back in a high lob almost to the back line, sailed again across the canvas ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... oscillations of three semi-detached teeth, that waved in the breeze as he screamed: "Little Clarence Detwiller LICKED me! so he did! and I on'y p-pushed him off his sled into a puddle of ice wa-wa-water and he attackted me and kicked my f-f-Face-ace off." ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... quietly prepared for and accomplished their return home; others, growing more and more ambitious and bold, aspired to conquests and principalities in the East. Why should not they acquire what Baldwin had acquired at Edessa, and what Bohemond was within an ace of possessing at Antioch? Others were jealous of the great fortunes made before their eyes: and Raymond of Toulouse was vexed at Bohemond's rule in Antioch, and refused to give up to him the citadel. One ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the circumstances thoroughly," he said. "The young Marquis of Beckenham went ashore with you, I think, and came within an ace of ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... a matter of principle with all of them. They can justify themselves seven ways to the ace. Keep an eye on him, or let us do it ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Switzerland, during his last Cambridge vacation; then, in November of 1791, he crossed to France, ostensibly to learn the language, made the acquaintance of revolutionaries, sympathized with them vehemently, and was within an ace of throwing in his lot with the Brissotins, to give them the steady direction that they needed. When it came to this his relatives cut off his supplies, and he was obliged to return to London toward the close of 1792. But still he resisted all pressure to enter any of the regular ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... when she spoke. I was within an ace of advancing and casting myself upon my knees like any Lenten penitent, to sue forgiveness. But I set the inclination down betimes. Such expedients would not avail ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... is the characteristic of sea-faring men. This often gives an appearance of want of feeling, and even of cruelty. From this, if a man comes within an ace of breaking his neck and escapes, it is made a joke of; and no notice must be taken of a bruise or a cut; and any expression of pity, or any show of attention, would look sisterly, and unbecoming a man who has to face the rough and tumble of such a life. From this cause, too, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... into trouble," said Coppy, playing his trump card with an appealing look at the holder of the ace. ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... 'tsall right. Don't you worry any about me. I got a ace in the hole if the weather gets wet. But I wanna tell you this: If yo're bound to go on playin' the fool, keep a-movin' and walk round a lighted ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... game of whist. To play a banal game of whist with Liszt seemed a sacrilege, but we played, all the same. I was very distraite, seeing Grieg and his wife (who do not play cards) wandering restlessly around the room, and sometimes I put on an ace when a two would ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... some faint idea of adding, 'dote upon you.' But, happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over the turned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking it out, he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted on, that he substituted, 'that she ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... and the multitude of the illustrious dwindle into individual littleness by reason of their superabundance. And when it comes to occupations, it will hardly be denied that the stranger who beholds a Senator "coppering on the ace," or a Congressman standing in a bar-room with a lump of mouldy cheese in one hand and a glass of "pony whiskey" in the other, or a Judge of the Supreme Court wriggling an ugly woman through the ridiculous movements of the polka in a hotel-parlor, must ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... surroundings lazily. "Come on," said his friend, playing a queen. "Shove on your king, Pennell; everyone knows you've got him. What? Hiding the old gentleman, are you? Why, sure it's myself has him all the time"—gathering up the trick and leading the king. "Perhaps somebody's holding up the ace ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... growing recklessly in the thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she realized, from ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... what Destiny had always been trying to tell him—that love and happiness were not for him. He was consecrate to great causes: His Will, entangled with that of others, grew feeble, fruitless. Women were truly enfants du diable. He had been within an ace of abandoning his historical mission. Now he would arise, strong, sublime: a mighty weapon forged by the gods, and tempered ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... house in the village, and some mist overhung the river. Under cover of this a small body of horse, with one gun, from Shields's forces, had reached the east end of the bridge and trained the gun on it. Jackson was within an ace of capture. As he spurred across, the gun was fired on him, but without effect, and the sound brought up staff and escort, when the horse retired north. This incident occasioned the order to me. After relating it (all save his own danger), Jackson passed on to Ewell. Thither I followed, to remain ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... long enough. Every man has his chance, depend upon it, Phil, if he knows how to watch for it; but there are so many men who get tired and go to sleep before their chances come to them. I've wasted a good deal of time, and a good deal of labour; but the ace of trumps is in the pack, and it must turn up ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... shillings, which sure very large is; Yet that would not serve, but I must bear his charges: And yet for all that, rode astride on a beast, The worst that e'er went on three legs, I protest. It certainly was the most ugly of jades: His hips and his rump made a right ace of spades; His sides were two ladders, well spur-galled withal; His neck was a helve, and his head was a mall; For his colour, my pains and your trouble I'll spare, For the creature was wholly denuded of hair, ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... took to their arms, and it was within an ace that they would fall to blows. But Asgrim and his friends and their followers would have no hand in it, and rode to their booths; and now all was quiet that day, so that they had naught to do with one another. Thither were come chiefs from all the Quarters of the land; there had never been ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... send you on a visit to the most charming movie queen in the business. She is going to return to Broadway this autumn, and she has a trunkful of plays to read. I have found your judgment ace-high. Mornings you will read with her; afternoons you will visit. She remembers your mother, who was the best comedienne of her day. So she will be quite as interested in you as you are in her. I want you to note her ways, how she amuses herself, eats, ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... that wouldn't give up a big slice to get him for a manager," he said. "He's in right, too. He's the ace!" ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... clay can surpass him. He was but once beaten; and this is his tale of how it was. He and some farm hands were playing at cards in a small cabin that stood against the end of a big barn. A wicked woman had once lived in this cabin. Suddenly one of the players threw down an ace and began to swear without any cause. His swearing was so dreadful that the others stood up, and my friend said, "All is not right here; there is a spirit in him." They ran to the door that led into the barn to get away as quickly as possible. ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... appearance presented by a central plate in the cuirass of the Pterichthys. It is of a lozenge form, and, occupying exactly such a place in the nether armature of the creature as that occupied by the lozenge shaped spot on the ace of diamonds, it comes in contact with four other plates that lie around it, and represent, so to speak, the white portions of the card. And Sir Philip now found, that instead of lying over, it lay ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... party consisted of a gentleman and two old ladies. The gentleman (a plump, black-whiskered elderly Cupid, with a vast expanse of shirt-front like an immense white ace of hearts, and a rose in his button-hole) was standing on the hearth-rug in a graceful attitude, with one hand resting on his hip, and the other under his coat-tails. Of the two old ladies, who seemed as if expressly created by nature to serve as foils to one another, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... World, was the very Reverse of Renouncing it, if Words had any Signification at all? Here lies the Difficulty; and here is the true Cause of the Quarrel, and all the Spite and Invectives against The Fable of the Bees and its Author. My Adversaries will not be stinted, or abate an Ace of the wordly Enjoyments they can purchase, because the whole Earth was made for Man; Libertines say the same of Women, and with equal Justice; yet relying on this pitiful Reason, they will eat and drink as deliciously as they can: No Pleasure is denied them, forsooth, that is used with Moderation; ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... overcome me and taken me prisoner: that would never bring thee praise or glory. If thou shouldst touch me more, thou wouldst do great villainy. Take here my sword; I yield it thee." Erec, however, does not take it, but says in reply: "I am within an ace of killing thee." "Ah! gentle knight, mercy! For what crime, indeed, or for what wrong shouldst thou hate me with mortal hatred? I never saw thee before that I am aware, and never have I been engaged in doing thee any shame or wrong." ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... declared, as he revealed the nub of the whole matter; "and supposing my Rosie don't play poker, which, Gott sei dank, she couldn't tell a king from an ace, what is that Mrs. Koblin's business? She ain't supposed to know that, Mawruss, and yet she didn't invite my Rosie to her poker party. Rosie wouldn't of gone anyhow, Mawruss; but that ain't the point. Ain't my Rosie just as good as Mrs. Klinger oder Mrs. Elenbogen? Particularly ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... who had despoiled him of all a man values—broken his faith, destroyed the ideals that had once been his. Moreover, she had seen clear down into his soul that day at Berrier Cove, when Ann had come within an ace of death, and she knew that on the ruins of the old love a new ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... polite old scourge of a FAIPULE - parliament man - come begging. All the time DAVID BALFOUR is skelping along. I began it the 13th of last month; I have now 12 chapters, 79 pages ready for press, or within an ace, and, by the time the month is out, one-half should be completed, and I'll be back at drafting the second half. What makes me sick is to think of Scott turning out GUY MANNERING in three weeks! What a pull of work: heavens, what ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... while I write; but till the last shot is fired I try to be iron, and would hold your hand and not kiss it—not be mad to fall between your arms—not wish for you—not think of you as a woman, as my beloved, as my Vittoria; I hope and pray not, if I thought there was an ace of work left to do for the country. Or if one could say that you cherished a shred of loyalty for him who betrays it. Great heaven! am I to imagine that royal flatteries—My hand is not my own! You shall see all that it writes. I will seem to you no better than I am. I do not tell you to be a Republican, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the boys got up and fetched an old deck of cards. Bartley chose the ace of spades. Back of the corrals, with nothing but mesa in sight, he took up his position, while Cheyenne stepped off fifteen paces. Bartley's hand trembled a little. Cheyenne noticed it and turned to ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... health—grew with her growth. To her, in certain moods and under certain conditions, the barrier between things seen and unseen, material and transcendental, was pervious. It yielded before the push of her apprehension, sense of what it guards, what it withholds within an ace of breaking through. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... of it," responded the Creole. "I was making seve'al i'onies ad those fwen' of mine juz now. We was 'unning a 'ace. An' thass anotheh thing I am fon' of. I would 'ather 'un a 'ace than to wuck faw a livin'. Ha! ha! ha! I should thing so! Anybody would, in fact. But thass the way with me—always making some i'onies." He stopped with a sudden change of countenance, and resumed gravely: "Mistoo Itchlin, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... had a dining-room waiter, who, one day, was such a luckless wight as to be very impertinent to me. He was an "exquisite," (in his way), although as black as the "ace of spades;" wore a stiff shirt collar, that looked snow-white, from the contrast, and combed his hair so nicely that it appeared as fleecy as zephyr-worsted. He had, however, a habit of going off, without anybody's knowing where, and staying a long time, neglecting his work, and provoking "grandma." ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... a Garfield thin a Cleveland or a Harrison,' he says. 'I may've read it in th' Bible, though I think I saw it in a scand'lous book me frind Rhodes left in his bedroom las' time he called on me, that ye shud niver discard an ace to dhraw to a flush,' he says. 'I deplore th' language but th' sintimint is sound,' he says. 'An' I believe ye'er intintions to presarve peace ar-re honest, but I don't like to see ye pullin' off ye'er coat an' here goes f'r throuble while ye have ye'er arms in ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... comfortable of companions; while the other was an outlaw, a half-heathen, a lover of but one thing in this world, the joyous god of Chance. Pierre was essentially a gamester. He would have extracted satisfaction out of a death-sentence which was contingent on the trumping of an ace. His only honour was the honour of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fool, Dolly. Gretchen is fair and young, and the woman is old and black as the ace of ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... swab Flaherty drive you to drink," Gibney complained. "Trumpin' his partner's ace just for the glory an' profit o' gettin' ahead of him?" Aloud he addressed the invisible Flaherty: "Take it or leave it, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... his premature man-of-the-worldness, on which he had prided himself on his travels, "shrank like a thing ashamed" before this real sorrow. Pride, wounded honour, pity and respect tussled together daily in his heart; and now he was within an ace of throwing himself upon his father's mercy, and now of slipping forth at night and coming back no more to Naseby House. He suffered from the sight of his father, nay, even from the neighbourhood of this familiar valley, where every ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... down it came, half a gale of wind, burying us half bulwark deep and making everything crack again as the boat gathered way and darted off like a startled dolphin. And here Carera was within an ace of making a mess of the whole business; for whilst we had been tumbling about becalmed a current had got hold of us and had set us so close in with the land that whilst rounding the point we actually passed through the breakers beating on the ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... (July 24th) by the Vladivostok squadron intensified the feeling. On the 23rd of October the outrageous firing by the Russian Baltic fleet on the English fishing-fleet off the Dogger Bank in the North Sea was within an ace of causing war. It was not till the 28th that Mr Balfour, speaking at Southampton, was able to announce that the Russian government had expressed regret, and that an international commission would inquire into the facts with a view to the responsible persons being ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... and care not now to see men abuse good liquor and addle their silly pates to fill my purse. And I have something, boy, put snug away in Dorchester town that will give us bread to eat and beer to drink, even if the throws run still deuce-ace. But we must seek a roof to shelter us when the Why Not? is shut, and 'tis best we leave this Moonfleet of ours for a season, till Maskew finds a rope's end long enough to hang himself withal. So, when our work is done tomorrow night, we will walk out along the cliff to Worth, and take a look ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... the curve, then ahead down the steep mountainside. "We never could turn in this pla—ace, but it isn't possible to drive through. Fate is ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... thought of the telephone. It gave me the quiet satisfaction of the gambler who holds the unforeseen ace. The situation was in my hands. The police, I knew, had been profoundly stirred by Mr MacGinnis's previous raid. When I called them up, as I proposed to do directly the door had closed on the ambassadors, ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... Jackson county at the time. I left R. P. Rose's that morning, went down the Independence road, stopped at Dr. Noland's, and got some pills. Brother John was with me. I went through Independence and from there to Ace Webb's. There I took dinner and then went to Dr. L. W. Twyman's. Stayed there until after supper, then went to Silas Hudspeth's and stayed all night. This was the day the gate was robbed at Kansas City. Next ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... but in the circumstances made no protest. As it chanced he must have hocus-pocused them wrong, for though his hand was full of trumps, Rodd held nothing at all. The battle that ensued was quite exciting, but the end of it was that an ace in the hand of Anscombe, who really was quite a good player, did the business, and we ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... hand," Marks Pasinsky said as he flipped out the cards three at a time. "Why didn't you lead it out the ace of Schueppe right at the start? What did you expect to ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... great picture brings a high price. Every great book has a large sale. That is what greatness in art means." Her own brand of talk was not in conflict with what she would have called her then creed. She never said a thing was very black. She never said it was as black as the ace of spades. She always said it was as black as the proverbial ace of spades. Once I ventured to insinuate that perhaps it would be more nobly new to say "as black as the proverbial ace of proverbial spades," but the suggestion left her at peace with her custom. Well, when I got to her house ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... to one of the soldiers.... He called ace of diamonds, lost his reckoning and dropped his cards. He started and laughed ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... to tell me," he said, addressing Captain Bannister, "that both that young jay Dimsdale and Mrs. Delaporte saw me pass up that ace?" ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Zeuxippus was pleased with this story, and said, "O Hercules, you have been within an ace of making me forget my hereditary hatred to Anytus for his behaviour to Socrates and philosophy,[116] since he was so mild and noble to his love." "Be it so," said my father, "Love also makes peevish and gloomy persons kind and agreeable to ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... after a long journey, sank down at the very brink of a deep well and presently fell asleep. He was within an ace of falling in, when Dame Fortune appeared to him and touched him on the shoulder, cautioning him to move further away. "Wake up, good sir, I pray you," she said; "had you fallen into the well, the blame would have been thrown not on your ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... pitiful dilemma. He durst not own his ignorance for the honour of Old England, and spoke away about English clubs and English oarsmen whose fame had never before come to his ears. Several times, and, once above all, on the question of sliding-seats, he was within an ace of exposure. As for the Cigarette, who has rowed races in the heat of his blood, but now disowns these slips of his wanton youth, his case was still more desperate; for the Royal Nautical proposed that he should take an ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... black alpaca jacket, light as a pocket handkerchief, which had fallen so softly as to recall by contrast the noise made by the revolver in the pocket of the cloak. The lad was promptly seized with a strong desire to recover his property; he was within an ace of doing so, the cloak containing it being actually in his hands and only dropped as Baumgartner returned to ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... was at the Olympus Club on the point of trumping an ace, when a flash of light in the eyes awoke me. I started up and found Edmund standing over me. The others were all on their ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... all her look; 90 She sees, and trembles at the approaching ill, Just in the jaws of ruin, and Codille. And now, (as oft in some distemper'd state) On one nice trick depends the general fate, An Ace of Hearts steps forth: the King unseen Lurk'd in her hand, and mourn'd his captive Queen: He springs to vengeance with an eager pace, And falls like thunder on the prostrate Ace. The nymph, exulting, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... Hatch kindly. "I'll mow around the nest, but not very near, and I guess the mother rabbit will come back to-night. Funny creatures, aren't they? Every year they have a nest in a grass field, and every year I come within an ace of cutting ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... seconds (for it is a singular fact, that before the public, or rather the booksellers, gave their decision he no more knew whether he had written well or ill, than whether a die, which he threw out of a box, was to turn out a sise or an ace). However, he almost instantly resumed his spirits and expressed his wonder rather that his popularity had lasted so long, than that it should have given way at last. At length, with a perfectly cheerful ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... watching, that you're in the habit of seeing farther than to the end of your own nose. However, I may as well point out to you that if you had killed yourself, as you richly deserved, and as you came within an ace of doing, the run would have been stopped for the season. We should all have been deprived of the Grand National, and I, who come up here solely to ride the Cresta, which I have done regularly every winter for twenty ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... because you played bad games: I took notice of six that you had ten to one against you: Would any but a mad lady go out twice upon Manilio; Basto, and two small diamonds?(30) Then in that game of spades, you blundered when you had ten-ace; I never saw the like of you: and now you are in a huff because I tell you this. Well, here's two and eightpence halfpenny towards ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... full-blooded African negro, as black as the ace of spades, but with an immaculate white turban on his head, and the flowing robe and loose jacket ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... you that at times I have been within an ace of a complete reaction, and have wondered whether it would not be more agreeable to God if I were to cut short the thread of my self-examination and trace my steps back two or three years. The fact is that I do not see as I advance further any chance of reaching ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... en fassiez? Ne daignez pas fire un pas, s'il n'est pas fait, pour remplacer vos trois Mille livres. Ayez assez d'amiti'e pour moi pour les accepter de ma part. Accordez-moi, je vous conjure, la gr'ace, que je vous demande aux genoux, et jouissez de la satisfaction de vous dire, j'ai un ami qui ne permettra jamais que je me jette aux pieds des grands. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... given you ocular demonstration of the fact that I can put a bullet through the ace on a card five times running at thirty-five paces," he said, "that won't take away your appetite, I suppose? You look to me to be inclined to be a trifle quarrelsome this morning, and as if you would rush on your death ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... 