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More "Poke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out something and smiling at me from time to time; a new book awaited me on the mantelpiece, and the log on the hearth kept shooting out with a hissing sound those little blue flames which invite one to poke it. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... blankets. So long as the wind could not get under the covering and "raise them off" I was comfortable. When the wind was high, I usually laid our harness over my bed. In case of snow storms, we would often wake up under a blanket of soft snow, and raise up and poke our arm through the snow to make an air hole, then go back ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... not touched either of the Secretaries to hurt them, and if aught have been avowed, it was by Monsieur Nau, and that on the mere threat. Do you see old Will yonder, Cicely, just within Mr. Secretary's call—with the poke of ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mr. De Vere. "If you breathe too deeply of those fumes, you'll be killed. Get a boat hook, poke them out of the locker, spear them with the sharp point, and thrust them up through the broken ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... sometimes the shortest way home, hey, Ed?" and Frank gave him a playful poke that nearly sent him off ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... wrinkle my forehead and poke out my chin, and grimace at the judges, do you suppose I should ever have been—Class Pug. ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... usual with a militant rush, which caused us to lift the kitchen poker so as to be ready to poke the fire or ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... manner of those in love—of meeting with Mab Arden. During the reading of the lessons his eyes were roving here and there in search of that beloved face, but much to his dismay he could not see it. Finally, on a chair near a pillar, he caught sight of Miss Whichello in her poke bonnet and black silk cloak, but she was alone, and there were no bright eyes beside her to send a glance in the direction of George. Having ascertained beyond all doubt that Mab was not in the church, and believing that she was unwell after the shock of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... some, ain't you? Let's see, if you want to meet him you'll have to be hittin' the trail out of here in an hour," said Bill, laying down his knife and fork. "What do you s'pose is up? Goin' to tie the poke strings again?" ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... undertake any considerable stream, their mode of proceeding is, to hide their horses in some lonely glen, where they can graze unobserved. They then build a small hut, dig out a canoe from a cotton-wood tree, and in this poke along shore silently, in the evening, and set their traps. These they revisit in the same silent way at daybreak. When they take any beaver they bring it home, skin it, stretch the skins on sticks to dry, and feast upon the flesh. The body, hung up before the fire, turns ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... said 'cal'late' all my life, and I can't help forgettin' once in a while—I suppose John thought he'd surprise you, Gertie. And now you're goin' to clear out and leave him, just on account of that—that Chapter of yours. You never used to be crazy about Chapters. You used to poke fun at 'em. You did and you know it. But since you've got here to Scarford—I can't help it, Serena; I'm mad clean through. Can't YOU tell that girl to stay to home ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... walking, according to poor old Juarez. See those three peaks, standing up together? We bear a little off to the south for a spell and then straight toward 'em. And never a spring until we get there! Look out you don't poke a ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... doesn't do to be too proud, Felicity," he remarked, giving her a poke. "You'd better not say ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... boys have ponies now—broncos. Of course it's fine for them out there, but she says she won't be happy till they can get East for a year or two. She wants them to see the place and grow up a little in it. She wants 'em to see the attic and poke about the barn and the stable and climb over the rocks. You see they're on the ranch all summer and in school in Denver all winter, and Thea says they don't know the look of an old stone wall with an apple tree in the corner. She says the fruit's ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... impunity. I remember the brutal reception given to the Saperda and Hylotoma grubs when I place them on a comb. Forthwith grabbed, bruised and riddled with stings, the poor wretches perish. It is quite a different matter with the offspring of the Volucella. They come and go as they please, poke about in the cells, elbow the inhabitants and remain unmolested. Let us give some instances of this clemency, which is very strange in the ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... blindly for six blocks did Elmendorf poke his cane through the trap and bid him speed for the Lambert. A carriage stood at the private entrance, and the driver said it was Mr. Allison's. The anteroom was open; the glazed doors to the private office were closed, but excited voices arose from within. He recognized Allison's, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... to increase Our euphony: there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff, Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arseniew of modern Greece, And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,[378] And others of twelve consonants apiece; And more might be found out, if I could poke enough Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet), It seems, has got an ear ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... he said naively. "It is because I don't want people to poke fun at me, even if I am only ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... landed on a continent which seems to have been drinking,—but still it was up and ready to try a step or two if necessary. But now the dog, who had been keeping a sharp eye on every move, became so personally interested that he gave it a poke with his nose; and over it went. This must have been discouraging. The lamb, dazed for a moment, waited for the spirit to move it, and up it came again, a little groggy but still in the ring. It staggered, got its legs crossed and dug its ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... his skill we knew fearsome stories, as that, by looking at Archie Allardyce, who had come to broken bones on a ladder, he discovered which rung Archie fell from. When he entered a stuffy room he would poke his staff through the window to let in fresh air, and then fling down a shilling to pay for the breakage. He was deaf in the right ear, and therefore usually took the left side of prosy people, ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... irritable, worrying men and women of life, who poke their noses into other people's affairs, retail all the scandal, and hand on all the slander and gossip of empty and, therefore, evil minds. They are invariably well to do and without any work or ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... unknown and unknowable, yet undeniable something'? {233b} Why, this is the sentiment of modern Germany, and perhaps of the Indian sages of a cultivated period! A troglodyte would look for a 'possum in the tree, he would tap the trunk for honey, he would poke about in the bark after grubs, or he would worship anything odd in the branches. Is Mr. Muller not unconsciously transporting a kind of modern malady of thought into the midst of people who wanted to find a dinner, ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... So he started to poke around, hoping to run across some island that was more than a mere patch of the omnipresent mangrove tangle. This he succeeded in doing without much loss of time and his pleasure redoubled at finding a mass of dwarf saw palmetto that would yield ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... Krishnas and Sivas and Vishnus, doing their little wooden best to look solemn, mounted on little bulls or snakes, under little canopies; where little Brahminee bulls, in all the little insolence of their little sacred privileges, poke their little noses into the little rice-baskets of pious little maidens in little bazaars, and help their little selves to their little hearts' content, without "begging your little pardons," or "by your little leaves"; where dirty little fakirs ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... allowed to use her hand again she had decided that never, never, NEVER would she poke her finger into anything. It takes only a second to poke a finger in but it takes a good long time to get a badly hurt finger ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson
... comrade excited neither anger nor resentment among the other boys, who yelled with delight at his discomfiture, but it made them more careful in approaching the cage, and though they continued to poke the prisoners with sticks they did not venture again to thrust a hand through the bars. At sunset the guards again came round, lifted the cage and carried it into a shed. A platter of dirty rice and a jug of water were put into the cage; two ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... is spelt now with a final k and now with a final ch; out of this variation two different words have been formed; with, it may be, other slight differences superadded; thus is it with 'poke' and 'poach'; 'dyke' and 'ditch'; 'stink' and 'stench'; 'prick' and 'pritch' (now obsolete); 'break' and 'breach'; to which may be added 'broach'; 'lace' and 'latch'; 'stick' and 'stitch'; 'lurk' and 'lurch'; 'bank' and 'bench'; 'stark' ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... face upon his waistcoat to keep the place, and otherwise quite immovable, and very like other young gentlemen, Bill did not feel much the wiser for looking at him. He had a better view of him soon, however, for Master Arthur began to poke his friend's legs with the donkey-headed stick, and to exhort ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... alacrity, for she had herself seen the announcement of Harry Oswald's election in the 'Times' a few days before. 'No occasion to trouble yourself, I'm sure; I daresay you may be right, and at any rate it's no business of mine, thank heaven. I never want to poke my nose into anybody else's business. Well, talking of Oxford, Mrs. Oswald, there's a very nice young man down here at present; I wonder if you know where he's lodging? I want to ask him to dinner. He's a young ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... it exactly," returned the imperturbable Chivers. "I was pretty rocky when I first went to William H. Seward Square. But the air in that Yiddish country—wonderful, dear sir. Regard me; punch, poke, pound where and how you like. Sound as a bell you'll find me. Now I pass on. I yield place to you. The honor, dear sir, ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... adore this!" exclaimed the girl. "My angel pussy!—why was I mean enough to leave you in the city!... I'll have a dog, too—a soft, roly-poly puppy, who shall grow up with a wholesome respect for Hafiz. And, Clive! I shall have a nice fat horse, a safe and sane old Dobbin—so I can poke about the countryside at my leisure, through byways and lanes ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... France there is a large green lizard that runs among the vine trees. If you pursue him he is off like lightning for a second; then he stops suddenly short. You return to the charge, and he starts afresh, but only to stop again. At the fourth or fifth attack he is quite out of breath; you poke him with the stick with which you have been hunting him, but in vain; there he lies motionless, in spite of his alarm. A few steps have brought him to the end of his powers, like a man whose heart is diseased and who cannot go far. This, however, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... hay to thistles. Usually the public likes best the very piece the composer himself cares least about. So wherever I go I hear, 'Oh, Professor, do sing us that beautiful song about Sammy Patch.' And I can't poke my head inside the Thistle Club but some donkey bawls out, 'Here's Bray! Now we'll have a song. Sing us Sammy Patch, old fellow.' Really, I've sung that song so many times I'm tired ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... little too much like General Triscoe's pessimism," said Mrs. March; and she added: "But whether we have any national melodies or not, we don't poke women out in the rain ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Rodney, hitting him a poke in the ribs the next morning about daylight. "But it's in the enemy's camp, and I don't think we'll pay much attention to it. I am going ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... at my door. From the time I heard the name of Ursula Priscilla Jenkins and knew it belonged to me, I can recall but one beautiful memory of my childhood. It is the face of my mother in its frame of poke bonnet and pink roses, as she leaned over to kiss me good-by. I never saw her again, nor my father. Yellow fever laid heavy tribute upon our southern United States. I was the only one left in the big house on the plantation, and my old black nurse ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... far from well or in my right spirits, and shudder at pen and ink work. I poke out a monthly crudity for Colburn in his magazine, which I call "Popular Fallacies," and periodically crush a proverb or two, setting up my folly against the wisdom of nations. Do you ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... thlow ath a old moolly cow! It'th an old thlow-poke! What a thkinny nag! That horthe eath nothin' but ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... probable prosperity, in the house. And there was an abundance of Throttle-Ha'penny coal. It was dirty ashy stuff. The lower bars of the grate were constantly blanked in with white powdery ash, which it was fatal to try to poke away. For if you poked and poked, you raised white cumulus clouds of ash, and you were left at last with a few darkening and sulphurous embers. But even so, by continuous application, you could keep the room moderately warm, without feeling ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... of no use. Johnny. I Must go to school, The bell is going to stop; That terrible old toad, If only he would hop. Toad. I Must cross the path, I can hear my children croak; I hope that dreadful boy Will not give me a poke. A hop, and a start, a flutter, and a rush, Johnny is at school, and ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous
... silk dresses to wear to church. Slave 'omans had new calico dresses what dey wore wid hoopskirts dey made out of grapevines. Dey wore poke bonnets wid ruffles on 'em and, if de weather was sort of cool, dey wore shawls. Marster allus wore his linen duster. Dat was his white coat, made cutaway style wid long tails. De cloth for most all ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... followed behind. Ah! so the tom cat had come for Nana. Well, that was nice! At fifteen years and a half to have men trailing after her! Then Madame Lerat hastily began to question her. Mon Dieu! Nana didn't know; he had only been following her for five days, but she could not poke her nose out of doors without stumbling on men. She believed he was in business; yes, a manufacturer of bone buttons. Madame Lerat was greatly impressed. She turned round and glanced at the gentleman out of the corner ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... right!" shouted the blacksmith-tyrant. "Ready, exercise—one, two"—and so on. And then he would yell: "No, Chalmers, don't punch out with your arms—swing up your gun! Swing it up from the bottom! That's the way! Poke 'em! Poke 'em! Put the punch into 'em!" And over Jimmie stole a cold horror. There was nothing on the end of those guns but a little black hole, but Jimmie knew what was supposed to be there—what would some day ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... of course; and you have heard of working on the 'stop,' most likely. Which means picking pockets when the party is standing still; but it is more difficult on the 'fly.' You must remember that. I remember once going along Oxford Street, and I prigged an old woman's 'poke,'[17] on the 'fly.' She missed it very quick, and was coming after me when I slipped it into an old countryman's pocket as I was passing. She came up and accused me with stealing her purse. I, of course, ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... smaller tillers of the soil—as yet but faintly marked by the gewgaw trappings of the outer world; while from beyond High Knob, whose crown is in cloud-land, and through the Gap, came the mountaineer in the primitive simplicity of home spun and cowhide, wide-brimmed hat and poke-bonnet, quaint speech, and slouching gait. Through the Gap he came in two streams—the Virginians from Crab Orchard and Wise and Dickinson, the Kentuckians from Letcher and feudal Harlan, beyond the Big Black—and not a man carried a weapon in sight, for the stern spirit of that Police Guard at the ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... much gravity. "I berry much spect Missis be anxious 'bout Jerry. Mas'r Haley won't want us no longer. Missis wouldn't hear of our ridin' the critters over Lizy's bridge tonight;" and, with a facetious poke into Andy's ribs, he started off, followed by the latter, at full speed,—their shouts of laughter coming ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... won't, dear. You couldn't if you wanted to—but you don't really want to, I know. Now poke up the fire and get me some tea. I hope you have something nice ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... suggested that their owners were in all probability the "party" finishing off their dinner in our bespoken apartment, which gave me an inclination to toss all the things in the room about, and poke the smoking-caps into the india-rubber shoes; but I didn't. What innumerable temptations I do resist! I assured Miss Roberts I was very ill-tempered, and proceeded to make assurance doubly sure by blowing her up sky-high, to which she ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... you for seven years, but I am going to poke your fire," said Henriette, when they were ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... place to rest!" she said, aloud, and indignantly, giving a more emphatic poke with her parasol, and quite dislodging one of the buildings in Jerusalem. "One's brain is just kept at high pressure all ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... the chairs will stand weight; the couches are not fluff; one can lean with safety on the tables. But everywhere the eye is satisfied. My bed is beautiful, French I fancy, yet it is comfort itself. The lamp beside my bed is a dull bit of bronze which does not poke itself into your sleepy eye, yet you know that it fits the need, not only for light but for satisfaction to the eyes after the light comes. And the bath tub—may I speak of a bath tub in a bread-and-butter letter?