4thly, A short without either rule or reason before a Consonant or two, with e after, as ace, acre, able, unstable, father, with A long, and solace, massacre, constable, gather, ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... its meaning was not comprehended at first—brought the other boys to Clay's assistance. That is to say they paddled toward the dangerous spot and were within an ace of getting in the same fix, when ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... mouth of the big Yazoo George came near having a serious time of it; for his cranky little speed boat was caught in a swirl of mingling waters, and came within an ace of swamping. Only for the action of the frightened Nick in throwing his great bulk the other way, just by instinct, the Wireless would have gone ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... son shall go with me, For him have I no care, And he shall bring you word again How that we do fare." Thus be these yeomen to London gone, As fast as they may hie, Till they came to the King's pal-ace, ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... Spencer, without giving the least heed to his cards. It was true his eyes were resting on the ace, king, and queen of spades; but his mind was tortured by the belief that by his fantastic conceit in sending Helen to this Alpine fastness he had delivered her bound ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... sections, unless the page (p.) is given. The following abbreviations are used: ace. accusative; adj. adjective; adv. adverb; expr. expressed; ftn. footnote; inf. infinitive; intrans. intransitive; prep. preposition; trans. transitive. For Esperanto words whose use or meaning is specially explained, references are ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... even the Somali Bedawin weave pots that will hold water. The small change was represented by a medium which even Montesquieu would not set down as a certain mark of civilization. The horse-shoe of Loggun (Denham and Clapperton), the Fan fleam, the "small piece of iron like an ace of spades on the upper Nile" (Baker), and the iron money of the brachycephalic Nyam-nyams described and drawn by Schwein furth (i. 279), here becomes a triangle or demi-square of bast-cloth, about 5 inches of max. length, fringed, coloured like a torchon after a month of kitchen use, and worth ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... was right, and Garnache was wrong. He had no title to take up the affairs of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. But he was past reason now, and he was not the man to brook haughtiness, however courteously it might be cloaked. He eyed the Marquis's flushed ace across the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... however, when my p'sition in the van of Kaintucky ton comes within a ace of bein' ser'ously shook. It's on my way to school one dewey mornin' when I gets involved all inadvertent in a onhappy rupture with a polecat. I never does know how the misonderstandin' starts. ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... the parties agreed, That the peasants should dance German waltzes, And drink to the future mix'd long-and-short breed Of the Donderdronckdickdorffs and Quoltzes. To the church, then, on foot, went the ace with his size— "What's this crowd for?" cries one of the people. "For a baron, who's taking," an arch wag replies, "A morning's walk under the steeple." How ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... only mean that you've got another ace up your sleeve. You know we're going to get the Nipe before I die. You either have a sure way of tracing him or else you already know ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... stratagem the first Crow responded with another,—he trumped Tug's ace, as it were,—for though he saw that the fire was going out and would not heat the pokers much longer, he decided not to wait for this, but set his men to gathering stones and sticks to pelt the two ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... Aas; ace. Aduocacions; Latin advocationis, assembly of advocates, the bar. Agaynesaynge; gain-saying. Alphyns. The alphin, or elephant, was the piece answering to the bishop in the modern game of chess. Ameruaylled; astonished. ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... jolly?" she chirped, as she threw her muff on the floor and made a dive for Peter Jackson. Peter Jackson is a cat, as black as the ace of spades and as pugilistic a feline as ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... Singh with English.—In December, 1808, Ranjit Singh was warned that by the issue of the war with Sindhia the Cis-Sutlej chiefs had come under British protection. The Maharaja was within an ace of declaring war, or let the world think so, but his statesmanlike instincts got the better of mortified ambition, and in April, 1809, he signed a treaty pledging himself to make no conquests south and east of the Sutlej. The compact so reluctantly made was faithfully observed. In 1815, ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... spring! One in hiding could escape that way!... Once closed on the person concealed within, the chair looked empty. A most ingenious hide-hole! Juve now knew the answer to the riddle of the bandit's disappearance. Within an ace of arrest, he had seized the chance offered by Juve's interchange of glances with the king, and with an acrobat's agility had slipped inside this chair! No sooner was the chair abandoned in the gallery than de Naarboveck-Fantomas had slipped out and away. When leaving his magnificent ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... her only good card, and we expected her next would be the two of spades. But no. She pulls out, with the air of a martyr, the ace of spades. ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... rang out the voice of the masked youth. "Look—hyar they be! One is ther ace o' spades, an' ther other is ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... of it this many a day, and care not now to see men abuse good liquor and addle their silly pates to fill my purse. And I have something, boy, put snug away in Dorchester town that will give us bread to eat and beer to drink, even if the throws run still deuce-ace. But we must seek a roof to shelter us when the Why Not? is shut, and 'tis best we leave this Moonfleet of ours for a season, till Maskew finds a rope's end long enough to hang himself withal. So, when our work is done tomorrow night, we will walk out along the cliff to Worth, and ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... from time to time he read some of the stanzas which he had completed. Even in the first winter after Hallam's death, he wrote a few lines in the manuscript book which he kept by him for the purpose during the next fifteen years, and which he was within an ace of losing in 1850, just when the poem was completed and ready for publication. As a statesman turns from his private sorrow to devote himself to a public cause, so the poet's instinct was to find comfort in the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... time, so ancient poets sing, There reigned in Godknowswhere a certain king. So great a monarch ne'er before was seen: He was a hero, even to his queen, In whose respect he held so high a place That none was higher,—nay, not even the ace. He was so just his Parliament declared Those subjects happy whom his laws had spared; So wise that none of the debating throng Had ever lived to prove him in the wrong; So good that Crime his anger never feared, And Beauty ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... his coming, for even by this token I knew him for knight of mine. It was Sir Madok de la Montaine, a burly great fellow whose chief distinction was that he had come within an ace of sending Sir Launcelot down over his horse-tail once. He was never long in a stranger's presence without finding some pretext or other to let out that great fact. But there was another fact of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... played in England, and he thus describes it:—"Each player had four cards dealt to him, the 7 was the highest card in point of number that he could avail himself of, which counted for 21; the 6 counted for 16, the 5 for 15, and the ace for the same; but the 2, the 3, and the 4 for their respective points only. The knave of hearts was commonly fixed upon for the quinola, which the player might make what card or suit he thought proper; if the cards were of different suits, the highest number won the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... the box beside him. It seemed a true and honest die, for it came up now an ace, now trey; now six, now deuce. He rolled it, rolled it, thinking of Hun Shanklin and Hun's long, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... Assingham's lips for the moment to reply that this was, on the contrary, exactly what she didn't see; she came in fact within an ace of saying: "You strike me as having quite failed to help his idea to work—since, by your account, Maggie has him not less, but so much more, on her mind. How in the world, with so much of a remedy, comes ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... the cards and the names of the numbers come as full words, seems to me to point most clearly to the whole key of the situation. Anything which cannot be brought into such a simple number series, for instance, a colour impression, can never be transmitted. If the mother looks at the ace of diamonds, Beulah says that she sees the red of the diamond before her in her mind, but if the mother looks at the picture of a blue lake, this blue impression can never arise in Beulah's mind, but ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... quite aware that Tanty was not yet convinced to the desired extent. He therefore here interrupted her to play his last card—that ace he had up his sleeve, in careful preparation for this trial of skill with his keen-witted relative, and to the suitable production of which he had been ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... before refused to gratify her children with tarts for their supper from the same motive. And this self-denial she was very probably practising to save sixpence, while her husband was paying a debt of several guineas incurred by the ace of trumps being in ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... I'm a crook—like yourself, my lady, but with more backbone and some pride in being at the head of my profession. I'm wanted in a dozen places; I'll spend the rest of my days in the pen, if they ever get me. Twice today I've been within an ace of being nabbed—kindness of you and your Maitland. Now—I'm desperate and ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... you see, Nannie had shown strength in diamonds, and I simply couldn't resist the finesse. So they made every one of their clubs. And I hadn't any business to take the chance of course at that stage, with the ace right in my hand—" ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... you did-humph! I knew the ace lay with you; I knew that as well as if I had seen it. I suppose you have eyes—but I don't know; if you have, didn't you see Glenfern turn up the king, and yet you returned his lead—returned our adversary's lead in the face of his king. I've been telling you these twenty ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... ever happened in his voyages or his memory. He details the ship's allowance, and talks to her as if she was his first-mate. Then in the mornings he carries his daughter to town to see St. Paul's, and the Tower, and Westminster Abbey; and at night disgorges all he has seen, till we don't know the ace of spades from Queen Elizabeth's pocket-pistol in the armoury. Mercy on us! And mercy on your lordship too! Why should you be stunned with that alarum? Have you had your earthquake, my lord? Many have had theirs. I assure you I have had mine. Above a week ago, when broad awake, the doors of the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... although Bob Flick and Gallito had probably acquired some information about himself which he would gladly have withheld, still they did not hold all the winning cards. The ace of trumps, as he exultantly told himself, is bound to take any trick, and the ace of trumps he felt that he possessed in the information which Mrs. Gallito had so obligingly furnished him. In other words, his ace was ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... lavished sundry caresses and endearing expressions upon him, of which he was utterly undeserving; but my attentions were quite thrown away, and might as well, for any good they produced, have been bestowed upon a rocking-horse. At length, after a final struggle, in which we were both within an ace of falling into a water-course which crossed the park in that direction, I gave the matter up as hopeless; and with a sigh (for I love not to be foiled in anything I have attempted, and, moreover, I could not help looking upon it as ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... four, out of what I presume originally consisted of fifty-two playing cards, unlike any I have hitherto heard of. Each of them illustrates a proverb, which is engraved at the bottom of a pictorial representation of figures and objects, and the cards consist of the ten of diamonds, the ace of hearts, the seven of hearts, and the eight of spades: the number is in Roman figures at the left-hand corner, and the subject, a diamond, heart, and spade, at the right-hand corner. I will briefly ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... other. "But I nor no man else saw him die. And we know that these Spanish tombs do sometimes open and give up the dead. I'll throw for size-ace." ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... bless her," whispered Euchre Buck, giving his neighbor Dan a nudge in the ribs to call attention to this wonderful piece of girlish innocence. "Square a deal es George Washington mought ha' made." Then, as the greasy pasteboards were turned up, and his neighbour was handed the ace of clubs, he raised his voice and yelled out, "Bully for you, Dan! Cut away ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... immoderately at my failure, but dodged the next instant as I tried it again, the lash this time coming within an ace of ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... other four watching her with eager, anxious eyes, while the man at her side looked on with tolerant scorn. And then she cut—the ace of spades. Her grandmother threw up her hands. "Death, I ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... number of others in the Directory. Even Vereker Sarle was there. Far down the long room she saw him sitting with two other men: one of them, Dick Nichols, looking very much at home; the other a distinguished, saturnine man with an English air to him, in spite of being burnt as black as the ace of spades. She was aware that Sarle saw her, and had a trembling fear that he might join her. It was almost a relief when Bellew came in towards the end of the meal, for she knew he would prove an effective ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... hours of crowded disappointment, it was as well that Mavis was ignorant of the way in which her prospects had been prejudiced by the trend of events at Melkbridge House since Mrs Devitt had replied to Miss Mee's letter. To begin with, Mavis's visit had been within an ace of being indefinitely postponed; it was owing to Harold's expressed wish that the original appointment had been allowed to stand. The reason for this indifference to Mavis's immediate future was that, the day after the schoolmistress had written, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... the dice, as it happened, turned up at one spot, and Chia Huan was so exasperated that putting out his hand, he speedily made a snatch at the dice, and eventually was about to lay hold of the money, arguing that it was six spot. But Ying Erh expostulated, "It was distinctly an ace," she said. And as Pao-ch'ai noticed how distressed Chia Huan was, she forthwith cast a glance at Ying Erh and observed: "The older you get, the less manners you have! Is it likely that gentlemen will cheat you? and don't you yet put ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... affair happened he related the following incident to me. It happened that he was playing a game of poker in Leadville, with a notorious and unscrupulous gambler, and that at one time when there was a large amount of money on the table, this gambler deliberately displayed four aces, when Duncan held an ace which had been dealt to him in the first hand. Upon accusing the gambler of attempting to cheat him, that worthy drew a pistol and attempted to intimidate him. He was too quick for his opponent, however, and quick as a flash, he had fired upon him, and the man fell. Hastily gathering up the money ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... stand for certainty, and 0 for impossibility, probability may be 999/1000, or 1/1000, or (generally) 1/m. The denominator represents the number of times that an event happens, and the numerator the number of times that it coincides with another event. In throwing a die, the probability of ace turning up is expressed by putting the number of throws for the denominator and the number of times that ace is thrown for the numerator; and we may assume that the more trials we make the nearer will the ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... opposite direction. Lord De Roos, long suspected of cheating at cards, would never have been convicted but for the resolution of an adversary, who, pinning his hand to the table with a fork, said to him blandly, "My Lord, if the ace of spades is not under your Lordship's hand, why, then, I beg your pardon!" It seems to us that a timely treatment of Governor Letcher in the same energetic way would have saved the disasters of Harper's ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... itself. We were in for it. I had expected perhaps ten Companies, not three against 97, give or take a few out on other jobs. It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make. It gave us a day and a half. We ...
— Dead World • Jack Douglas
... first observed it, but it speedily grew as large as the palm of her hand, and then she could perceive that it was red. The oblong white ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the appearance of a gigantic ace of hearts. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... pace, rate of movement. pal'ace, a splendid dwelling, as of a king. par take', share; take part in. patch, small piece of any thing, as of ground. paus'es, short stops; rests. pave'ments, coverings for streets, of stone or solid materials. peb'bles, small, roundish stones, worn by the action of water. per cus'sion, ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... him if he would sell me a drink of whisky. "Can't do it," he answered, "the orders are strict against selling whisky to soldiers." I began moving away, and at that instant a big, greasy, colored deck-hand, or laborer of some sort, black as the ace of spades, crowded by me, brushing against me in the narrow passage on his way to the bar. "Boss," he called to the keeper, "want a dram!" A bottle and a glass were pushed towards him, he filled the glass to the brim, and drank the contents at a gulp. Then he smacked his big lips, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... his money at the Kings Arms, the historic little supper of hashed mutton, which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, 'while her Husband was paying a Debt of several Guineas incurred by the Ace of Trumps being in the hands of his Adversary'—a scene which it is impossible to read aloud without a certain huskiness in the throat." [6] The last great cause of crime which the Enquiry considers, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... poker, draw poker, straight poker, stud poker; bluff, bridge, bridge whist; lotto, monte, three-card monte, nap, penny-ante, poker, reversis[obs3], squeezers, old maid, fright, beggar-my-neighbor; baccarat. [cards: list] ace, king, queen, knave, jack, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, trey, deuce; joker; trump, wild card. [card suits: list] spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds; major suit, minor suit. bower; right bower, left bower; dummy; jackpot; deck. [hands at poker: ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... lips. He would do it. Then he leaned over and played it with the air of a man who lays all in the lap of the gods. Mrs. Conover, who had been shuffling her cards around in ill-suppressed excitement, popped out a trump with a cry of triumph just as Henry's Ace of Spades covered the king. A dreadful scene followed. The Dean was all gallantry, Mrs. Conover all self-reproach, Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee all charm, and Henry all exasperation; and when, later in the same hand, his mind torn with the memory of his lost ace, he made ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... too!" nodded Spike, warming to his theme. "Hermy's ace-high on the face and figure question! Why, there ain't a swell dame on Fift' Av'ner, nor nowheres else, got anything on Hermy as ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... p. 80. Mr. Bass sailed close round the cape in his whale boat, but did not ace any island ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... such a storm sprang up as mortal mariner rarely encountered even off such a coast—a violent north-easterly hurricane—still known in Algiers as "Charles's gale"—such as few vessels cared to ride off a lee shore. The immense flotilla in the bay was within an ace of total destruction. Anchors and cables were powerless to hold the crowded, jostling ships. One after the other they broke loose, and keeled over to the tempest till their decks were drowned in the seas. Planks gaped; broadside to broadside the helpless ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... dearth of news, gambling stories come cheap and easy. And the cheaper the story the bigger the play. "The Jedge raised him two thousand dollars. The Colonel raised him back ten thousand more. Both of 'em stood pat. The Jedge bet him a hundred thousand. The Colonel called. 'What you got?' says he. 'Ace high,' says the Jedge; 'what you got?' 'Pair ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... again. "Oi'll bet ye do; an' oi guiss ye've seen his fa-ace long about shavin'-toime in the ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... mathematical interest. There were five dice; each dice with its six surfaces had six different numbers. While he beamed into the veiled eyes of the old Mexican he was figuring upon the various combinations possible and the likelihood, the theory of chances, of a six or an ace upon the second throw. From the jump the game fascinated him; it is to be questioned, however, if ever before a man knew just the sort of fascination which enthralled him. No matter who won or lost, when the rolling cubes behaved in conformity with the mathematical laws, he fairly sparkled. And in ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Captain Macnamara, writes me word that he'll receive you on board the Liffy frigate, which, by a combination of circumstances, is now lying in Cork Harbour,—fortunate for us, but which might have proved disastrous to her gallant officers and crew, for she was dismasted in a gale, and was within an ace of being driven on shore. But a miss is as good as a mile; and when under jury-masts she scraped clear of the rocks, and got into port in safety. Here my letter, after wandering about for many a day, found him, and he has lost no time in replying to it. One of his ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... But how to raise the funds? After much wavering and hesitation, Miss Bruce resolved at last to pawn her diamonds. So dearly do women love their trinkets, that I believe, though he never knew it, Tom Ryfe was more than once within an ace of gaining the prize he longed for, simply from Maud's disinclination to part with her jewels. How little he dreamt that the very packet which had helped to cement into intimacy his first acquaintance with her should prove the means of dashing his cherished hopes to the ground, and raising yet another ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... and with it Miss Marie Courtenay, escorted by an "ace" covered with decorations, whose name is a household word and who was only too obviously her adoring slave. Already there had been hints of their engagement. Had I been that ace, I should have felt no small discomposure ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... when I was within an ace of starving to death," and then come out with Grub Street reminiscences of the most appalling kind. Unfortunately, I have always ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... and she took it to the school board. I was a pretty tough little rascal in those days I guess and no doubt needed some lickings myself occasionally. But I remember I almost lost my nerve when I got back to school that day and came within an ace of stuffing the rose in my pocket instead of throwing it on your desk. I never dreamed the rose would be anything to you. It was only my way of paying tribute to you. You seemed to me something like a rose yourself, ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... stiff little birch, that, growing recklessly in the thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she realized, from the look in the pale, ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... excited the wondering contempt of Joe Leaver, whose frequent attendance at cinema theatres had led him to the conclusion that police detectives—who, unlike his master, had to take the rough with the smooth—spent their spare time practising revolver shooting, and throwing daggers at an ace of hearts on the wall. Rolfe's hobby was nothing more exciting than stamp collecting. He was deeply versed in the lore of stamps, and his private ambition was to become the possessor of a "blue Mauritius." His collection, though extensive, was by no means of fabulous value, being made up chiefly ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... kraal. He got food at a hut, and set off at once up the wooded hill above it, which is a promontory of the plateau. By this time he must have been weary, or he would not have blundered as he did right into a post of the farmers. He was within an ace of capture, and to save himself was forced back from the scarp. He seems, to judge from reports, to have gone a little way south in the thicker timber, and then to have turned north again in the direction of Blaauwildebeestefontein. After that his movements are obscure. ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... rolled a cigarette. "Jest statin' it mild and gentle," he said, yawning, "the last couple of weeks has been kind of a busy day. Guess the fun's all over. Sundown's got a flyin' start; Loring's played his ace and lost, and you and me is plumb sober. If I'd knowed it was goin' to be as quiet as this, I'd 'a' ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... contemporary metallic currency. Others were chiefly hand engraved, and often sold in small metal and silver boxes, those dating from the time of Queen Anne being the most interesting. The most popular card counters in the early days of the nineteenth century were brass copies of the spade-ace gold guinea, which they closely resembled, and it is feared, when gilt, were not infrequently palmed ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... arranged as in the diagram. It is usual to make the inner table the one nearest to the light. Two dice-boxes are required, one for each player, and a pair of dice, which are used by both players. The dice are marked with numbers on their six sides, from one to six, number one being called, "ace"; two, "deuce": three, "trey." Formerly the [v.03 p.0134] four was called "quatre" (pronounced "cater"); the five, "cinque" (pronounced either "sank" or "sink"); and the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... We hurriedly crossed the plain and then the stream, and halted at the Cachoeira Grande (Grand Rapid) farm, 2,950 ft. above the sea level. A pure negro was in charge of the place, whose wife was also as black as the ace of spades. Curiously enough, they possessed a child much discoloured and with golden hair and blue eyes. Such things will happen in the best regulated countries. The black man swore it was his own child, and we took—or, rather, did ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Surville was overtaken by a frightful tempest, which brought him within an ace of destruction, but his sailors had such confidence in his nautical ability that they felt no anxiety, and obeyed his orders with a sang froid of which, unfortunately, the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... man that wouldn't give up a big slice to get him for a manager," he said. "He's in right, too. He's the ace!" ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... bring thee praise or glory. If thou shouldst touch me more, thou wouldst do great villainy. Take here my sword; I yield it thee." Erec, however, does not take it, but says in reply: "I am within an ace of killing thee." "Ah! gentle knight, mercy! For what crime, indeed, or for what wrong shouldst thou hate me with mortal hatred? I never saw thee before that I am aware, and never have I been engaged in doing thee any shame or wrong." Erec replies: "Indeed ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... in his despair and remorse, he deserted. He was around Frederick a day or two in disguise, and sought to see you and her. Failing in that, he sent you by the landlady the packet that was afterwards taken from your overcoat by the secret-service men; and the next thing he came within an ace of being captured by his own colonel. Escaping, he was believed to be a rebel spy, and so implicated you. It was to search for him I was sent to Boston. There Miss Winthrop formally broke our engagement, and I would be a free man to-day, doctor, but for your ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... it with deliberation in the centre and then, for a minute, occupying herself as with the attempt to fit the other morsels. After she had squared again her little objects on the chimney, she was within an ace, in fact, of turning on him with that appeal; besides its being lucid for her, all the while, that the occasion was passing, that they were dining out, that he wasn't dressed, and that, though she herself was, she was yet, in all probability, so horribly red in ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... selves? Here Leonard lay dead in the garden, from natural causes; yet life was a deep, deep river, death a blue sky, life was a house, death a wisp of hay, a flower, a tower, life and death were anything and everything, except this ordered insanity, where the king takes the queen, and the ace the king. Ah, no; there was beauty and adventure behind, such as the man at her feet had yearned for; there was hope this side of the grave; there were truer relationships beyond the limits that fetter us now. ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... you ocular demonstration of the fact that I can put a bullet through the ace on a card five times running at thirty-five paces," he said, "that won't take away your appetite, I suppose? You look to me to be inclined to be a trifle quarrelsome this morning, and as if you would rush on your ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... he surveyed his victim, "because a man looks sad at the opening of a jack-pot, it doesn't necessarily follow that he's only got ace-high." ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... some people are always car-sick when they travel, and on being asked, Frank admitted that he didn't feel so very good. So Bill let him alone and things went better. Bill made a good many friends that day and came within an ace of being kissed by a pale little lady who found a chance to take a much needed nap because Bill took charge of her two-year-old terror of a baby boy while she slept. There was an old gentleman too, who asked him a million or more questions, ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... Donnegan was jarred, and he came within an ace of opening his mind to her, of pouring out the truth about Lou Macon. Love is a talking madness in all men and he came within an ace of confessing ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... she turned up winning numbers—the eight and the ace, the five and the four, the six and the three—every combination which brought luck to the table and confusion ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... matter of principle with all of them. They can justify themselves seven ways to the ace. Keep an eye on him, or let us ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... made it too hot for me, boys," said Dan. "I came within an ace of being caught. One of the beaks had his hands on me, but I knocked him down ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... Uncle Billy. He turned up Jack of clubs. He also turned a little redder as he took up his cards, looked at them, and glanced hastily at his partner. "It's no use playing," he said. "Look here!" He laid down his cards on the table. They were the ace, king and queen of clubs, and Jack of spades,—or left bower,—which, with the turned-up Jack of clubs,—or right bower,—comprised ALL the ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... who came within an ace of looking almost respectable in new blue serge ("Small Gent's"—off the peg), Jimmy arrived at Paddington Station with a quarter of an hour to spare. Lord Dreever appeared ten minutes later, accompanied by a man of about Jimmy's age. He was tall and ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... deliberately forced on the war. They knew perfectly well that when they put up a German Prince as candidate for the throne of Spain it would bring on a war with France. Why, we ourselves were within an ace of going to war with France when Guizot brought about the Spanish marriage, although it was comparatively of slight importance to us that Spain and France should be united. But to the French this thing was an absolutely vital question, for with Germany and Spain ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... the next morning that he never was so deceived in a pious looking young person in his life. "Why," said he, as he was thumbing over the Bible to read a chapter before morning prayers, "the tow headed cuss would draw to a pair of deuces and get an ace full. Let us unite ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... duty of one of us to hold this paper in readiness. The man who was to show the pass sat by the window. Of all our worthless passes our rule was always to show first the one of least value. If that failed we brought out a higher card, and continued until we had reached the ace. If that proved to be a two-spot, we all went to jail. Whenever we were halted, invariably there was the knowing individual who recognized us as newspaper men, and in order to save his country from destruction clamored to have us hung. It was for ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... and felt miserable. I left the ward for a few moments. On returning I found that they had pushed a bed a little to one side in a corner and had turned down the bed-clothes and placed a hot-water jug in it (without hot water). The occupant was a Moroccan as black as the ace of spades; he was trepanned but was allowed up a certain number of hours a day. "Maman,"—they all called me Maman—"toi blessee, toi ergut (lie down) nous tubibe (doctor) nous firmli (nurse)." And this black, so-called savage, Moroccan took up his post ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... he related the following incident to me. It happened that he was playing a game of poker in Leadville, with a notorious and unscrupulous gambler, and that at one time when there was a large amount of money on the table, this gambler deliberately displayed four aces, when Duncan held an ace which had been dealt to him in the first hand. Upon accusing the gambler of attempting to cheat him, that worthy drew a pistol and attempted to intimidate him. He was too quick for his opponent, however, and quick as ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... night after night had I pulled the rope up after him when the rest of the dormitory were asleep, and kept awake by the hour to let it down again on a given signal. Well, one night he was over-bold, and within an ace of ignominious expulsion in the hey-day of his fame. Consummate daring and extraordinary nerve on his part, aided, doubtless, by some little presence of mind on mine, averted the untoward result; and no more need be said of a discreditable incident. ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... is shorely as handsome as a ace full on kings—blushes a heap vivid at what she's done, an' looks warm an' tender. Which, while the play is some onusual an' out of line, everybody agrees it's all right; bein' that we-alls is goin' to ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... giving his neighbor Dan a nudge in the ribs to call attention to this wonderful piece of girlish innocence. "Square a deal es George Washington mought ha' made." Then, as the greasy pasteboards were turned up, and his neighbour was handed the ace of clubs, he raised his voice and yelled out, "Bully for you, Dan! Cut away an' clar ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... one spot, and Chia Huan was so exasperated that putting out his hand, he speedily made a snatch at the dice, and eventually was about to lay hold of the money, arguing that it was six spot. But Ying Erh expostulated, "It was distinctly an ace," she said. And as Pao-ch'ai noticed how distressed Chia Huan was, she forthwith cast a glance at Ying Erh and observed: "The older you get, the less manners you have! Is it likely that gentlemen will cheat you? and don't you yet put down ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... had six different numbers. While he beamed into the veiled eyes of the old Mexican he was figuring upon the various combinations possible and the likelihood, the theory of chances, of a six or an ace upon the second throw. From the jump the game fascinated him; it is to be questioned, however, if ever before a man knew just the sort of fascination which enthralled him. No matter who won or lost, when the rolling cubes behaved in conformity with the mathematical laws, he fairly sparkled. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... of a lifetime! With books or no books, it is quite true, however, that some men, otherwise of great intelligence, can never be taught whist; they may have had every opportunity of learning it—have been born, as it were, with the ace of spades in their mouth instead of a silver spoon—but the gift of understanding is denied them; and though it is ungallant to say so, I have never known a ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... and refused to move another foot; and then we played our ace of trumps. Near by, twenty laborers were working. Calling all hands, they took hold of that outstretched rope, and heading straight for the new Elephant House started a new tug of war. Every "heave-ho" of that hilarious company meant a ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... heavy disgootet mit de boledics of dis land, Dat his friendts could barely keep him from trowin' oop his hand, Vhen he held shtraight-flush mit an ace in his poot- vitch phrase ish all de same, In de science of pokerology, ash ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... He looked like the Ace of Diamonds when we had finished with him.... Move on there! Keep on moving. Over! ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... special slave, the Slave of the Bed.... "Dat fat feller" had one of the prisoners perform his corvee for him. "Dat fat feller" bought enough at the canteen twice every day to stock a transatlantic liner for seven voyages, and never ace with the prisoners. I will mention him again apropos the Mecca of respectability, the Great White Throne of purity, Three rings Three—alias Count Bragard, to whom I have long ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... achievement. "After you've played it a few years, you'll learn that the value of it lies chiefly in losing. You'll try like the devil to win, of course, but you'll learn not to wish for it. To win is nothing but an endless piling up of the right cards, beginning with the ace and ending with the king, and it only means more shuffling for next time. But every time you lose you will learn things ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... stopped halfway in his reach for the enormous pile of chips. The Queen laid down her four clubs—Ace, King, Queen and ten— and for the first time flipped over ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Liffy frigate, which, by a combination of circumstances, is now lying in Cork Harbour,—fortunate for us, but which might have proved disastrous to her gallant officers and crew, for she was dismasted in a gale, and was within an ace of being driven on shore. But a miss is as good as a mile; and when under jury-masts she scraped clear of the rocks, and got into port in safety. Here my letter, after wandering about for many a day, found him, and ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... returned Fanny, 'is she the sort of woman to say anything? Isn't it perfectly plain and clear that she has nothing to do at present but to hold herself upright, keep her aggravating gloves on, and go sweeping about? Say anything! If she had the ace of trumps in her hand at whist, she wouldn't say anything, child. It would come out ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Africa; even the Somali Bedawin weave pots that will hold water. The small change was represented by a medium which even Montesquieu would not set down as a certain mark of civilization. The horse-shoe of Loggun (Denham and Clapperton), the Fan fleam, the "small piece of iron like an ace of spades on the upper Nile" (Baker), and the iron money of the brachycephalic Nyam-nyams described and drawn by Schwein furth (i. 279), here becomes a triangle or demi-square of bast-cloth, about 5 inches of max. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Buckhorn. Percy volunteered to help, and was convinced of the fact that he could drive a mower. Olie, who nurses a vast contempt for Percy, and, I secretly believe, rather resents his attentions to Olga, put the new team of colts on the mower. They promptly ran away with Percy, who came within an ace of being thrown in front of the mower-knife, which would have chopped him up into very unscholarly mincemeat. Olga got on a horse, bareback, and rounded up the colts. Then she cooed about poor bruised Percy and tried to coax him to come to the house. But ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... foozled his drive owing to sudden loud outbursts of applause coinciding with his down-swing. And not long before this story opens a sliced ball, whizzing in at the open window, had come within an ace of incapacitating Raymond Parsloe Devine, the rising young novelist (who rose at that moment a clear foot and a half) from any further exercise of his art. Two inches, indeed, to the right and Raymond must inevitably have handed in ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... important of these creations is the infinitesimal word "as"—or rather, it is a case of adaptation. Yesterday "as des carreaux" (to give the full form) stood simply for ace of diamonds. To-day all France, with that swift assimilation which has ever been one of its many mysteries, knows its new meaning and applies it. And ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... of startling bravery and hair-breadth escapes connected with it. We refer to the great railroad raid in Georgia during the year 1862, when a handful of intrepid heroes invaded a hostile country, deliberately stole a locomotive, and came within an ace of getting it safely delivered into the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... is the masther,' sez Kiss, dealin'. 'Black Jack, sorr, I shud expaytiate to you, is the Ace av Shpades which from time immimorial has been intimately connect wid battle, murdher an' ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... and a clear sky. He was aroused by a knock on his door, and, as he jumped out of bed, Big Abel, the Major's driver and confidential servant, came in with the warm water. He was a strong, finely-formed negro, black as the ace of spades (so the Major put it), and of a ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... cried Blood, in broken-hearted frenzy. "If ye say it was desperate and foolhardy, why, so it was; but the occasion and the means demanded nothing less. I fail within an ace of victory." ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... establishment was one of the utmost respectability. To that, however, our damp, cold hero gave not a thought, for all his mind was fixed upon bed. Indeed, the britchka had hardly come to a standstill before he leapt out upon the doorstep, missed his footing, and came within an ace of falling. To meet him there issued a female younger than the first, but very closely resembling her; and on his being conducted to the parlour, a couple of glances showed him that the room was hung with old striped curtains, and ornamented ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the party consisted of a gentleman and two old ladies. The gentleman (a plump, black-whiskered elderly Cupid, with a vast expanse of shirt-front like an immense white ace of hearts, and a rose in his button-hole) was standing on the hearth-rug in a graceful attitude, with one hand resting on his hip, and the other under his coat-tails. Of the two old ladies, who seemed as if expressly created by nature to serve as foils ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... the ace of spades, the first trump in the game of Ombre. Cf. Swift's 'Journal of a Modern Lady in a Letter to a Person of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... overshot myself, Laudare se vani, vituperare stulti, as I do not arrogate, I will not derogate. Primus vestrum non sum, nec imus, I am none of the best, I am none of the meanest of you. As I am an inch, or so many feet, so many parasangs, after him or him, I may be peradventure an ace before thee. Be it therefore as it is, well or ill, I have essayed, put myself upon the stage; I must abide the censure, I may not escape it. It is most true, stylus virum arguit, our style bewrays us, and as [108]hunters find their game by the trace, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... you again," she went on. "You came within an ace of being my husband. I might have belonged to you and counted your washing. It's queer, isn't ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... Walter then demanded the ace of diamonds, and on its face let him the house and premises on a repairing lease for three years, rent L5 a year: which was a good bargain for both parties, since Percy was sure to lay out a thousand pounds or two on the property, and to bind Julia more closely to him, who ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... with unyielding perseverance, to push, and draw, and hitch himself, while lying at full length, towards the spring, which he reached at last so exhausted, that he had barely put his lips to it and swallowed a mouthful, when his head dropped, and he almost fainted. He was within an ace of being drowned, but with a violent effort he drew his face out of the spring, and lay there in a half unconscious condition for some time, with the clear cool water playing about his temples. Reviving in a little time, he took another sip, and ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... Guise! 'tis gospel truth," and the speaker strode forward, candle in hand. "Here, now, you ace of spades," he cried impatiently, "hold the flame until I bid this paragon of the wilderness fit welcome in the name of Hawkins, who strangely seems to have vanished from the sylvan scene. Alas, poor Hawkins! two gentlemen at one time, I greatly fear, will be the death ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... valuable wash-stand. Chippendale furniture ain't in it with this kind. I reckon the king of England's is ace high against a straight flush when it ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... incentive, and the Romans with a unified purpose after their reconciliation conducted vigorously the wars which the latter waged, and conquered in all of them. It was at this time that in the siege of Corioli they came within an ace of being driven from their camp, but a patrician, Gnaeus Marcius, showed his prowess and repelled the assailants. For this he received various tokens of renown and was given the title of Coriolanus from the people which he had routed. [Sidenote: FRAG. 17^2] FOR THE TIME HE WAS THUS EXALTED BUT NOT ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... that everywhere the lower forms of life precede the higher. In the plant world flowerless plants precede the flowering ones. The coal we burn to-day is mainly the remains of the wonderful growth of the flowerless vegetation of the Paleozoic Ace. When flowering plants appear, it is the lower forms of ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... doings are written up," Bluff put in, "be sure and put in that another of our gallant band came within an ace of being terribly bitten ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... began a sequence in hearts; the hearts all lay between himself and Sylvie; the colonel won her ace, though it was protected ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... lad; just at present. But I know my countrymen. They are not as light hearted and fickle as those of Genoa; but they are easily led, and will shout 'Abasso!' as easily as 'Viva!' Time will show. I was within an ace of being defeated today; and you may not be close at hand to come to my rescue next time. And ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... slowing down. We play a rubber of bridge each night before retiring. Last night I trumped Max's ace and he snarled at me. We had a fight. This morning I found a bouquet of purple spore-thistles at my ...
— Competition • James Causey