—the bath tub is not too long—do you ever suffer from the ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... you damned scoundrels! You don't understand a thing, and poke your noses into an affair like this—a government affair. Cattle! You ought to thank me, fall on your knees before me for my goodness! If I were to say so, you would all be put ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... 'we've not told you particulars. Yo're thanking us for a pig in a poke; but we had more forethought, and we put all down on a ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... poke a smipe, Pet?" asked Mr. Bouncer, rather enigmatically; but, as he at the same time placed before Pet a "yard of clay" and a box of cigars, the professor of the art of self-defence perceived that he was ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... the lad my knife, and deemed there would be little else to hear in Swevenham for this bout; and at least I heard no more tales to tell till I came away this morning; so there is my poke turned inside out for thee. But this word further would I say to thee, that I have seen on thy neck also a pair of beads exceeding goodly. Tell ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... to the point of deciding whether or not you are going to build that road. Then I shall act independently of you both. Forgive my slang, but—I'm going to hand you each a poke then." ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... you come to the marble building with the pearls over the door," he said; and gave the Princess a poke with the handle of his sword, that pushed her through the gate, almost before she had time to draw on her golden ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... heavily with his legs crossed, as though still he had not heard. Doubtless he felt as heavy as he looked, for the afternoon was warm, and luncheon—well, at any rate, he remained neutral and inactive. Something might happen to divert philosophical inquiry into other channels; a rat might poke its nose above the pond; a big fish might jump; an awfully rare butterfly come dancing; or Maria, as on rare occasions she had been known to do, might stop discussion with a word of power. The chances were in his favour on ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... Van Helsing, I don't quite like to 'buy a pig in a poke', as they say in Scotland, and if it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of these two, then I give my consent at once, though for the life of me, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... of the book to say yes or no to. Then if he does not agree with me and I am tempted to argue with him, I will drop the matter with him at once, send him to Alexander, have Alexander set him in a chair, tap him on the back, poke him thoughtfully, psycho-mechanically in the ribs, unlimber his mind from his body, untangle him psycho-physically, put him in shape so that he can think free, listen without obsessions and mental automatism—that is, get him so that he can set ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... whip for godspeed. It made off due east, cavorting and snorting until it reached the tank-track; there it stopped and picked a bit of grass. Presently along comes a tank, proceeding to the fray, and gives the mule a poke in the rear. The mule lashes out, catching the tank in the chest, and then goes on with his grazing without looking round, leaving the tank for dead, as by all human standards it should have been, of course. But instead of being ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... actually made it or not; with the result that her talk was a sort of continuous, blurred expectoration, out of which would emerge, at rare intervals, those sounds and syllables of which she felt positive. Swann supposed himself entitled to poke a little mild fun at her in conversation with M. Verdurin, who, however, was not ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Marie. "I'll hold your legs so you won't fall in, and you can fish for it with a stick." She ran for a stick to poke with, while Jan bravely mounted the box again, and, firmly anchored by Marie's grasp upon his legs, he soon succeeded in rescuing ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... shudder with apprehension. What if Mr. Turner had come to say that she was to be sent to the House of Correction, or some horrid boarding-school where one don't get enough to eat and where one couldn't poke one's nose outside the door. A set expression settled on the girl's face that did not augur well for her reception of whatever plan the lawyer might ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... Guinevere or Semiramis or other loose-minded trollop of history, I dare say Monsieur de Puysange will hold to his bargain with indifferent content. Look you, niece, he, also, is buying—though the saying is somewhat rustic—a pig in a poke." ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... it's delicious, and I'm sure every word of it is true,' she cried. 'I'm enchanted with the mysterious meeting at Westminster Abbey in the Mid-Victorian era. Can't you see the elderly lady in a huge crinoline and a black poke bonnet, and the wizard in a ridiculous hat, a bottle-green frock-coat, and a flowing tie ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... I mean to a man who has known what absolute starvation is—when a man would thank God for a blue-bottle fly who had taken his own nip any where. When I see the young fellows at the clubs pick this, and poke that, and push away the other, may I be d——d—my dear, I beg your pardon. Cabby, to the 'Grilled Bone and Scolloped Cockle,' at the bottom of ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... soon be time to get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise and could not close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And then, lads, I heard this sound, 'Toop! toop! toop!' Someone was creeping up to the chaise. I poke my head out, and there was a peasant woman in nothing but her shift and with her feet bare. . . . 'What do you want, good woman?' I asked. And she was all of a tremble; her face was terror-stricken. . . 'Get up, good man,' said she; ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a rowing boat. In it was one man. He looked scared, for the nose of his boat was stuck in the bank of the island, and the stern had swung round almost to the opposite bank. The man was standing up with a scull in his hands, poking at the bank near the bows; and at every poke his boat went further across the narrow stream, and was in imminent danger of being cut in two or swamped, or in some way destroyed by ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... Two can sleep here nicely. True, the bed has not been made, but I can soon settle that!" and putting his lantern on the floor, he gave the bed a poke or two, and tried ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... amongst which its mother is feeding. Sometimes it has a little run by itself, but seeks the maternal bosom at the slightest intimation of danger. It quits the pouch for good when it can crop the herbage freely; but even now it will often poke its head into its early home and get a little refreshment on the sly, even though a new-comer may ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... Whene'er I poke Sarcastic joke Replete with malice spiteful, The people vile Politely smile And vote me quite delightful! Now, when a wight Sits up all night Ill-natured jokes devising, And all his wiles Are met with smiles, It's hard, there's no disguising! Oh, don't the days ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... much leaning," Phil replied. "My aunts say it. There ought to be a place like a post-office where you could poke in a question and get the answer right back; but ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... and had many adventures. The English nautical terms were employed continually in describing his life on the ship, but the man seemed to feel that they were not in their place, and stopped short when one of them occurred to give me a poke with his finger and explain gib, topsail, and bowsprit, which were for me the most intelligible features of the poem. Again, when the scene changed to Dublin, 'glass of whiskey,' 'public-house,' and such things ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... sugar-puncheon, All ready staved, like a great sun shone Glorious scarce an inch before me, Just as methought it said, "Come, bore me!" —I found the Weser rolling o'er me.' You should have heard the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. 'Go', cried the Mayor, 'and get long poles, Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats!'—when suddenly, up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a 'First, if you please, my thousand guilders!' A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue; ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... You are afraid to poke your nose into any room in the house now; so, after walking up and down the stairs for a while, you go and sit in your own bedroom. This becomes uninteresting, however, after a time, and so you put on your hat and stroll out into the garden. You walk down ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... not seeing the fine wall of net, swim into it. Now the openings in the net—the meshes—are one inch across, just wide enough for the Herring to poke his head through. Once through, he is caught. His gill-covers prevent him from drawing back again. Thousands of other Herrings are held tight, all around him, and the rest of the shoal scatters for ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... course, my pet," she said; "but I do declare that stupid driver is taking us wrong. Oh, if he goes up that way it will be such a round that I shall be late for Jasper's dinner. Poke your parasol through the little window in the roof, Judy, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... pioneers may have made a special trip to the Connecticut tract before deciding to purchase; for it was not in the nature of them to "buy a pig in a poke," as it were. And such a journey of nearly a hundred miles, mainly through a wilderness, was no child's task in those days. In after-years General Israel Putnam made many a longer journey, through wilds swarming with hostile Indians, too, and thought nothing of it; but ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... your joke, Master Jim," retorted Mrs. Brown, bridling and beaming. "Now, I don't think I'll harness my poor beastie at all. Give me a couple of sticks to keep his head the right way and to poke him gently, and we'll ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... immodest sympathy for herself froze all sympathy for her. Why could she not preserve a well-bred silence upon her sufferings, as did the other old ladies I had met in Kings Port? Why did she drag them in, thrust them, poke them, shove them at you? Thus it was that for her insulting disregard of those whom her words might wound I detested Juno; and as she was a woman, and nearly old enough to be my grandmother, it was, of course, out of the question ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... Jonas to Yellow Pine, "if any hostiles should ever make out to git inside the notch, this 'ere'd be the best kind of fort. Them holes are all big enough to poke a muzzle through." ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... surprised at the sudden fierceness of the other's tone. Nicolovius instantly sprang up and went over to poke the fire; he came back directly, smiling easily and pulling at ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... came back. I went out into the woods, walked up and down the road, but could see nothing of him. The shadows fell short and the old people and Guinea and Chyd returned from church, and the noon-tide meal was spread, but Alf came not. But save with me there was no anxiety, as he was wont to poke about alone they said. Evening, bed-time came. Chyd went home, and I went up to my room. I heard the old man locking the smoke-house door—heard his wife singing a hymn, heard Guinea's faint foot-steps as she returned ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... a crackling chaos. There was no depth in anything, and a mere thought could slay the highest thing in the world. The only thing that ever made his heart laugh was the idea of fineness finding place in himself. A dream of himself in a heroic light sometimes made him poke himself in the ribs, and mock the farce of human vanity. He was like a man in a world that lacked mirrors, a man who sees his dark deformed shadow on the sands, and ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... "You gave it them; strike me, you did! It did me good to see and hear. I wasn't going to poke my nose in, not I. But I admire ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... almost at once, "It's—so much nearer Christmas than it was half an hour ago! Are you sure everything will keep? All those big packages that came yesterday? That humpy one especially? Don't you think you ought to peep? Or poke? Just the teeniest, tiniest little peep or poke? It would be a shame if anything spoiled! A—turkey—or ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... it? I think I'll ask first and see if anybody else is going to give in our names. Perhaps Iva or Nesta may. It would be much nicer than seeming to poke ourselves forward." ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... where fish, brandy, and so forth are offered to him. Some people prostrate themselves before the beast. His entrance into a house is supposed to bring a blessing; and if he snuffs at the food offered to him, this also is a blessing. Nevertheless they tease and worry, poke and tickle the animal continually, so that he is surly and snappish. After being thus taken to every house, he is tied to a peg and shot dead with arrows. His head is then cut off, decked with shavings, and placed on the table where the feast is set out. Here they beg pardon of the beast ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... a world; the people were so flimsy. With a poke of my fist I could kill any one of these master brains. The ten-foot workers seemed mere shells, light and fragile; even the buildings were light and flimsy. The little globe-houses on their sticks seemed to waver, almost like nodding flowers. If we ran amuck ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... things in the most terrible fashion, and he has all sorts of creeps and crawls in his pocket all of the time. He pulls bugs and worms apart and tries to put them together again; and he choked the old rooster nearly to death trying to poke down his throat some bread and mud made up ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... lighted, among other dingy and eccentric shops, upon one that seemed that of a broker of all sorts of old decorations, armor, china, furniture. I entered the shop; it was dark, dusty, and low. The proprietor was busy scouring a piece of inlaid armor, and allowed me to poke about his shop, and examine the curious things accumulated there, just as I pleased. Gradually I made my way to the farther end of it, where there was but one window with many panes, each with a bull's eye in it, and in the dirtiest Possible state. When I reached this window, I turned ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... comes within their reach, to the hens that flutter over our beds and shake the dust of ages from the barn-roof at dawn, to the noisy little children with the dirty faces and meddling fingers, who poke their hands into our haversacks, to the farm servants who inspect all our belongings when we are out on parade, and even now we have become accustomed to the very rats that scurry through the barn at midnight and gnaw at our equipment and devour our rations when they get hold of them. ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... sunset, against a sky that looks as if it might give to the poke of a finger, like a dainty woman's pink flesh, there marches a silhouetted caravan of tower, dome, and the astonished crests of ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... there, master, Can't you make your legs work faster? We can't poke along this way." Then he slowly flew away. Loddy held him fast, you bet, And he ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... begun movin' before I was up to the window with my receipt, callin' for 'em to get a hustle on, as Mr. Doe had run out of veal and had to have it in a hurry. Ever try to poke up one of them box jugglers? They took their time about it—and me lookin' for trouble every tick of the clock! But I got an O. K. on it after awhile, and for a quarter I hired a wagon helper to drag the bundle out and chuck it into the hansom. Then I ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the hotel clerk. "How dare you poke one out of the window, right toward one of our largest banks, and go out, leaving the ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... twinkle in her eyes becoming brighter. "But you must remember that there are spies and spies, good spies and bad spies. All of our law-enforcement officials are spies in their attempts to crush crime. Your mother was a spy when she watched you as a little tot stealing into the pantry to poke your fist into the jam. That is what Mrs. Hutchins suspects is taking place now. Someone has got his or her fist in the jam. We must go and peek in through ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... us never to buy a "pig in a poke." Equally good advice for the heroines of fiction or drama would be never under any circumstances to marry a bridegroom in a mask. In more cases than I can recall, neglect of this simple precaution has led to a peck ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... about the farm any longer. He used to sit in a big cane-bottomed chair close to the fireplace, in winter, and under a big lilac-bush, at the north-east corner of the house, in summer. He kept a stout iron-tipped cane by his side: in the winter, he used it to poke the fire with; in the summer, to rap the hens and chickens which he used to lure round his chair by handfuls of corn and oats. Sometimes he would tap the end of the wooden leg with this cane, and say, laughingly, ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... time, Dr Hellyer marched us all in before him, still holding on to me until he had reached the top of the refectory, where, ordering me to stand up in front of his armchair, he proceeded as usual to poke the fire ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... were high in the air, not on account of any obnoxious odor, but because of this unreasonable meddling with what she considered her own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might have forgotten, she should give notice ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... coal to Newcastle' proved a successful speculation on September 25, 1765, when, on account of a strike among the pitmen, 'several pokes of coal were brought to this town by one of the common carriers, and sold on the Sandhill for 9d. a poke, by which he cleared 6d. a poke.' About the same time, wheat was selling in Darlington and Richmond for 4s. and 4s. 6d. per bushel, after having been nearly double that price only two or three weeks previously. In the number for June ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... wisdom of the ages we sometimes find exact correspondences. Thus "to look a gift-horse in the mouth" is literally reproduced in French and German. Sometimes the symbols vary, e.g., the risk one is exposed to in acquiring goods without examination is called by us "buying a pig in a poke."