... see who can get closest to 21. You look at your cards. All face cards count for ten; ace counts for either 1 or 11 as ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... a strange mood. A few minutes before I had been at Pavannes' door, at the end of our journey; on the verge of success. I had been within an ace, as I supposed at least, of executing my errand. I had held the cup of success in my hand. And it had slipped. Now the conflict had to be fought over again; the danger to be faced. It would have been no more than natural if I had felt the ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... uncertainty over our arrival that Rose had gone home, but Rodwell stopped to tell her we had come as he went down with the cart, and she exclaimed, "Pray day come for me go see Miss Hayiut." In the morning she came early into my chamber, bright and eager. I knew Robert was black as the ace of spades, but they both of them did look blacker than anything I ever saw before, but it was good to ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... wondered whether he ever would begin. Then, at the end of every hand, Miss Bolo would inquire with a dismal countenance and reproachful sigh, why Mr. Pickwick had not returned that diamond, or led the club, or roughed the spade, or finessed the heart, or led through the honour, or brought out the ace, or played up to the king, or some such thing; and in reply to all these grave charges, Mr. Pickwick would be wholly unable to plead any justification whatever, having by this time forgotten all about the game. People came and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... hour, however, when my p'sition in the van of Kaintucky ton comes within a ace of bein' ser'ously shook. It's on my way to school one dewey mornin' when I gets involved all inadvertent in a onhappy rupture with a polecat. I never does know how the misonderstandin' starts. After all, the seeds of said dispoote is by no means important; it's enough ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... confused parient in a soot rather more comfortable than modest, was so mortified at his Dad's nakedness, that the mortificashun become sot, and when NOAH awoke from his soberin' off sleep, his son was blacker than the ace of spades. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... edge, and awaited the attack of a superior force. Reserving his fire to close quarters, its effect was fearful. But the Federals pushed forward; a school-house occupied as an advanced post was captured, and at this point Sedgwick was within an ace of breaking through. His second line, however, had not yet deployed, and a vigorous counterstroke, delivered by two brigades, drove back the whole of his leading division in great disorder. As night fell the Confederates, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... it, no matter how indirectly, and if she had been married for the dead man's sake, to give his widow a home, then Rachel felt that the last affront had been put upon her, and she would leave this man as she had been within an ace of leaving his friend. So ran the wild and unreasonable tenor of her thoughts. He had not married her for her own sake; it was not she herself who had appealed to him, after all. Curiosity might consume her, and a sense of deepening mystery ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... Blount asked for the family touring-car, more than half-expecting to be told that his father had taken it. The garage man nodded and laughed. "You can have it, but you came within an ace of losing out," he said. "The senator was just here, and he was going to take it, but he changed his mind when I told him ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... books, he would have spent his days and nights in studying the evidences of Christianity, but the ship was bare of any such books, and he never thought of turning to the most obvious of all, the Bible itself. His unbelief was shaken; it was within an ace of falling in pieces to the very foundation; or rather he began to suspect how foundationless it had been. It came at last to one point with him;—If there were a God, he would not have left the world without a revelation,—no ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... paralyzed all growth and development in this country for twenty years if he had thought it 'nasty,'" said Job. "Foreigners can't be too particular how they express their opinions about us. Over and over again we have come within an ace of putting up the shutters and confessing that it was no use pretending that we could go on independently having a country of our own, with distinct institutions, peculiarities, customs, manners, and even productions. It would be so much better and easier to turn ourselves over ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... that at least three of them were cheating at every opportunity. Henry, alone, was playing a square game; as for the heavy winner, Larry, Andrew had reason to believe that he was adroitly palming an ace now and then—luck ran too consistently his way. For his own part, he was no card expert, and he smiled ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... in a south-easterly direction brought us to the Bois d'Havrincourt, a large ungainly wood, the shape of which was something between the ace of spades and the ace of clubs. This we knew as Mossy-Face. The region around it was notorious in R.F.C. messes as being the chief centre of the Boche Flying ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... will please the gentler, but offend the clayish or clownish sort, whom good things scarcely please, and I care not to displease). I know I have them not all, and you with readie (if I should say so) with Bate me an ace quoth Bolton, or Wide quoth Bolton when his bolt flew backward. Indeed here are not all, for tell me who can tell them; but here are the chiefs, and thanke me that I cull them. The Greekes and Latines thanks ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... subject of the lease to Joggeli, but he will not hear to it. Freneli, however, is not disturbed, but outlines the plan of action, which succeeds admirably. Now comes the son-in-law and makes a scene, but Freneli trumps his ace by getting word to Johannes, who, already suspicious of the cotton-dealer, is glad to have a chance to spoke his wheel for him. A frightful turmoil ensues, with Johannes pounding the table and threatening the cotton-dealer, while ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... clatter of the chaises men, women and children made haste to clear a track, snatching their little ones back and then staring at us as we swept past. Indeed, the teams put their best feet foremost for local effect, and more than once came within an ace of running over some urchin who either would not or could not get out of the way. Fortunately no casualties occurred. For it would have been ignominious to have been arrested by the police during our first ten minutes in the town, not to speak ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... the first Crow responded with another,—he trumped Tug's ace, as it were,—for though he saw that the fire was going out and would not heat the pokers much longer, he decided not to wait for this, but set his men to gathering stones and sticks to pelt ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... Just a breather. And when there swept through the gateway of Kilton Hall a most exalted, hatless, rosy-cheeked, dancing-eyed lassie mounted upon a most hilarious steed, the gate-keeper came within an ace of having apoplexy, for she was a portly ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... these circumstances he took a good, firm hold of the sledge-lashing, or of a special strap that had been made with a view to these accidents. But familiarity breeds contempt, even with the most cautious, and some of the drivers were often within an ace of going ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... merman and see him working his scaly tail up the straight path that drove through the garden to the door, a sheep-fish wriggling at his heels. They saw too the pastures of the rest of the island, of a rougher brine-qualified green, and the one black tree that stood against them like the ace of clubs; and past them lay the channel where the white sail of a frigate curtseyed to the rust-red rag of a barge, and the round dark hills beyond mothering a storm. And if they looked towards the window in the right-hand wall they saw ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... that can only mean that you've got another ace up your sleeve. You know we're going to get the Nipe before I die. You either have a sure way of tracing him or else you ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... had before refused to gratify her children with tarts for their supper from the same motive. And this self-denial she was very probably practising to save sixpence, while her husband was paying a debt of several guineas incurred by the ace of trumps being in the hands of ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Piet cheerfully, as he took my coat and rifle from me; "I'll remember all that you say. But I ain't afraid, baas; you're not goin' to die just yet. You'll beat that black nigger all right." (The fellow was himself as black as the ace of spades.) "All you got to do, baas, is to take care that he don' work roun' you so's to get the sun in your ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... right and fair, Barred balls I bar when goaded; The deuce an ace is out of place! The deuce a die is loaded! Then make your game, Your color name; Success ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... The one who turned up the Ace of Hearts was to stay. You could have heard a pin drop after that. I have never before felt what I felt then. If I had to return and leave Semyonov here! They say that the attack may develop in this direction at any moment. If ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... was made, and the letter was found, very small and very faint, it is true, but still legible, upon the ace square of each ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... excitement, those pell-mell onslaughts and hand-to-hand struggles. Twice we were within an ace of being driven from our stronghold, when General Harris and his staff leapt recklessly upon the ramparts and hurled the besiegers heels ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... had been dealt, young Vaneski was ahead with a king high. On the fourth round he grinned when he got a second king and Mike dealt himself an ace. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... "Welcome, Friend of the Ace," Georgie responded, and all of the other boys repeated the words, "Welcome, Friend ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... kill us this time," declared little Robey, the youngest subaltern, to whom the nights were a torment unspeakable. He had been within an ace of heat apoplexy more than once, and his nerves were stretched almost ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... children, that Monmouth's rising was easily put down, or that it was hopeless from the first, remember that I, who was concerned in it, say confidently that it really trembled in the balance, and that this handful of resolute peasants with their pikes and their scythes were within an ace of altering the whole course of English history. The ferocity of the Privy Council, after the rebellion was quelled, arose from their knowledge of how very close it had ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... remarkable circumstance,' he mused, dallying lazily with the teaspoon, 'that my friend the madman should have been within an ace of escaping, on his trial; and it was a good stroke of chance (or, as the world would say, a providential occurrence) that the brother of my Lord Mayor should have been in court, with other country justices, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... still harder. "I do mind his vurry voice. It was 'im, no doubt about it. I've zeed a zight o' people, since I zeed 'im that day, but I do mind his voice, and I do mind his 'ands, and I do mind his ve-ace the zame as if it wur yesterday. Now I come to look, blessed if it ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... bitter night; I hope Idonea is well housed. That horseman, Who at full speed swept by us where the wood Roared in the tempest, was within an ace Of sending to his grave our precious Charge: That would have ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... Saracen and Slav. If the South in our Civil War had possessed the necessary resources, her ironclad rams would have made an end of the Union navy and of the war. In our own time the German submarine came within an ace of winning the war despite all the Allied dreadnoughts, because its potentialities had not been realized and no counter measures devised. A navy that drops ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... the thirteenth century, that element of French society in a state of feebleness and decay. But it was far otherwise. The third estate drew its origin and nourishment from all sorts of sources; and whilst one was within an ace of drying up, the others remained abundant and fruitful. Independently of the commune properly so called and invested with the right of self-government, many towns had privileges, serviceable though limited franchises, and under the administration of the king's officers they grew in population and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... two million pounds are settled upon the man who wins her hand. With two million pounds I could pay back my betting losses and prevent myself from being turned out of the Constitutional Club. And now to put the marked ace of spades in young Vereker's ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... we shall find, on enquiry, that we are ace high with him. At any rate, there is no harm in sounding him. It is true that he may have forgotten, or it may be that it is to Comrade Brown alone that ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... hold nothing but ace high, and by some means you know that the other man holds the rest of the aces, and he calls, excuse yourself; let him ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... solicitor, she married early—for love, and the issue was disastrous. Above her right temple, just at the roots of the hair, a scar was discoverable; it was the memento of an occasion on which her husband aimed a blow at her with a mantelpiece ornament, and came within an ace of murder. Intimates of the household said that the provocation was great—that Mrs. Lessingham's gift of sarcasm had that morning displayed itself much too brilliantly. Still, the missile was an extreme retort, and on the ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... with whom he had made a pedestrian tour in France and Switzerland, during his last Cambridge vacation; then, in November of 1791, he crossed to France, ostensibly to learn the language, made the acquaintance of revolutionaries, sympathized with them vehemently, and was within an ace of throwing in his lot with the Brissotins, to give them the steady direction that they needed. When it came to this his relatives cut off his supplies, and he was obliged to return to London toward the close of 1792. But still he resisted all pressure ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... in one instance, by a Colony. It was the superbly grandiose expression, and all the more insidiously seductive in that it was so grandiose, of a principle which all thinking men now know, or ought to know, is the negation of Empire, which lost us America, which came within an ace of losing us Canada, which might well have lost us South Africa, and which has in very fact lost us, though not yet irrevocably, the "affection," to use Burke's word, of Ireland. We may call local patriotism "narrow and insulated," if we please, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... do much, though once I am sure that at a game of bridge he sent me the ace of trumps after I had not held a card worth having for the whole of the evening. And chance alone could have done as much as that for me. But I do not tell this ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... out; the original holder of it scores one point even if it is taken by his adversary. "Jack," the knave of trumps; the holder scores one point, unless it be won by his adversary, in which case the winner scores one. "Game," the greatest number of tricks gained by either party; reckoning for each Ace four toward game, each King three toward game, each Queen two toward game, each Jack one toward game, each Ten ten ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... appearance of such a splendidly-bound and gilt-edged volume as one often meets with nowadays; but, on running his fingers through the leaves, behold! It was a bundle of thin golden plates, in which all the wisdom of the book had grown in distinct. He hurriedly put on his clothes, and was delighted to ace himself in magnificent suit of gold cloth, which retained its flexibility and softness, although it burdened him ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... But the British Government cannot be said to have thoroughly learnt the same lesson until, in almost the last week of the nineteenth century, the three successive defeats of Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Colenso aroused it to a knowledge of the fact that we had been within an ace of losing South Africa. Many, indeed, would question whether even now the lesson had been thoroughly learnt. But, however this may be, it is certain that throughout the nineteenth century the Home Government wished to treat both the natives ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... died in the thick of the grain, and was canonised as a martyr. The shrew-mouse took him by the ears and placed him on the door the granary, after the fashion of the Ottoman Porte, where my good Panurge was within an ace of being spitted. At the cries of the dying wretch the rats, mice, and others made for their holes in great haste. When the night had fallen they came to the cellar, convoked for the purpose of holding a council to consider public affairs; to which meeting, in virtue of the Papyrian and other laws, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... it wi' th' rope all ready, but just as he was going to slip it over its leg it seemed to stand on its head, feint wi' its left an' get an upper-cut wi' its right under Ratty's chin. A shadow passed across th' fa-ace o' the moon, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... answered Horrocks vaguely. What, he asked himself, had really happened on the line? Was he deluding himself with his own fancies, or had Horrocks actually held him back in the way of the train? Had he just been within an ace of being murdered? ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... beginning, Ned," said Murray gravely. "That hideous reptile did see you, and was within an ace of getting hold." ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... movements, waked a ghostly, whispering echo which was extremely weird and suggestive. Mr. Fetherbee was enchanted. He felt that he was getting down into the mysterious heart of things; that he was having something which came within an ace of being an adventure. Then, as he felt his way down, farther and farther below the vain surface of things, that intervening ace vanished, and he came up against his adventure with a suddenness that sent a knife-like thrill to his heart. His foot had lost its hold of the rope; ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... his desk in the corner of the office and approached on tip-toe. Henry Denvil had drawn a card, the ace of diamonds, on the back of his daughter's letter. M. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... the inspiring muse of the chevalier de la Morliere; I only warn you, when the day comes for him to be hanged, not to ask me to pardon him." "Be assured," replied I, "that I will never deprive the Place de Greve of one so formed to do honour to it." In fact, the chevalier was within an ace of reaching it before his friends anticipated; for, very shortly after this conversation, he was guilty of the most detestable piece of knavery I ever heard of. He learned that an unfortunate young man from the country, into whose confidence he had wormed himself, was to receive ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... gracefully over to larboard as the languid breeze freshened upon us, and presently down it came, half a gale of wind, burying us half bulwark deep and making everything crack again as the boat gathered way and darted off like a startled dolphin. And here Carera was within an ace of making a mess of the whole business; for whilst we had been tumbling about becalmed a current had got hold of us and had set us so close in with the land that whilst rounding the point we actually passed through ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... with a Yool. It's better if we both stay armed, though it isn't really necessary—so much money comes to play around here they can afford to keep the Uplands very thoroughly policed, and they do. But an ace in the hole never hurts." She considered. "Changed your mind about that ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... large is; Yet that would not serve, but I must bear his charges: And yet for all that, rode astride on a beast, The worst that e'er went on three legs, I protest. It certainly was the most ugly of jades: His hips and his rump made a right ace of spades; His sides were two ladders, well spur-galled withal; His neck was a helve, and his head was a mall; For his colour, my pains and your trouble I'll spare, For the creature was wholly denuded of hair, And, except for two things, as bare as my nail,— A tuft of a mane and a sprig of a tail. ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... Undoubtedly he would get certain results, some of which were very unpleasant to contemplate, but behind it all he felt something yet to come, some counter-proposal involving peace. For no man starts out by laying his cards on the table unless he has an ace in the hole—or unless he is running a bluff. And he knew, and Wunpost knew, that the thing which irked him most was that sure-fire Prospector's Contract. There Eells had the high card and if he played his hand well ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... Hearts. At this, the blood the virgin's cheek forsook, A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look; She sees, and trembles at th' approaching ill, Just in the jaws of ruin, and codille. And now (as oft in some distempered State) On one nice trick depends the general fate. An Ace of Hearts steps forth: the King unseen Lurked in her hand, and mourned his captive Queen: He springs to vengeance with an eager pace, And falls like thunder on the prostrate Ace. The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky; The walls, the ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... organised a shearers' race, And 'touched' me to provide the prize. His packhorse showed surprising pace And won hands down — he was The Ace, A well-known racehorse ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... resembled the ace of clubs. The center and side wings were high and well wooded with heavy pines; the middle wing was longest, sloped west, had no pine, but a dense growth of cedar. Numerous ridges and canyons cut up this central wing. Middle Canyon, the longest and deepest, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the level of the river and filled every wash-out with swirling brown waters. The following day Roosevelt had an adventure which came within an ace of being tragedy and culminated in hilarious farce. He was riding with a young Englishman, the son of Lord Somebody or Other—the name is immaterial—who was living that spring with the Langs. Just north of the Custer Trail Ranch a bridge of loose stringers had been laid across the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... inexpressible relief that I heard of the narrow escape of the Rev. Urijah Basham. Presiding at a jumble sale at Sidcup he described how he had been within an ace of partaking of rhubarb leaves at luncheon on the previous day, but, having read in the morning's paper of their fatal results, wisely decided to abstain. I need hardly remind my readers that Mr. Basham is, after the Rev. JOSEPH HOCKING, perhaps our greatest preacher-novelist. The jumble sale ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... emancipated from the traditions of his upbringing. To create a disturbance in a public place, to draw all eyes upon himself, to look a fool, eventually to be turned ignominiously into the street—all this he was within an ace of doing and suffering, but he refrained. He sat down again quickly, feeling hot and cold with shame, just as he remembered he had been wont to feel when he had committed some gaucherie in his early ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... William, I can tell you frankly, Father, is displeased," von Wedel said to Rasputin reprovingly. "Only by an ace has the whole of our arrangements with your Empress, and with yourself as our agent, been suppressed from Downing Street. And that by steps taken by our friend here, Monsieur Azef. But we are not yet safe. I tell you quite frankly that though ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... we have a frame constructed from the ten playing cards, ace to ten of diamonds. The children who made it wanted the pips on all four sides to add up alike, but they failed in their attempt and gave it up as impossible. It will be seen that the pips in the top row, the bottom row, and the ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... aunt, who left him a small farm in Cornwall, it was necessary to advertise that "If John Jones Tibbets, Esq., would apply to Messrs. Blunt & Tin, Lothbury, between the hours of ten and four, he would hear of something to his advantage." But even as a conjurer declares that he will call the ace of spades, and the ace of spades, that you thought you had safely under your foot, turns up on the table,—so with this advertisement suddenly turned up Uncle Jack. With inconceivable satisfaction did the new landowner settle himself in his comfortable homestead. The farm, which ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the other. "But I nor no man else saw him die. And we know that these Spanish tombs do sometimes open and give up the dead. I'll throw for size-ace." ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... Long live the King, Long live the Queen and Jack, Long live the ten-spot and the ace, And also all ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... had not foreseen. Among his father's friends cards were regarded as the Devil's Books, and he did not know the ace of spades from the ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... his friends, to whom from time to time he read some of the stanzas which he had completed. Even in the first winter after Hallam's death, he wrote a few lines in the manuscript book which he kept by him for the purpose during the next fifteen years, and which he was within an ace of losing in 1850, just when the poem was completed and ready for publication. As a statesman turns from his private sorrow to devote himself to a public cause, so the poet's instinct was to find ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... "It's too neat, Frank. It's clever, and it's powerful, whatever we've run up against. But I think we've got an ace in the ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
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