[75] French and German substitute the cat. We say that "a cat may look at a king." The French dramatis personae are a dog and a bishop. The "bird in hand" which we regard as the equivalent ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... adventure seems to me the most characteristic of all. Y is the most curious figure in Martinique folk-lore. Y is the typical Bitaco,—or mountain negro of the lazy kind,—the country black whom city blacks love to poke fun at. As for the Devil of Martinique folk-lore, he resembles the travailleur at a distance; but when you get dangerously near him, you find that he has red eyes and red hair, and two little horns under his chapeau- Bacou, and feet like ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... conducted by two brothers, Henry and Thomas Gale. They soon saw their business slipping away and sought to regain it by indulging in abuse of the coarsest character. I paid no further attention to their attacks than to occasionally poke fun at them. One Saturday evening I met one of the brothers in the post office. He began an abusive harangue and attempted to draw a pistol. I quickly caught his hand and struck him in the face. Bystanders separated us and he left. I was repeatedly warned that evening to be on my guard, but gave ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... broke no precedents. We started off in fine style, feeling like old-time emperors traveling in state; and within ten minutes we were using paddles ourselves to poke and beat our men into understanding of the laws of balance, they abusing one another while the canoes rocked and took in water through ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... of its faculty one who possessed such excellent taste in the matter of attire. He was universally voted "a swell dresser," and not a few of the older fellows set themselves to a modest emulation of his style. There remained, however, many unregenerate youths who continued to poke fun at "The Conqueror," and of ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... escape from Ruhleben, gloried in the event and in the spirit it showed, and were ready to welcome them heartily—"you two, Henri and Jules, here is a loophole for each of you. You see the parapet of the trench is strengthened with logs cut from the forest, and if you are careful not to poke your heads up above the parapet you have little to fear from enemy bullets. Look away down below you; the ground slopes gradually, and there is nothing to obstruct your fire but the stumps of trees which were cut down months ago. Now, look still farther, and I will tell you something of the position: ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... introduced the commanding officers, and Lord Roberts spoke graciously to them. Some of the officers' horses behaved badly as the big grey car came up to them and some seats were lost that day, but my big charger behaved splendidly. She looked into the big car and wanted to poke her nose into it to see if the driver had any candy or apples. General Hughes, the Minister of Militia, sat in the seat beside Earl Roberts. Age had dealt very kindly with the veteran of Kandahar and South Africa. Although a consistent water drinker, Lord Roberts had a very florid complexion, ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... looked, she saw the pike-gate open and a woman's figure enter, and she kept her eyes idly upon it as she walked on toward the house. The woman came slowly and hesitatingly toward the yard. When she drew nearer, Margaret could see that she wore homespun, home-made shoes, and a poke-bonnet. On her hands were yarn half-mits, and, as she walked, she pushed her bonnet from her eyes with one hand, first to one side, then to the other—looking at the locusts planted along the avenue, the cedars in the yard, the sweep of lawn ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... my time's nearly up and I know it." "Oh, hell!" I exclaimed, with a good-natured impatience, and giving him a poke in the ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... Aubrey, distressed. 'He said not a word—they only found it out—because he found that seat for you, and papa sent him away with you. They only meant to poke fun, and it was his caring that made it come home to him. I wonder you don't like to find that such a ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there for the two that remained. They sought each other's eyes with the pleasantest sense of being together in reality for the first time, and though Janet marked it by nothing more significant than a suggestion that Kendal should poke the fire, there was an appreciable admission in her tone that they were alone and free to talk, which he recognized with great good-will. He poked the fire, and she on her low chair, clasping her knee with both hands, looked almost pretty ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... give a damn. Someone that's got more money than brains. I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw a bull by the tail, an' you needn't think I've forgot the poke in the jaw you give me. I'll ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... tell East to come and back me," said Tom to a small school-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just stopping for a moment to poke his head into the school-house hall, where the lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, "Fight! Tom ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... Brest, he blockaded the port. It was in the depth of winter and the shore was dangerous, but Winslow did his duty so well that the Florida dared not poke her nose outside, until he was compelled, because of shortness of provisions, to steam over to Cadiz to obtain them. He made all haste to return, but when he arrived the Florida had ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... mouth water," she muttered. "Come here, little Gretelkin, poke your head into the oven and tell me if you think it hot enough for us to bake in." At this awful moment ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... willows shivered, wanly lay the snow; The uncommiserating land, so old, So worn, so grey, so niggard in its woe, Peered through its ragged shroud. The lone man sighed, Poured back the gaudy dust into its poke, Gazed at the seething river listless-eyed, Loaded his corn-cob pipe as if to smoke; Then crushed with weariness and hardship crept Into his ragged robe, and ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... will poke about a little, and call some more; and then, if nobody comes, we will hide under the bushes, like ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... think not. Her captain he is too big fool. But I think she have gone down the coast. Those your gunboats poke her nose and shove her oar in every place. How ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... weather for this Priest Captain fellow," Young commented, "if we've got hold of his boss miracle; and I guess you're about right, Professor—he'll want t' take it out of our hides. Just poke up th' Colonel t' telling all he knows about this old dodger. Th' Colonel's got his tongue pretty well greased just now with his own prime old Bourbon—pass me that jar, Rayburn, I don't mind if I have another whack at it myself—and we may get something out of him that will be useful. ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... of costume. His waistcoat hung open—he had laid aside his coat—displaying a broad stitched leather belt that covered the junction between buff corduroy trousers and blue-checked cotton shirt. On his head, a high thimble-crowned straw hat, the frayed brim of it pulled out into a poke in front for the better shelter of small, pale twinkling eyes set in a ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... every mother, little or big, knows is of great importance. When the young father arrived with food, which he did frequently, his spouse stepped to the nearest twig and looked on with interest, while he leaned over and filled one little mouth, or at any rate administered one significant poke which must be thus interpreted. He did not stay long; indeed, he had not time, for this way of supplying the needs of a family is slow business; and although there were but three mouths to fill, three excursions and three hunts were required to fill them. ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... proceed up, section after section, to trace the obstacle that had occasioned the accumulation of debris. When the waste-pipes of a house are clogged, we do not expect the plumber to go to the top of the building and poke substances down the pipe to dislodge the unduly retained material some twenty-five feet or more away. Nor would we believe him if he informed us that the sewer-gas and overflow of waste in the house were the cause of the constipated condition of the drain. But just this is what the doctor declares ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... "That need not trouble you. We exact nothing. How could we ask people to buy a pig in a poke? There's not a working-man in the country but would put us down as having invented an ingenious scheme for living on other people's earnings. It is not money we want; it ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... like a couple of boys. The Shawanoe delighted to tease the noble creature, who delighted to have him do so. One habit of the youth was to pretend he was offended with the stallion. He would turn his back upon him and repel his advances toward a reconciliation. Whirlwind would poke his nose first over one shoulder and then the other, rubbing it against the cheek of Deerfoot. If the latter sulked too long, Whirlwind would show his impatience by flirting his head against that of the youth, whirling about, kicking up his heels and galloping ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... pair, my dear captain! We're a distrustful flock, we birds of prey. Come along! Why sit there sulking, like a spoiled child? You've made an ass of yourself, following me to Paris; sadly though you bungled that job in London, I gave you credit for more wit than to poke your head into the lion's mouth here. But—admitting that—why not be graceful about it? Here am I, amiably treating you like an equal: you might at least show gratitude enough to accept my ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... both missionaries, also poke offering to associate themselves ] changed to: [ both missionaries, also spoke offering ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... poor cloth, the man in a short coat with brass buttons, braided trousers, and a circular cap like a sailor's, and the woman in an old-fashioned dress with a tight-fitting bodice and a gored skirt; and round his cap and round the crown of her poke-bonnet were ribbons on ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... pecking at the solid lump of ice in their water-tin. When we flashed the lantern in their eyes, the hens set up a great cackling and flew about clumsily, scattering down-feathers. The mottled, pin-headed guinea-hens, always resentful of captivity, ran screeching out into the tunnel and tried to poke their ugly, painted faces through the snow walls. By five o'clock the chores were done just when it was time to begin them all over again! That was a ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... without opened, Fanny entered, and there was a momentary revival of animation. "Is Lee here?" she demanded; "but I know he is. The fire is just as attractive at home, yet, even with nothing to do, he'll hardly wait to give it a poke. Where's Peyton?" ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... what about my calculation?" said Murray, giving his companion a poke in the side. ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... had imparted to her friends the Baron's guess as to the probable nature of a poke party, for he was greeted with broad smiles as he made his way through the crowd of men and boys about Mrs. Lance's door into the room where dancing was going on. Melissa came to him and proposed a seat beside Mrs. 'Gene Frady until the cotillon should be ended, but von Rittenheim ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... chicken," said the woman, at the same time giving me a gentle poke in the ribs. Fearing she might, in the exuberance of her joy at the sight of the money, proceed to some more decided demonstration of affection, I hastily stepped into the wagon, bade ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... indulged in a full stop. The natives then retired from those rocks, and commenced their attack by throwing spears through the tea-tree from the opposite side of the creek. Here we had the back of our gunyah for a shield, and could poke the muzzles of our guns and rifles through the interstices of the boughs. We were compelled to discharge our pieces at them to ensure our peace ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... a middle-aged bachelor of quiet tastes, and nothing annoys me more than when my friends poke ponderous fun at me in this fashion. So, ignoring Maitland's facetious suggestion, I calmly walked forward and shook hands with my hostess. She greeted me with her customary cordiality, and in about two minutes I was ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... leading England and showing us all how; instead of which they are just keeping us back. Why in thunder are they doing everything? Not one of them, when he is at home, is allowed to order the dinner or poke his nose into his own kitchen or check the household books.... The ordinary British colonel is a helpless old gentleman; he ought to have a nurse.... This is not merely the trivial grievance of my insulted stomach, it is a serious ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... to say that you are the sole judge of the conditions of the purchase. I don't wish any more than you do to buy a pig in a poke. If to-morrow you authorize me, I won't say to buy, but to let these people know that you may possibly make the purchase, I'll confer with one of them on your behalf, and you may be certain that I'll stand up for your interests as ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... this time there was a tear in her eye. Sanders was little better than an "orra man," and Sam'l was a weaver, and yet—But it was too late now. Sanders gave the pig a vicious poke with a stick, and when it had ceased to grunt, Bell was back in the kitchen. She had forgotten about the milk, however, and Sam'l only got ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... egg, and make an old mutton bone and a few potatoes go metaphorical miles. The knowledge would be a great comfort to him when his little "darlikins'" feet-of-clay began to show through her silk stockings. As it is, marriage to him is little but a supreme example of buying a pig in a poke, followed by an immediate slump ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... young giant cut and cut and cut: great purple-bodied poke, strung with crimson-juiced seed; great burdock, its green burrs a plague; great milkweed, its creamy sap gushing at every gash; great thistles, thousand-nettled; great ironweed, plumed with royal purple; now and then a straggling bramble prone with velvety berries—the ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... long enough," said George Cannon, as he stooped to poke the morsel of fire in the old-fashioned grate, which had a hob on either side. On one of these hobs was a glass of milk. Hilda had learnt that day for the first time that at a certain hour every evening George ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Pap to look in the green chist and send me the spotted caliker poke that he'll find under the big bun'le. Don't you let him give you that thar big bun'le; 'caze that's not a thing but seed corn, and he'll be mad ef it's tetched. Fell Pap that what's in the spotted poke ain't nothin' that he wants. Tell him it's—well, tell him ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... verdant Vermont, Of wisdom you may be a marvellous font; But you'll hardly get JOHN,—'tis too much of a joke!— To buy in your fashion a Pig in a Poke; Which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... that was right astern, rolling now and again with a stiff lurch to port and then to starboard, and diving her nose down one moment with her stern lifting, only to rise again buoyantly the next instant and shake the spray off her jib-boom as she pointed it upwards, trying to poke a hole in ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and from the boxes. At length the Captain found himself in a perfect hornet's nest, surrounded by vicious young secessionists, so perfectly nullified in the growth that they were all ready to shoulder muskets, pitchforks, and daggers, and to fire pistols at poor old Uncle Sam, if he should poke his nose in South Carolina. The picture presented was that of an unruly set of children dictating their opinions to a hoary-headed old daddy-accusing him of pragmatism, and threatening, if he was twice as old, they'd whip him unless he ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... care. Pray don't poke and spy when you come into the room, and don't frown when you are trying to see. I hope you won't have anything to help at dinner. Take care how ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... old relative hopped about in her flat slippers and piped indignantly, Jacobus towered over her and murmured placidly in his throat; I joined jocularly from a distance, throwing in a few words, for which under the cover of the night I received secretly a most vicious poke in the ribs from the old woman's elbow or perhaps her fist. I restrained a cry. And all the time the girl didn't even condescend to raise her head to look at any of us. All this may sound childish—and yet that stony, petulant sullenness had ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... pretty good one. Ah, you missed him again. It wants a sharp poke, my lad. Well, now then," he added, as Bart, recovered himself after an ineffectual thrust, "what ought that young man to have done, ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... Dr. Armin J. Deutsch, took an oblique poke at True and me. "I don't think anyone—and that includes astronomers—knows enough about them to ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... sub," said another. "I used to poke around the Great Barrier Reef, skindiving out the air lock or loafing on the surface. You wouldn't believe how blue the waves could be. They tell me on Rustum you can't come down off ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... and tingled through every inch of him. Helen should sit in the chair when she pleased; Mary should be allowed to dress and undress the large woollen dog, known as "Sulks," his own especial and beloved property, so often as she wished; Jampot should poke the twisted end of the towel in his ears and brush his hair with the hard brushes, and he would not say a word. Aunt Mary should kiss him (as, of course, she would want to do), and he would not shiver; he would (bravest deed of all) allow Mary to read "Alice in Wonderland" ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... slim, willowy girl, with masses of brown hair coiled in the funnel depths of a poke bonnet, a long check apron and a pair of tin buckets, became the typical guardian angel ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... on the catch cloth and heating the under side of the joint with it. To form the joint, distribute the solder and then wipe it into shape. Notice that I said wipe it into shape. A beginner is very apt to try to push or poke it into shape. This must not be done as it has a tendency to make the joint lumpy. All the edges are wiped off clean first, then the body of the joint is shaped and wiped. When forming the joint, be sure that the bottom and the top are symmetrical. Do not have one-half ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... dead. But yesterday he was the father of six children, running from May, the eldest, who was thirteen and at school, to the baby, just old enough to poke its little fingers into its father's eyes and crow and jump when he came in from his long and dreary tramps. They were as happy a little family as a family of eight could be with the wolf scratching at the door, its nose already poking through. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... do," he went on, "is to chase this good ole snake around, and sort o' laugh and keep pokin' it with the handle o' that rake yonder. I'm goin' to saw it off just so's you can poke your good ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... the eaves where the swallows had lived when we first came there. Then, as it grew dark, we sat on the little veranda while we smoked our cigars—that is, Gregory Wilkinson and I smoked: all that Susan did was to try to poke her finger through the rings which I blew towards her—and I told why we had come down there, and what a good start we had made towards finding my great-great-great-uncle's buried money. And when I had got through, Susan told ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... Bullion that short man, father, with the cold eyes and gruff voice, and the queer eyebrow which he seems to poke ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... "Oh, they didn't do that! They didn't poke fun at my feast, that I ordered so carefully for them! And my little Chinese costume that I was so happy making—I made it secretly, to surprise them. And they've been ridiculing it, all ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... this, Gerald burst into a hearty fit of laughter. Tom at first felt inclined to quarrel with him, but a poke in the ribs from his messmate, and the word "humbug," made him instead join in Desmond's cachinnations. Adair had invited his midshipmen to dine with him, and had by his kind remarks succeeded in driving Tom's absurd notions out of his head. Tom, who really felt ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... We've got through with that fun for to-day. What are you going to do, boys? Say we go around to Poke's, and see ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... even when you're outside the three-mile limit I want you to remember, Mike, that the good ship Narcissus is under the American flag. The Narcissus needs all her space for cargo, Mike. There is no room aboard her for a feud. Don't ever poke your nose into Terence Reardon's engine-room except on his invitation or for the purpose of locating a leak. Treat him with courtesy and do not discuss politics or religion when you meet him at table, which will be about ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... to the forge; Frank and the young ladies made their way across the green. At the corner of Southdown Road they found the General, the schoolmaster, and a retired farmer ardently gossiping; Mrs. Horlock, prim in her black gown and poke bonnet, waited with admirable patience, and Angel, the blind pug, in horrible corpulence, waddled and sniffed the grass. The story of Town's impertinence was told. The General was shocked—it was surprising. What are we coming to? The retired farmer said that Town was a hot-tempered ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... have to get in that for a fire," remarked Dozia. She was, however, trying on the scaly breastplate, and attempting to poke her head into the helmet. "Are you sure this stuff is no world's war relic? I wouldn't care to rub shoulders with ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... with "Academics," "Seminaries," and "Institutes," which glisten along our bays and rivers; these are the strong-holds of Yankee usurpation; but if haply you light upon some rough, rambling road, winding between stone fences, gray with moss, and overgrown with elder, poke-berry, mullein, and sweet-briar, with here and there a low, red-roofed, whitewashed farm-house, cowering among apple and cherry trees; an old stone church, with elms, willows, and button-woods, as old-looking as itself, and tombstones almost buried in their own graves; and, peradventure, a small ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... race with which a Southern household abounds, engaged in shelling peas, peeling potatoes, picking pin-feathers out of fowls, and other preparatory arrangements, Dinah every once in a while interrupting her meditations to give a poke, or a rap on the head, to some of the young operators, with the pudding-stick that lay by her side. In fact, Dinah ruled over the woolly heads of the younger members with a rod of iron, and seemed to consider them born for no earthly purpose but to "save her steps," as she phrased ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... gazing resignedly toward the trees. Later on he managed to get some life into his watch and eventually it gave promise of faithful work. He set the hands at twelve o'clock. It was broiling hot by this time, and he was thoughtful enough to construct a poke-bonnet for her, utilizing a huge palm leaf. Proudly he placed the green protector upon her black hair. Then, looking into her smiling eyes, he tied the grass ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... no idea of her countermoves. The scheme seemed to him in proper train, and he turned to poke out the fire. She instantly seized the glass, and poured its contents down her bosom. When he faced round again she was holding the ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... at the sudden fierceness of the other's tone. Nicolovius instantly sprang up and went over to poke the fire; he came back directly, smiling easily and pulling at his ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... found my way through Turkey to the royal capital without difficulty. The poke bonnet, the spectacles and the long black dress which I had assumed had proved an ample protection. None of the rude Turkish soldiers among whom I had passed had offered to lay a hand on me. This tribute I am compelled ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... for its contents, the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons are responsible. Perhaps you'd like to poke your nose ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... academic adaptation of the ecclesiastical almuce, and was not the same as the hood, although the almuce seems to have been in the first place nothing but an ordinary hood with a lining of fur to keep out the cold. The original meaning of "typet" was the poke of the cowl, in which, the reader may happen to remember, Chaucer's Frere was in the habit of carrying his knives and pins. Academically, it was a distinct article of dress, lined with fur, and formed part of the insignia of the ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... and to what he conceived to be human nature, he overlooked the at least equally important appeal to History. He seems indeed to have avoided coming to close quarters with the historical defenders of the Christian Creed. It was easy enough to poke fun at Archbishop Thomson, Bishop Wilberforce, and Bishop Ellicott; Mr. Moody, and the Rev. W. Cattle, and the clergymen who write to the Guardian. But Bishop Lightfoot he left severely alone, with Bishop Westcott and Dr. Sanday and students of the same authority; and he would ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... When he had reached that point, he brought out a dark-colored quilt with a white ruffle all around the edge. (We liked dark quilts and had quite a number that never seemed to need washing.) In the middle of this quilt he had cut a hole, just large enough to poke his head through and be snug about the neck. When he got that on he pulled on a pair of old slippers that he had tacked tin soles onto. The next and last piece to the harness was his red and blue worsted toboggan cap with a long peak minus the tassel—it was very necessary for the head to get the ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... the right!" shouted the blacksmith-tyrant. "Ready, exercise—one, two"—and so on. And then he would yell: "No, Chalmers, don't punch out with your arms—swing up your gun! Swing it up from the bottom! That's the way! Poke 'em! Poke 'em! Put the punch into 'em!" And over Jimmie stole a cold horror. There was nothing on the end of those guns but a little black hole, but Jimmie knew what was supposed to be there—what would some day be there; ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... see any use of your going down there at all," Ebenezer went on, turning to poke the fire. "It doesn't look well after the things that happened ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... and a plenty of frigates, too. The Frenchy must have suspicioned where I was bound, for he has followed us up sharp, and as we came by South Head I seen him jest a bilin' along 'bout ten mile astarn, and now he'll poke into every hole of the bay till he finds us. Anyhow, there won't be no chance to trade long as he's round, for you folks don't dare say your soul's your own when there's a Frenchy on ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... we can help it; for I am sorry to say they are relations of ours who do us no credit. A great many years ago they were just like us: but they were so lazy, and cowardly, and greedy, that instead of going down to the sea every year to see the world and grow strong and fat, they chose to stay and poke about in the little streams and eat worms and grubs; and they are very properly punished for it; for they have grown ugly and brown and spotted and small; and are actually so degraded in their tastes, that they ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... for we wore low-necked dresses and the thinnest of slippers in the street, our heads being about the only part that was completely covered. I was particularly proud of a turban surmounted with a bird of paradise, but Lady B—- affected poke bonnets, then just coming into fashion, so large and so deep that when one looked at her from the side nothing was visible except two curls, ‘as damp and as black as leeches.’ In other ways our toilets were absurdly unsuited for every-day wear; we wore light scarves over our necks, and rarely ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... holding hands, dance around him, saying: "Frog in the middle, jump in, jump out, take a stick and poke him out." As the last line is sung, the frog takes one child by the hands and pulls him to the center, exchanging places with him. The children continue dancing around and singing while the frogs jump thick and fast. The game continues until all have been frogs ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... they could see was the place where the mole had dug. And perhaps you may see, in your garden or on your lawn, a little raised ridge, or long, low hill of dirt, some morning. If you poke your finger, or a stick, down in it you will find ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis
... smells coming out of deep holes with a plate at the top. Hungry I mean to a man who has known what absolute starvation is—when a man would thank God for a blue-bottle fly who had taken his own nip any where. When I see the young fellows at the clubs pick this, and poke that, and push away the other, may I be d——d—my dear, I beg your pardon. Cabby, to the 'Grilled Bone and Scolloped Cockle,' at the bottom of St. Ventricle ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... regarded as would-be lawless poachers upon our own private property; therefore when we of the cabin returned to the deck after a hasty meal, which we had bolted in less than a quarter of an hour, all hands were on deck, ready and waiting for orders. Accordingly no sooner did the skipper poke his head out of the companion and bellow the order to loose all fore-and-aft canvas than the group on the forecastle split itself up into sections, one section actually running aft to cast loose the mainsail, while ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... to having her picture taken she said, "all right, but don't you-all poke fun at me because I am just as God ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... have your joke, Master Jim," retorted Mrs. Brown, bridling and beaming. "Now, I don't think I'll harness my poor beastie at all. Give me a couple of sticks to keep his head the right way and to poke him gently, and we'll beat you ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... join? It is but a step of a way, after all, and sailing as smooth as a duck-pond as soon as you're past Cape Finisterre. I'll run a Clovelly herring-boat there and back for a wager of twenty pound, and never ship a bucketful all the way. Who'll join? Don't think you're buying a pig in a poke. I know the road, and Salvation Yeo, here, too, who was the gunner's mate, as well as I do the narrow seas, and better. You ask him to show you the chart of it, now, and see if he don't tell you over the ruttier as well as ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Yellow Pine, "if any hostiles should ever make out to git inside the notch, this 'ere'd be the best kind of fort. Them holes are all big enough to poke a muzzle through." ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... jig is up!" he murmured, "At daybreak they will find that the baron's cell is empty. They will poke their heads out of the window, and they will see you here, like a stone saint upon his pedestal. Naturally, you will be captured, tried, condemned; and you will be led out to take your turn in the ditches. Ready! Aim! Fire! And that will be the ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... with the other. "In the sight of God," he cried, "you are as guilty as if you stabbed your slaves to the heart, as I do this book!" suiting the action to the word, and piercing a small bladder filled with the juice of poke-weed (playtolacca decandra), which he had concealed between the covers, and sprinkling as with fresh blood those who sat near him. John Woolman makes no mention of this circumstance in his Journal, although he was probably present, and it must have made a deep impression on his sensitive ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Bathe digs and climbs and clips and gathers, therefore she wears easily laundered garments; a white linen or cotton skirt and blouse, a Chinese coat to the knees, of pink cotton crepe and an Isle-of-Jersey sun-bonnet, a poke with curtain, to protect the neck and strings to tie it on. So while she claims never to have consciously considered being a decorative note in her own garden, her trained instinct for costuming herself appropriately and becomingly brings about ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... still and don't disturb the little ones. Imogene, that lesson must be learned before I come back, you know. Now, dear, that was very, very naughty. When Mamma tells you to do things you mustn't pout and poke Stella with your foot in that way. It isn't nice at all. Stella is younger than you, and you ought to set her samples, as Nursey says. Look at Ning Po Ganges, how good she is, and how she minds all I say, and yet she's ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... German's turn to be astonished. Ranjoor Singh strode in, dressed as a Sikh farmer, and frowned down Yasmini's instant desire to poke fun at him. The German rose to salute him, and the Sikh acknowledged the salute with a nod such as royalty ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... replied the lady addressed, as the tailoress sat down in the flag-bottomed rocking-chair, and began rocking vehemently, all the time eyeing Lizzy from the depths of her poke-bonnet with patient scrutiny. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... thought Andy. "I didn't think it was half as heavy. There must be a pound of bullets inside. Now," he said to himself, "suppose a big thafe was to poke his dirty head in at the winder and say, 'Give me all your money, or I'll break your head'—I'd put up with the gun and point at him ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... off the nest only to follow the movements of the owners thereof; and I learned that sitting had begun, and that the brooding bird was fed by her mate. He came, always from a distance, directly to the nest, alighted on the edge, leaned over and gave one poke downward, while low yearning or pleading cries reached my ears. Without lingering an instant he flew to a perch a foot above, stood there half a minute, and then went to the ground. Not more than thirty seconds elapsed before he returned to his mate, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... cross bar, E, as arranged in relation to the yoke, C, and in combination with the poke, A, in the manner as and for the ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... given up painting? Oh, no! I daub a little in oils, slop a little in watercolors, sketch now and then, and poke about the studios when the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... "pay him gold pieces five," "How—pay a rogue?" the Knight did fierce retort. "A ribald's rant—give good, gold pieces for't? A plague! A pest! The knave should surely die—" But here he met Duke Joc'lyn's fierce blue eye, And silent fell and in his poke did dive, And slowly counted thence gold pieces five, Though still he muttered fiercely 'neath his breath, Such baleful words as: "'S blood!" and "'S bones!" ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... terrace where they had played in their childhood and sauntered through youth and middle age to these latter days, when they leant upon silver-headed sticks, and wore dignified silk attire and respectable poke-bonnets. ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... she said, emphasizing every word with a poke. 'He's too smooth and handsome, his eyes ain't true, and his tongue's too smart. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... of what proggin' meant, Moses said he wasn't quite sure. He could "understand t'ings easy enough though he couldn't allers 'splain 'em." On the whole he thought that prog had a compound meaning—it was a combination of poke and pull "wid a flavour ob ticklin' about it," ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... him to come down again. She says when Gran'ma Mullins realized as he wouldn't come down she most went mad over the notion of her only son's spendin' the Christmas Eve to his own weddin' sleepin' on the floor o' the attic and she wanted to poke the cot up to him but Mrs. Macy says she drew the line at cot-pokin' when the cot was all she'd have to sleep on herself, and in the end they poked quilts up, an' pillows an' doughnuts an' cider an' blankets, an' Hiram made a bed on the floor ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... after all, he might force the conversation to soar far above the mere materialities. His hobbies began to poke forth their noses, to whinny, to neigh; but some force stronger or more dexterous than himself seemed to be guiding the talk, and the name of Medora Giles began to mingle with the click of silver on china and to weave itself into ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... miles. The knowledge would be a great comfort to him when his little "darlikins'" feet-of-clay began to show through her silk stockings. As it is, marriage to him is little but a supreme example of buying a pig in a poke, followed by an immediate slump ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... whom conversation was possible, and a walk alone with Nanna and Margaretta would be dull. She was relieved, therefore, at three o'clock to find that Sophia Jane was ready to go too, dressed in a very unbecoming poke bonnet and black cape. They might be out one hour and a half, Aunt Hannah said, but there was a little delay at starting because each of the elder girls wished to go in a different direction. Nanna preferred the ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... feature; and while I'm in England, I'll ask you to keep your eyes skinned and try and find out as much about Giuseppe as you can. Not from his wife, however. I needn't tell you that. You'll be free to poke about and try and surprise 'Red Waistcoat.' Perhaps you'll do the trick; but take care he doesn't surprise you. All I ask is that you don't believe a quarter you hear, or half you see. We must get under the appearances ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... depot by the bright light streaming through the holes in my box-lid. I was carried up the steps into the sleeping-car, and for the next quarter of an hour it seemed to me that my box changed position every two minutes. The porter was getting us settled for the night He was about to poke the box that held me under the berth where little Elsie and her nurse were to sleep, when Stuart called him from the berth above, into which he had just climbed. So I was tossed up as if I had been an ordinary piece of baggage, the porter ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... in particular who, when the horse got his leg over the trace without hurting himself or any one else, got up and announced to the 'bus in general: "There, I always did say I hated horses and dogs," and sat down again. I loved her for that and for other things too, among them her apple-cheeks and poke bonnet. ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... the English players are wise, perhaps without knowing it. Unadulterated truth sometimes comes off second best in the theatre, as is proved by the ancient story of the actor who was hissed because instead of imitating the squeaks of a pig he pinched the tail of a real porker in a poke; upon the stage a little truth is sometimes dangerous, a great deal often fatal. As a last word, in these as in all other germane matters our British productions are vastly more accurate than those that come from the other side of the Atlantic. It may be the fact that ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... noticed, at the other end of the pueblo from her quarters, a large room which was frequented by men alone. It might be a temple; it might be a hall for the transaction of public business; such were the diverse guesses of the travellers. Into the mysteries of this apartment Aunt Maria resolved to poke. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... yours for the same reason you want to see ours—curiosity. I like to poke my nose in wherever ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... shoulders!"—followed by a momentary stop to shift the pole. And you always cross a town to the tune of "Pei-a, pei-a, pei-a!"—"Mind your back, mind your back, mind your back!" And if a man does not mind, he is likely to get a poke in the back ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... cane and gave the pig a poke. He poked it two or three times, and he had just remarked, "That certainly is a splendid pig," when he gave it another poke, and then somehow the pistol in the cane went off and the pig rolled ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... to poke at her mistress in order to hurry her movements. Mrs. Martin opened the dining-room door and stood just for a minute on the threshold. She looked at that moment a perfect lady. Her gentle, faded face and extreme slimness gave her a grace of demeanor which Lady Lysle was quick to ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... better, as the "feeble." Oh, if only these feeble ones were not in power! How is it that they concern themselves at all about what we call them! They are the rulers, and he is a poor ruler who cannot endure to be called by a nickname. Yes, if one only have power, one soon learns to poke fun—even at oneself. It cannot matter so very much, therefore, even if one do give oneself away; for what could not the purple mantle of triumph conceal? The strength of the Culture-Philistine steps into the broad light of day when he acknowledges his weakness; and the more he acknowledges ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... in all." And she had not understood the guide's story of a legend that was attached to this particular house. Perhaps if she had she would not have cared; but now I was free I couldn't resist the temptation of going in, to poke about a little. You could go several floors down, the guide had said; that was certain, but the tale was, that a secret way led down from the lowest cellar of this cave house, continuing—if one could only find it—to the enchanted cavern far below, where Taven, the witch, kept and cured ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... and bacon monthly for the present,—in lieu of an increase of wages. Most of the proprietors are offering rather better terms than the Government,—some in money, others in a larger share of the crop. We keep the Government scale of prices, but give them the "poke" and "sweet'ning," and I think have touched their sensibilities much more ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... are a stern-eyed folk Who may or may not take a joke; It really isn't safe to poke Light fun at any three-ringed bloke; You may be sorry that you spoke. Their ways are proud; they sport the oak; They are not tame enough to stroke; I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... is a certain class (it may be of men, or it may be of women, but that is not the question in point)—how comes it, dear sir, there is a certain class of persons whom you always attack in your writings, and savagely rush at, goad, poke, toss up in the air, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... off the houseboat, while we sat on the windlass box enjoying the fresh breeze in our faces and watching the driftage catch on our anchor chain. Of course one can sit right down on the bobby bow itself with feet hanging over, and poke with a stick at the flotsam. But that is only for moments of lazy leisure, not for a time when one is ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... words surprised her. Did he, too, believe in the fatal omen, though he was trying to mislead her and poke fun at the ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... like Rrr and took a breath. "If you weren't an acolyte, I'd take a poke at you ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... in the bedrooms to make all kinds of mysterious measurements, to open and shut doors, to examine closets, to try window-sashes, even to poke her head up ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... the ornamental fountain, glance at the semicircular seat let into a dismal little Temple of the Sun, we shall see a half-moon of apathetic figures. There, enjoying a moment of lugubrious idleness, may be sitting an old countrywoman with steady eyes in a lean, dusty-black dress and an old poke-bonnet; by her side, some gin-faced creature of the town, all blousy and draggled; a hollow-eyed foreigner, far gone in consumption; a bronzed young navvy, asleep, with his muddy boots jutting straight out; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sake," he said naively. "It is because I don't want people to poke fun at me, even if I ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... "Let's poke a hole in their gas bag," proposed Sam. "That will make them think they're not so smart ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... hope to quit the dreadful field Delug'd with ink, and sleep behind my shield; Unless dire Codrus rouses to the fray In all his might, and damns me—for a day. As turns a flock of geese, and, on the green, Poke out their foolish necks in awkward spleen, (Ridiculous in rage!) to hiss, not bite, So war their quills, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... said that he quite understood this, and that we should in fact reply that it was an offer "to buy a pig in a poke" which we were not prepared to accept. He added that he thought his Government would fully anticipate a reply in this sense, and he himself ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... that the scribe's daughter Ann, Cinderella, was standing lonely and hanging her head by the tiled stove at the end of the room. I forthwith hastened to her, pressed the little packet which Mistress Grosz had given me into her hand—for I had it still hidden in my poke—and, whispered to her: "I had two of them, little Ann; make haste and pour them ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... awètsal (cliff rose) in the north; join them together at the top and cover them with any shrubs you choose. Get two small forked sticks, the length of the forearm, to pass the hot stones into the sweat-house, and one long stick to poke the stones out of the fire, and let all these sticks be such as have their bark abraded by the antlers of the deer. Take of all the plants on which the deer most like to browse and spread them on the floor of ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... this as a wholly insane proceeding. Was he going to attempt to poke a hole through ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... in this his most solemn and kingly mood, and with a friend's privilege told him not to be so simple as to buy a pig in a poke. The lady, he said, had not been to court, consequently she had not been seen by those best able to judge of her reputed beauty. Her fame rested wholly on the report of the people of her own country, who were great as every one knew at blowing their own trumpets. ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... other boys of his own age. A favourite sport was Hunting the Ring. In this game the boys would get together quite a large heap of sand. In this sand one of them would hide a ring, and then the urchins would all get slender sticks and poke around in the pile trying to find the ring. Whoever succeeded in getting the ring on his stick won the game, and carried the prize home ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... and I'm sure every word of it is true,' she cried. 'I'm enchanted with the mysterious meeting at Westminster Abbey in the Mid-Victorian era. Can't you see the elderly lady in a huge crinoline and a black poke bonnet, and the wizard in a ridiculous hat, a bottle-green frock-coat, and a flowing tie ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... much," said Vuyning. "Six months old in cut, one inch too long, and half an inch too much lapel. Your hat is plainly dated one year ago, although there's only a sixteenth of an inch lacking in the brim to tell the story. That English poke in your collar is too short by the distance between Troy and London. A plain gold link cuff-button would take all the shine out of those pearl ones with diamond settings. Those tan shoes would be exactly the articles to work into the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... Billie, laughing at him. "Hurry up and eat, you folks," she added, as she set a dish of fried hominy before them. "We girls haven't really made a thorough examination of the attic yet, and I'm just dying to poke into ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... quite long enough," said George Cannon, as he stooped to poke the morsel of fire in the old-fashioned grate, which had a hob on either side. On one of these hobs was a glass of milk. Hilda had learnt that day for the first time that at a certain hour every evening George Cannon drank a glass of warm milk, and that this glass of warm milk was an important ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... W'en dat chile rize up, ef rize up he do, he'll des nat'ally be a shadder. Yer I is, gwine on eighty year, en I aint tuck none er dat ar docter truck yit, ceppin' it's dish yer flas' er poke-root w'at ole Miss Favers fix up fer de stiffness in my j'ints. Dey'll come en dey'll go, en dey'll po' in der jollup yer, en slap on der fly-plarster dar, en sprinkle der calomy yander, twel bimeby dat chile won't look like hisse'f. ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... get myself up for the day; and we don't shut up until ten o'clock at night; so you see my professional duties are very confining, and a real, live African gorilla is not supposed to have first-rate credit with the people who poke stale sandwiches and peanuts ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... rested the butt o' his rifle," he said, positively, and Thad knew it was exactly as Eli declared, just as though he could himself see the actions of the hidden man. "Got on his knees and crawled up to whar he c'ud poke his nose outen the scrub hyar, an' watch us. And hyar's whar he was arestin' on jest wun knee; cause ye kin see the mark o' his ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... against it he squeezed, As Betty then laid on the grizzly her blows. Now on his forehead, and now on his nose, Her man through the key-hole kept shouting within, "Well done, my brave Betty, now hit him agin, Now poke with the poker, and' poke his eyes out." So, with rapping and poking, poor Betty alone At last laid Sir Bruin as dead as ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... doctor until it was too late to cure them, and McQueen was not the man to pay social visits. Of his skill we knew fearsome stories, as that, by looking at Archie Allardyce, who had come to broken bones on a ladder, he discovered which rung Archie fell from. When he entered a stuffy room he would poke his staff through the window to let in fresh air, and then fling down a shilling to pay for the breakage. He was deaf in the right ear, and therefore usually took the left side of prosy people, thus, as he explained, making a blessing of an affliction. "A pity I don't hear better?" I have ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... there was a dead point at the hedge-row. "Look to, Frank!" "Ay! ay! Poke them out, Tim;" then followed sundry bumps and threshings of the briers, and out with a noisy flutter burst two birds ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... cook, whose nose and chin both were high in the air, not on account of any obnoxious odor, but because of this unreasonable meddling with what she considered her own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might have forgotten, she ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... anything so tiresome as you are. Why will you poke your nose in where you're not wanted? ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... Santa Fe caravan was a noble sight: the enormous hooded wagons, flaring like poke bonnets, each drawn by twelve and sixteen oxen or mules, lumbering on in a long double file or sometimes four abreast; the booted teamsters trudging beside the fore-wheels, cracking their eighteen-foot lashes; the armed out-riders guarding the flanks—galloping here and there ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... knows. But I seen a thousand armed men this mornin'. They sure looked bad. You ought to have seen them poke ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... him if you saw him," she retorted. "Besides, he could see you long before you could see him, for his eyes are wonderfully keen." Then she gave her son a poke that sent him into the tunnel and bouncing down upon the soft nest at the bottom of it. "You stay there until I come home again!" she called. "Do you want to go where your two brothers and your three ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... appears, have a habit of poking out of mobs, grazing quietly as they edge off until "they're gone before you miss 'em." Camps seem to have some special attraction for pokers, but we learned they object to interference. Poke round peaceful as cats until "you rile them," Dan told us, and then glided into a tale of how a poker "had us all ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... room and the next one opened into each other and were quite large, and both were covered with heavy rugs. Pussy's favorite game was to race back and forth from one end of the rugs to the other; sometimes he would poke his nose under the edge of a rug and wriggle in between the rug and the floor until he was simply a hump in the middle of it, like a dumpling. It was well Miss Mary always knew where he was, or he might have been stepped on some fine evening. But he was feeling altogether ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37. No. 16., April 19, 1914 • Various
... which seems to have been drinking,—but still it was up and ready to try a step or two if necessary. But now the dog, who had been keeping a sharp eye on every move, became so personally interested that he gave it a poke with his nose; and over it went. This must have been discouraging. The lamb, dazed for a moment, waited for the spirit to move it, and up it came again, a little groggy but still in the ring. It staggered, got its legs crossed and ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... past Harriet Burrell's hiding place so close that she might have reached out an oar and touched it. She was tempted to give the person in the stern of the boat a poke with her oar, but wisely refrained from doing anything of the sort. After the boat had passed, Harriet sat perfectly still, arms folded, a quiet smile ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... Maurier thought that it would look pretty if every little lady in the land were to wear black stockings; and every little lady did: as unfalteringly as when Miss Kate Greenaway imposed upon them smocks and poke-bonnets, or when Mrs. Hodgson Burnett clad mothers' darlings in black velvet Fauntleroy suits, with bright-coloured sashes wound round their middles. As the volumes are examined, the reader becomes aware of the enduring value of Punch as a History of Costume in the Victorian ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... in bloom at this season, climbing around the sides and supports. Does Alexander sit here in the autumn sunshine and while the hours away? Nay, in fact he is still one of the active, working members of the family, ever in the fields with his grandchildren, poke around his neck, extracting fleecy cotton from the bolls and putting it deftly into the poke. He can carry his row equally as well as any of the six grandchildren. He has a good appetite at meal time, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... the new brain track in it, is to send him a copy of the book to say yes or no to. Then if he does not agree with me and I am tempted to argue with him, I will drop the matter with him at once, send him to Alexander, have Alexander set him in a chair, tap him on the back, poke him thoughtfully, psycho-mechanically in the ribs, unlimber his mind from his body, untangle him psycho-physically, put him in shape so that he can think free, listen without obsessions and mental automatism—that is, get him so that he can set ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... by the legs, and when all the Madangs were assembled in Tama Usun Tasi's house, the pig was brought in and placed in front of the chiefs. Then one of the head men from a neighbouring village took a lighted piece of wood and singed a few of the bristles of the pig, giving it a poke with his hand at the same time, as if to attract its attention, and calling in a loud voice to the supreme being, "Bali Penyalong." Then, talking at a great rate and hardly stopping for a moment to take ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... choo-choo car the boys rolled away in, I came upon a youth who held me up in the middle of the road and asked how I'd like to continue my run against time in an airship. He was a cheeky looking chap, and I felt like giving him a poke in the breather, when he grinned and gave me the Boy ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... not so much as a head of asparagus ever presumed to poke itself out of the ground, without the especial permission of Ceres, you may conceive what a terrible calamity had here fallen upon the earth. The husbandmen ploughed and planted as usual; but there lay the rich black furrows, all as barren as a desert of sand. The pastures ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... neglect, while to a penetrating eye none of these wretched veils suffice to keep the cruel truth from being seen. Poverty is hic et ubique," says he, "and if you do shut the jade out of the door, she will always contrive in some manner to poke her pale, lean face ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... read it? There 'twas laid out on the table when I came down to poke up the fire and set the kettle on. There wasn't no name on it, so 'twan't till I'd read it clear through that I knew 'twas for Miss Martha. It said: 'Have gone to Boston to see—er—what's-his-name and Somebody-else ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... serious case he considers as well as Doctor Horace, 'naturam cum furca expellas'; 'Dame Nature' (i.e.) 'you must poke with a prong.' Pretty poking she gets ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... sling no gun on you as long as you owe me money. I ain't a-goin' to cut the bottom out of m' own money-poke, Chad; you don't need to swivel up in your hide, ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... a vigorous poke, sending a thick shower of sparks up the chimney. The seaman glanced ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... to nibble the grass amongst which its mother is feeding. Sometimes it has a little run by itself, but seeks the maternal bosom at the slightest intimation of danger. It quits the pouch for good when it can crop the herbage freely; but even now it will often poke its head into its early home and get a little refreshment on the sly, even though a new-comer may have succeeded ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... me to poke no fun at Pete's looks. There's a place where a humarious turn of mind orter stop. Pete's looks was too serious for any man to get comic about. It appeared as if his features had been blowed on to his face by a gale of wind; his whiskers had a horrified ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... sacrifice, even though sustained by her religious exaltation, to lay aside everything pretty and becoming, and, denying herself even so much as a flower from nature's own fields, to array herself in the scant and sober dress of drab, the untrimmed kerchief, and the poke bonnet. ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... and that the truth which lies in books, and which we wish them to assimilate, has been wrought out of human experience, and not brought down miraculously from some remote storehouse of wisdom that is accessible only to the elect. We poke a good deal of fun at book learning nowadays, and there is a pedantic type of book learning that certainly deserves all the ridicule that can be heaped upon it. But it is not wise to carry satire and ridicule too far in any direction, and especially when it may mean creating in young minds ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... part of the money, "I ain't agoin' to take it, so you needn't poke it out at me. I'm all right; or, if I ain't, I'll make it up on the next broadcloth or officer I carry; never you fear! us fellows knows how to take care of ourselves, you'd better believe!" which statement Jim would have known to be truth, without the necessity of repetition, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... covered with blood, looked like the battered relic of a forty years' war. A red bandanna pinioned his arms to his sides, and a strong man at each elbow spurred his flagging footsteps by an occasional poke with a pine branch. Ally followed at a few paces, looking about as dilapidated as the culprit himself. To him evidently belonged ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Mandy and me said," drawled Pleasant. "If you poke yore nose over the line 'bout three of us will shoot you on sight. We'd do it fer Juno, an' if she ain't alive we'll do it ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... crawl out from under his tent, with the help of others. He had several bumps to prove what a close call it had been. The others could not lose a chance to poke fun at him; for it was not often the opportunity came when the fun-maker of the troop ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... day when the Three Bears discovered the Enchanted Land where bears may walk without fear of harm, and may safely poke their noses into any man's tent if they choose, from that day, Little Bear teased ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... house together and whenever she spoke he contradicted her with a sort of vicious playfulness. Tried to poke clumsy fun at her. Called her 'Lady Harman.' Only it was quite evident that what she said stuck in his mind.... Very ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... along and set the table if you ain't so full of whatever is got into you that you can't count straight. Bill won't be in to-night. Leastwise, Jim don't expect him." And Ma Bailey flapped her apron at him and shooed him out as though he were a chicken that had dared to poke its inquisitive ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... that if one of his herd got strayed off into another county, they hadn't no telegraf to head it off, but the old man had to poke off through rain or sun, and hunt it up himself. And he couldn't set down cross-legged in front of his tent in the mornin', and read what happened on the other side of the world, ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... concerning German sexual morality. In Hanover, it is said in this work, the majority of authorities state that intercourse before marriage is the rule. At the very least, a probe, or trial, is regarded as a matter-of-course preliminary to a marriage, since no one wishes "to buy a pig in a poke." In Saxony, likewise, we are told, it is seldom that a girl fails to have intercourse before marriage, or that her first child is not born, or at all events conceived, outside marriage. This is ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a parrot. It was one of the few things she loved. And the parrot seemed to love her in return. Miss Dorothy would hang the cage outside of her window every sunny day. Sometimes an idle boy would come along, and poke a stick between the wires; and then the old lady ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Correspondent who writes against Master's Gowns, and Poke Sleeves, with a Word in Defence of large Scarves. Answer. I resolve not to raise ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... filth moves, travels slowly along. Let us overcome our repugnance and poke the heaps with a straw. We uncover, indeed we unclothe an ugly, pot-bellied, pale-orange larva. It is ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... nothing but the breathing of the pipes was heard. Now and then I would poke away at the ashes in my pipe bowl, and Dan would ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... long night journey which lay before me, I found the interior of the coach empty, several passengers having just alighted; but, as I settled myself in one corner, two figures hurried up, a short man, and a woman in a long cloak and poke-bonnet, with a thick veil ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... get personal again, Merritt," cautioned the other, holding up a warning forefinger, "but as there are heaps and heaps of queer things I'd like to poke into around this town, I certainly ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... the chance; but her immodest sympathy for herself froze all sympathy for her. Why could she not preserve a well-bred silence upon her sufferings, as did the other old ladies I had met in Kings Port? Why did she drag them in, thrust them, poke them, shove them at you? Thus it was that for her insulting disregard of those whom her words might wound I detested Juno; and as she was a woman, and nearly old enough to be my grandmother, it was, of course, out of the question ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... hearts. Could The General have affected all this—or a tenth part of it—if he had not lent himself to the eternal necessities and weaknesses of the uneducated, and given them his drill, his banners, his drums, his prayer-volleys, his poke-bonnets, and his military tunics? We doubt it, and in contemplating, therefore, the enormous good this dead man did, and sought to do, and the neglected fields of humanity which he tilled for the Common Master, we judge him to ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... Whene'er I poke Sarcastic joke Replete with malice spiteful, The people vile Politely smile And vote me quite delightful! Now, when a wight Sits up all night Ill-natured jokes devising, And all his wiles Are met with smiles, It's hard, there's no disguising! Oh, ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... many a touching story might be told by those silent but eloquent memorials. We were much amused with looking at a card put in one of the windows of these little comfortable state rooms, on which was written these words: "Anti-poke-your-nose-into-other-folks'-business Society. 5000 Pounds reward annually to any one who will really mind his own business; with the prospect of an increase of 100 Pounds, if he shall abstain from ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... the scanty remains. They have a large establishment in London, which I once visited, but which has since been divided into two, the aim of both continuing the same. The sisters wear a very unpretending black gown and cap: when out of doors they add to this a poke-bonnet and thick veil, with a large black shawl. They have a little donkey-cart, which they drive themselves, and which makes daily pilgrimages all over town, stopping at the houses of the rich of all denominations and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... the coals that had been required of her. "Thanks," said he, nodding at her as he still knelt at her feet and took the poker from her; "thanks. Now you are free of Hendon Hall for ever. I wouldn't have any one but a friend poke my fire." Upon that he got up and walked slowly out of ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... the scholars were turned silently and deferently to their books when the 'Squire banged with his whip-handle on the door. Aunt Olive was next seen coming down the timber. She was dressed in a manner to cause solicitude and trepidation. She wore knit mits, had a lofty poke bonnet, and a "checkered" gown gay enough for a valance, and, although it was yet very early spring, she carried a parasol over her head. There was deep interest in the books as her form ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... found all life to be "a fairy-tale book with half the leaves uncut,"—the charming little snow-drop of a Carlotta, "who would sit next him, would stick her tiny fork into his face, with a morsel of turkey at the end of it, would poke crumbs into his mouth with her finger, would put up her lips to kiss him, would say, every moment, 'I like you much,—much!' with all Davy's earnestness, though with just so much of her mother's modesty as made her turn pink and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... demonstrative of certain facts than had those facts been stated in the fullest detail, met his eye, Mr. Tatham paused and laid down the letter with a start. His ruddy colour paled for the moment, and he felt something which was like the push or poke of a blunt but heavy weapon somewhere in the regions of the heart. For the moment he felt that he could not read any more. "Do you know the man?" He did not even ask what man in the momentary sickness of his heart. Then he said to himself, almost angrily, "Well!" and took ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... for a man whose mission it is to wear stuff and a horse-hair wig to 'poke borak' at that venerable and eminently respectable institution—the law, and still worse is it for a practising barrister to actually set to work, even in the most kindly spirit, to criticise the judges, before whom at any moment he may ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... little was required in those days to start a stampede. A stranger might come in town with a "poke" of gold dust. He would naturally be asked where he had made the strike. As a matter of fact, he probably had washed a dozen different streams to get the poke-full, but under the influence of liquor he might reply: "Oh, over ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... very inelegant way of doing, as well as of speaking. Poking into every thing! What did you poke? your finger? or ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... it will scarcely be necessary to remark, that nothing can be poorer in its way than this tedious singing recreation, which, as well as everything in which dancing is concerned, they express by the word momek-poke. They seem, however, to take great delight in it; and even a number of men, as well as all the children, crept into the hut by degrees to peep at ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... done him? He was the first boy Charity had ever played with. Her nurse had bragged about her to his nurse when Charity was just beginning to take notice of other than alimentary things. By that time Jim was a blase roue of five and his main interest in Charity was a desire to poke his finger into the soft spot ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... "You've recently," she observed, "got into a new way. Whatever slang you happen to hear outside you come and tell me. And whenever you read any improper book, you poke your fun at me. What! have I ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... cave, excavated in the hill, it is said, with an idea of finding treasure. It seems there was once a Mexican calendar cut in the rock at this spot; and some white people who were interested in such matters, used to come to see it, and poke curiously about in search of other antiquities. Naturally enough, the Indians thought that they expected to find treasure; and with a view of getting the first chance themselves, they cut down the calendar, and made this large ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... attacked Mr. Oswell's horse, and thrust the horn through to the saddle, tossing at the time both horse and rider. I once saw a white rhinoceros give a buffalo, which was gazing intently at myself, a poke in the chest, but it did not wound it, and seemed only a hint to get out of the way. Four varieties of the rhinoceros are enumerated by naturalists, but my observation led me to conclude that there are but two, and that the extra species have been formed from differences in their ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... But tell her, Raowl, that I won't buy a pig in a poke: they must first let me off from the hangin', ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... cried Charlie, giving Kinch a facetious poke, "just the thing, isn't it, Kinch—it will get her accustomed to these matters. You remember what you told me this morning, eh, old boy?" he concluded, archly. Kinch tried to blush, but being very dark-complexioned, his efforts in that direction were not at all apparent, so he evidenced his confusion ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... yours will give you the slip. You can't keep a street-dog tied up all his life. It's against his natur'." The head-groom is a nice old gentleman, but he doesn't know everything. Just as though I'd been a street-dog because I liked it. As if I'd rather poke for my vittles in ash-heaps than have 'em handed me in a wash-basin, and would sooner bite and fight than be polite and sociable. If I'd had mother there I couldn't have asked for nothing more. But ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... cabby had driven blindly for six blocks did Elmendorf poke his cane through the trap and bid him speed for the Lambert. A carriage stood at the private entrance, and the driver said it was Mr. Allison's. The anteroom was open; the glazed doors to the private office were closed, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... talking together. I think they grew merrier as I approached, and I am quite sure I was hotter than I had been all day. "Confound the fellow! can't he turn into an innyard—anywhere out of the main street?" thought I, giving my driver a poke. He knew perfectly well where he was about to take me, and no significant gestures of mine hastened him forward in the very least. Presently, without any warning, we did turn into a side opening, but so suddenly that the whole vehicle had a wrench, ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... seemed suspicious, the boy did not learn enough to form a basis for action. Presently the men went away, and after waiting until he considered it safe, Whitey left the bunk house, followed by the faithful Bull. Whitey decided not to tell Bill Jordan what he had heard. Bill probably would only poke fun at him and hand him one of those arguments ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... come along! I've got two spears, And I'll poke your eyeballs out at your ears; I've got besides two curling-stones, And I'll crush you to bits, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... costume. His waistcoat hung open—he had laid aside his coat—displaying a broad stitched leather belt that covered the junction between buff corduroy trousers and blue-checked cotton shirt. On his head, a high thimble-crowned straw hat, the frayed brim of it pulled out into a poke in front for the better shelter of small, pale twinkling eyes set in ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... say I'm fussy and pragmatical— But that's because sheer moonshine always hates the mathematical. I'm not content to "play the King" with an imperial pose in it— Whatever is marked "Private" I shall up and poke my nose in it. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... exception brutes—detestable brutes. You put up with them because you had to; that was all. The automobile had merely stopped. It must have been the simplest thing in the world for a professional to discover what was wrong; yet this animal, Joseph, could do nothing but poke his nose into the machinery and then shrug his hideous shoulders. Why yes, he had taken out the valves, of course, examined the sparkling plugs, and tested the coil. Any amateur could have done so much. It gave a good spark; there was no short circuit; yet the motor would not ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... big hit, 'specially with the ladies. Some of 'em would poke him with their fingers to see if he was real or only a kind of a stuffed figure like they burn in elegy. And when he'd move they'd squeak, and make eyes at him as they went up to the slosh. He looked fine in his halberdashery. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... about and attending to my business as I had planned, 6,000 more men suddenly wanted something, brought me up to a full stop one rainy day, and said that they had decided that if I wanted to ride I would have to walk, or that I would have to poke dismally about in a 'bus, or worm my way through under the ground. As I understood it, there was something that they wanted and something that they were going to get; and while of course in a way, they recognized that there might be something ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... me my coffee for lunch in his own little cell, looking out on the olive woods; then he tells me stories of conversions and miracles, and then perhaps we go into the sacristy and have a reverent little poke-out of relics. Fancy a great carved cupboard in a vaulted chamber full of most precious things (the box which the Holy Virgin's veil used to be kept in, to begin with), and leave to rummage in it at will! Things that are only shown twice in the year or so, with ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... her for the moment, having turned to poke up the fire, and Magda raised herself on her elbow, preparatory to getting off the ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... which are occupied by Wahumba, a subtribe of the warlike Masai; and on the west is the large forest-wilderness of Mgunda Mkhali. Ugogo, lying under the lee side of the Usagara hills, is comparatively sterile. Small outcrops of granite here and there poke through the surface, which, like the rest of the rolling land, being covered with bush, principally acacias, have a pleasing appearance after the rains have set in, but are too brown and desert-looking during the rest of the year. Large prairies of grass also are exposed in ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... experiments on the frock, the bonnet, and the hoop petticoat bought for her in London and sent like the proverbial pig in a poke, had taken to watching the Yankee peddling sloop, which, having lain for an hour at Patterson's on the Virginia shore, was now heading for the Browne place. It was pretty to see the sloop heel over under a beam wind and ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... he ses, giving me a little poke in the ribs, "I picked up a cab and, fust leaving my bag at Aldgate, I drove on to your 'ouse and knocked at the door. I knocked twice, and then an angry- looking woman opened it and asked me wot ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... will scarcely be necessary to remark, that nothing can be poorer in its way than this tedious singing recreation, which, as well as everything in which dancing is concerned, they express by the word momek-poke. They seem, however, to take great delight in it; and even a number of men, as well as all the children, crept into the hut by degrees ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... unblinking eye. If he liked his new lodging under the cozy eaves he made no mention of it, and if he pined for his winter palace in the Canadian forest he was equally uncommunicative. Hinpoha longed to poke him in order to make him give some expression of feeling. But at all events, he did not struggle against his captivity, and Hinpoha reflected judicially that after all it was a good thing that he had such a stolid personality, for a calm frame of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... winter evenings there was plenty of quiet occupation. I liked to sit with the women at the long bare table picking feathers for new featherbeds. It was pleasant to poke my hand into the soft-heaped mass and set it all in motion. I pretended that I could pick out the feathers of particular hens, formerly my pets. I reflected that they had fed me with eggs and broth, and now were going to make my bed so soft; while I had done nothing for them ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... he drew a dial from his poke; And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says, very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock; Thus we may see,' quoth ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... marriages; at least, that's one thing. There are others too numerous to mention. There's just one reason why a man and a woman should join themselves together in matrimony, and that is love, the love that the poets sing and the rest of us poke fun at, the love that is the nearest thing to Heaven we find on earth." The Doctor sat silent a moment, looking past the girl's grave face into the green blur of the garden. Then he stirred, sighed, and looked at his watch. "Well, well, I must ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... little sub," said another. "I used to poke around the Great Barrier Reef, skindiving out the air lock or loafing on the surface. You wouldn't believe how blue the waves could be. They tell me on Rustum you can't come down off ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... bells. Why, in like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year: all these are about him, but not in him. You will not buy a pig in a poke: if you cheapen a horse, you will see him stripped of his housing-cloths, you will see him naked and open to your eye; or if he be clothed, as they anciently were wont to present them to princes to sell, 'tis only on the ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... harbor after they'd been gone for years. Leslie never thought he was dead—and she was right. A thousand pities too! The next summer Captain Jim was in Havana—that was before he gave up the sea, of course. He thought he'd poke round a bit—Captain Jim was always meddlesome, just like a man—and he went to inquiring round among the sailors' boarding houses and places like that, to see if he could find out anything about the crew of the Four Sisters. He'd better ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... head. But, little John (who though of a spare figure was a very spirited boy), started up from the little bench on which he sat; gave Master C. J. London a hearty pat on the back (accompanied, however, with a slight poke in the ribs); and told him that if Master Wiseman, or Young England, or any of those fellows, wanted any thing for himself, he (little John) was the boy to give it him. Hereupon, Mrs. Bull, who was always proud of the child, and always had been, since his measure was first ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Nay then, old rebel, but I'll stop your treble, With a poke, poke, poke: Take this from my rudder—(dashing at the frogs)—and that from my oar, And now let us see if you'll trouble us more With ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... old chap," she said to him. "It's time for your act." And, climbing on his back, she bent low over his neck and urged him forward with a cluck and a poke. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... give his customary, querulous grunt when Marthy nudged him at daylight, one morning in mid-April. Marthy gave another poke with her elbow and lay still, numbed by a sudden dread. She moved cautiously out of the bed and half across the cramped room before she turned her head toward him. Then she stood still and looked and looked, her hard face growing each moment more ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... with me," he said. "I promised to go down and have breakfast with dear Mrs. Chifney at the stables, but I can be back here by eleven. Would you be inclined to come out with me then? We could ride over to that burnt land and have a poke round for sites ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... croaker," says Mrs. Daly, giving her a good-humored shake, "An' now sit down, Miss Monica an' Miss Kit, do, till I get ye the sup o' tay. Mrs. Moloney, me dear, jist give the fire a poke, an' make the kittle sing us a song. 'Tis the ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... Egyptian bondage and made them slaves to Himself, outside the gates were people who were not expected to obey the law of Moses; so that while he might not touch the fire—nor even the candlesticks which had held fire—from Friday evening to Saturday night, the Fire-woman could poke and poke at the logs to her heart's content. She poked her way up from the ground-floor through all the seven stories, and went on higher, a sort of fire-spirit poking her way skywards. She had other strange privileges, this little old woman with the shawl over her head, as the child discovered gradually. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the White Chief wrapped the lock of hair in a handkerchief and laid it away in the hiding place. As carefully he drew out a small moose-hide poke and putting the candle on a nearby table, sat down before it. He removed the tag attached to the top and read the inscription: "Eldorado Creek gold," then ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... replied Bog, with his eyes still on the floor, "'cept when the boys poke fun at us; 'cos we can't run after 'em in them boxes, and wollop 'em. 'S rather hard, that." Bog caught Miss Minford's eye as he concluded these remarks, and blushed till he perspired, to think that he should have dropped such a brutal ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... his toes and tingled through every inch of him. Helen should sit in the chair when she pleased; Mary should be allowed to dress and undress the large woollen dog, known as "Sulks," his own especial and beloved property, so often as she wished; Jampot should poke the twisted end of the towel in his ears and brush his hair with the hard brushes, and he would not say a word. Aunt Mary should kiss him (as, of course, she would want to do), and he would not shiver; he would (bravest deed of all) ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... in 1940 are now 3 and 4 feet high and apparently in a good state of health. They are leisurely growing, which may be a good thing. Trees like the Manchurian walnut which grow 6 to 8 feet of new wood in a year, seem to freeze back and start over more frequently than the trees which poke along but harden their wood before cold weather. In 1946, a few more seedlings from D. C. Snyder, Center Point, Iowa, were set out and most of them have survived the first winter. Carl Weschcke reports that chestnuts do best for him at ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... the side of the road," said he, "and poke your batons in front of you. Keep a tight hold ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... us open the packet and look it through ourselves before we decide. What the devil business is it of anybody else's. He was my brother and your husband. These people weren't even his friends. They've no right to poke their noses into our affairs. You tell them so; sister-in-law. Give me the packet. Come away with me somewhere where we can look it through quietly. I'm fair and straight. It shall be halves, I swear. I say, sister-in-law Agnes, you ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... flock of geese, and, on the green, Poke out their foolish necks in awkward spleen, (Ridiculous in rage!) to hiss, not bite, So war their quills, when sons of ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... then swept her trailing bombazine into the house. "I have come to tell you that you may as well send the bonnet back, Julia," she began at once. "Flowers are much too fine for me, my dear. I need only a plain black poke." ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... he's ist so fat an' tame, We on'y chain him up at night, to save the little chicks. Holler "Greedy! Greedy!" to him, an' he knows his name, An' here he'll come a-waddle-un, up fer any tricks! He'll climb up my leg, he will, an' waller in my lap, An' poke his little black paws 'way in my pockets where They's beechnuts, er chinkypins, er any little scrap Of anything, 'at's good to ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... it would not do, nohow, to buy a pig in a poke, you know. And s'pose I shouldn't ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... the poke, Which out of it sent such a smoke, As ready was them all to choke, So grievous was the pother; So that the knights each other lost, And stood as still as any post; Tom Thumb nor Tomalin could boast Themselves ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... continuously in little convulsions. He peered every minute at some new thing, very closely, holding first his tablets so near that he could see only with one eye, then the whistle that hung round his neck, then a little piece of paper that he took from his poke. He cried out in a deep voice—'Aye! aye! Not over well. Witchcraft and foul weather and rocks, my mates and masters all!' so that he appeared to be a seaman—and indeed he traded to the port of Antwerp, in the Low Countries, where he had learned ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... below was the drone of the dynamo and the wheeze and whine of the Weir pumps. 'Go on,' I said. 'Mind, the last wooden door on the right. Don't go round the corner. Understand?' He looked at me for a moment and then flitted away down the long iron tunnel. I saw him poke about with his key, his body all crouched, the white bundle sticking out behind him. And then he vanished, and the ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... longer. He used to sit in a big cane-bottomed chair close to the fireplace, in winter, and under a big lilac-bush, at the north-east corner of the house, in summer. He kept a stout iron-tipped cane by his side: in the winter, he used it to poke the fire with; in the summer, to rap the hens and chickens which he used to lure round his chair by handfuls of corn and oats. Sometimes he would tap the end of the wooden leg with this cane, and say, laughingly, "Ha! ha! think of a leg ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... . . . Well, there he was comin' across the stubble—at a fine pace, too, with his coat 'pon his arm—when as I guess he spied me down in the road below and stopped short, danderin' about an' pretendin' to poke up weeds with his stick. 'Some new-fashioned farmin',' thought I; 'weedin' stubble, and in August month too! I wonder who taught the Widow that trick'—for I won't be sure I reckernised your friend, not slap-off. But Cap'n Hunken ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... objected to having her picture taken she said, "all right, but don't you-all poke fun at me because I am ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... everything that comes within their reach, to the hens that flutter over our beds and shake the dust of ages from the barn-roof at dawn, to the noisy little children with the dirty faces and meddling fingers, who poke their hands into our haversacks, to the farm servants who inspect all our belongings when we are out on parade, and even now we have become accustomed to the very rats that scurry through the barn at midnight ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... you great softy!' responded the Blinkard contemptuously, giving him a poke with his elbow, and both, stooping, entered ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... I grew pharisaical. I ventured to pity my less fortunate neighbors, bound hand and foot to the slavery of mothers-in-law. I attempted to joke them, and poke them severely in the ribs with my knuckles, when the magic name was mentioned. So often did I congratulate myself on the shrewd stroke of genius displayed, that I fear even her respectability became sadly impaired in my mind, and depreciated to such an extent that I was gradually ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... the New Mexican belles to preserve the complexion, and get it up towards some special occasion, such as a grand fiesta or "fandango," when it is washed off, and the skin comes out clear and free from "tan." The "allegria" is the well known "poke-weed" of the ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... before in the post-office. Then he would have given much to be possessed of the opportunity which was now in his power; but many pause on the brink of a crime, who have contemplated it at a distance without scruple. Lord Etherington's first impulse had led him to poke the fire; and he held in his hand the letter which he was more than half tempted to commit, without even breaking the seal, to the fiery element. But, though sufficiently familiarized with guilt, he was not as yet acquainted with it ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... in a litter, and marched in mournful procession towards the burying ground, followed by a great concourse of people. Mixing with the crowd, in disguise, I at length stooped under the litter, and giving the chief, who lay extended in a winding sheet, a smart poke with a pointed stick, up he jumped, to the astonishment of the beholders; who cried out, "A miracle! a miracle! the dead is raised to life!" while I made my escape in the throng; but being fearful that the many tricks I had played, especially this ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... one-shelled molluscs, poke their heads out of the shell when feeding or moving. Oysters and their two-shelled cousins cannot do this, for the simple reason ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... a party of foraging apes who went into a cornfield with the purpose of robbing it, and discovered two men. They immediately rushed upon them and attempted to poke their eyes out with sticks and would have succeeded but for the intervention of two other men who chanced to be near. The extreme cleverness of apes in applying their reason and judgment is shown in Vosmaer's account of the female orang-outang, who tried to open the padlock of her ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... he heard the drawing to and barring of shutters, the swish of curtains being pulled together; then the spurt and glare of a match—in its feeble flame he saw Miss Pett's queer countenance, framed in an odd-shaped, old-fashioned poke bonnet, bending towards a lamp. In the gradually increasing light of that lamp Mallalieu ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... beside Sir George, the sun shining full in my face, flung on the ground near a fire, over which a kettle was boiling. And on every side of us moved McCraw's riders, feeding their horses, smoking, laughing, playing at cards, or coming up to sniff the camp-kettle and poke the boiling ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... frills of romance, opportunity to do so was about the only thing that failed to knock at my door. From the time I heard the name of Ursula Priscilla Jenkins and knew it belonged to me, I can recall but one beautiful memory of my childhood. It is the face of my mother in its frame of poke bonnet and pink roses, as she leaned over to kiss me good-by. I never saw her again, nor my father. Yellow fever laid heavy tribute upon our southern United States. I was the only one left in the big house on ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... Jersey jacket, with gloves buttoned to her elbows, and an immense hat, with two feathers on the back; Mr. Browne in a long ulster, and soft hat, with gloves, which his wife made him wear; and Mrs. Browne, in a Paris dress, fearfully and wonderfully made, and a poke bonnet, so long and so pokey that to see her face was like looking down a ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... The fat, the small, the lean and the tall. They're all after you. The moment you poke your nose outside the gate next year, they're all going to pounce on you and try to carry ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... disappointment to be feared in that respect. Situation, orientation, outline, altitudes, levels, hydrography, climatology, lines of communication, all these were easily to be verified in advance. People were not buying a pig in a poke, and most undoubtedly there could be no mistake as to the nature of the goods on sale. Moreover, the innumerable journals of the United States, especially those of California, with their dailies, bi-weeklies, weeklies, bi-monthlies, monthlies, their reviews, magazines, ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... pell-mell through everything towards my hut. If the Kamraviona or any of the boys could not move fast enough, on account of the crops on the fields, they were piked in the back till half knocked over; but, instead of minding, they trotted on, n'yanzigging as if honoured by a kingly poke, though ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... something? You are a pretty fellow not to speak or even look up." Such was Pitkin's first remark. Sometimes he was talkative and would insist on giving his opinion of things in general. At other times he preferred to be left alone to bury himself and his wrath in his books. Since he had failed to poke the fire, though the room was very warm, I had decided that he would dive into his books and be heard no more until a half hour past his suppertime, but I had made a mistake. Today he was in a talkative mood, and knowing that work was impossible, I devoted the next half hour to listening ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... Gifford Woodhouse," John said, leaning forward to give the fire that inevitable poke with which the coming guest ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... sensible plan is to begin the investigation at the outlet and then proceed up, section after section, to trace the obstacle that had occasioned the accumulation of debris. When the waste-pipes of a house are clogged, we do not expect the plumber to go to the top of the building and poke substances down the pipe to dislodge the unduly retained material some twenty-five feet or more away. Nor would we believe him if he informed us that the sewer-gas and overflow of waste in the house were the cause of the constipated condition ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... in the woods. The rigours of seven Canadian winters had bred a hardy spirit in this little backwoodsman, and besides what was there to dread in the forest? It had been his playground ever since he was first able to steal away from Granny and toddle off to "the bush" to gather blue flags and poke up the goggle-eyed frogs from their fragrant musk-pools. But here was something unfamiliar; a strange uncanny place the swamp seemed to-day; and, being Nature's intimate, he fell into sudden sympathy with her ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... lying on its face upon his waistcoat to keep the place, and otherwise quite immovable, and very like other young gentlemen, Bill did not feel much the wiser for looking at him. He had a better view of him soon, however, for Master Arthur began to poke his friend's legs with the donkey-headed stick, and to ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... one of his hands with the other and shaking it violently. He said not a word, and left me to poke about and stumble on the limp warm carcass of a ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... I were of her kind," said Ellery stiffly. "You may poke fun at me as much as you like, Dick, but it's beneath you ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... in and down and on and breaks and eats things in the most terrible fashion, and he has all sorts of creeps and crawls in his pocket all of the time. He pulls bugs and worms apart and tries to put them together again; and he choked the old rooster nearly to death trying to poke down his throat some bread and mud ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of authorities state that intercourse before marriage is the rule. At the very least, a probe, or trial, is regarded as a matter-of-course preliminary to a marriage, since no one wishes "to buy a pig in a poke." In Saxony, likewise, we are told, it is seldom that a girl fails to have intercourse before marriage, or that her first child is not born, or at all events conceived, outside marriage. This is justified as a proper proving of a bride before taking ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... his father were on their way from Sitka to the Copper River. Mr. Strong was on the United States Geological Survey, which Ted knew meant that he had to go all around the country and poke about all day among rocks and mountains and glaciers. He had come with his father to this far Alaskan clime in the happiest expectation of adventures with bears and Indians, always dear to the ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... O'Keefe. "Damn it, Goodwin, there are such things as the unities even here, an' for a lieutenant of the Royal Air Force to be picked up an' carted around like a—like a bundle of rags—it's not discipline! Put me down, ye omadhaun, or I'll poke ye in the snout!" he shouted to his bearer—who only boomed gently, and stared at the ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... shall come and poke their noses Into our churns as sweet as roses; And to quiz MAUDLIN in clean kirtle The toffs of Town ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... Grecian temples, studded with "Academics," "Seminaries," and "Institutes," which glisten along our bays and rivers; these are the strong-holds of Yankee usurpation; but if haply you light upon some rough, rambling road, winding between stone fences, gray with moss, and overgrown with elder, poke-berry, mullein, and sweet-briar, with here and there a low, red-roofed, whitewashed farm-house, cowering among apple and cherry trees; an old stone church, with elms, willows, and button-woods, as old-looking as itself, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... scamper'd all, vull run, An' out cried Tom, "I think The grinden-stwone is up on tun, Vor I can zee the wink. This is some kindness that the vo'k At Woodley have a-done, min; I wish I had em here, I'd poke Their numskulls ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... put to bed, and though he tried it every morning until the end, he never could get up again. He would lie there and cough and cough, day and night, wasting away to a mere skeleton. There came a time when there was so little flesh on him that the bones began to poke through—which was a horrible thing to see or even to think of. And one night he had a choking fit, and a little river of blood came out of his mouth. The family, wild with terror, sent for a doctor, and paid half a dollar to be told that there was nothing to be done. Mercifully ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... a matter of opinion, Sydney," Dorothy said, with a deep curtsey. "When you first began to fence, I have no doubt you were stiff and awkward, and I am sure if you had always had someone by your side, saying, 'Keep your head up!' 'Don't poke your chin forward!' 'Pray do not swing your arms!' and that sort of thing, you would be just as awkward as I feel. I am sure I would rather run about with the others; the process of being turned into a young lady ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... American twist of extreme twist. His ground strokes are not good, and he rushes the net at every opportunity. His forehand drive is very fast, excessively topped, and exceedingly erratic. His backhand is a "poke." His footwork is very poor on both shots. He volleys very well, shooting deep to the baseline and very accurately. His shoulder-high volleys are marvellous. His overhead is remarkable for its severity and accuracy. He seldom misses ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... morning? He's going down in charge of the cattle. The cattle-train starts about daylight. It won't be so comfortable as the passenger; but you'll save your fare, and you can give Andy a hand with the cattle. You've only got to have a look at 'em every other station, and poke up any that fall down in the trucks. You and Andy ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... wanted to say to you is this. Keep a close tongue in your head and stick by me in what's going to happen in the next few days. This bunch," he jerked his thumb in the direction of the captain's cabin, "are fixing their necks for halters, an' I for one don't intend to poke my head through any noose of another man's making. There's more in this thing if it's handled right, and handled without too many men in on the whack-up than we can get out of it if that man Divine has to be counted in. I've a plan ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this put an end to all rational conversation. Philip jumped up to inspect the crackers and pin-wheels. To my surprise, Mr. Flint showed no annoyance, but began to poke about among the Roman candles and rockets, as if he rather liked it. Jimmy has taken a great fancy to him, it seems. I must admit that it is in a man's favor to be liked by boys and dogs. So they ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... a man whose mission it is to wear stuff and a horse-hair wig to 'poke borak' at that venerable and eminently respectable institution—the law, and still worse is it for a practising barrister to actually set to work, even in the most kindly spirit, to criticise ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... On going near he saw a tall man with dark skin and straight black hair that was streaked with gray—undoubtedly an Indian. He held up a bag and said, "I got coon in that hole. You hold bag there, I poke him in." Rolf took the sack readily and held it over the hole, while the Indian climbed the tree to a higher opening, then poked in this with a long pole, till all at once there was a scrambling noise ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... its contents, the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons are responsible. Perhaps you'd like to poke your nose in there?" ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... slip about, whip about Hoop. Wheel like a top at its quickest spin, Then, dear hoop, we shall surely win. First to the greenhouse and then to the wall Circle and circle, And let the wind push you, Poke you, Brush you, And not let you fall. Whirring you round like a wreath of ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... two carriages can pass. Donkeys are the chief carriers. As to dogs, they are born and bred in the streets and are the property of the town, and in the day-time He by dozens in the streets, young and old, are always under the feet of the traveller, and he must constantly poke them out of the way with his stick; by night they are furious. The shops present a jumble of all kinds of wares; and the Turks sit cross-legged in the window, or work at ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... remark seemed to remind Lila of something, for she quite jumped and exclaimed, "Why, you baby, I had forgotten all about that two dollars and seventy-five cents I borrowed of you last month. And here it is only the sixth of November, but my allowance is nearly gone. Why didn't you poke up my memory?" ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... how you play jokes on the Colonel, Billy," said Jack, when he heard the whole story and laughed over it. "There are some persons at whom it is not safe to poke fun and Colonel ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... well-meaning maidens enter with fruit and vegetables for the military, but, on the discovery that their wares are properties, and too firmly glued to the baskets to be detached, they retire in confusion. A small sail is seen behind the battlements; the soldiers poke at it with halberds until it retreats, whereupon, soldier-like, they dance. The sail returns with a still smaller one; red fire is burnt under the walls, which so demoralises the Genoese soldiery that they all tumble down with precaution, and the Venetians burst in and stand ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... once to acknowledge her botany to be at fault, and, though Bess did not triumph, Francie gave Kitty a poke and ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... driven blindly for six blocks did Elmendorf poke his cane through the trap and bid him speed for the Lambert. A carriage stood at the private entrance, and the driver said it was Mr. Allison's. The anteroom was open; the glazed doors to the private office were closed, but excited voices arose from within. He recognized ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... was abruptly recalled to terrestrial objects, by a poke from Miss Nipper, which sent him ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... queer people began to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, and a couple hanging from each brawny arm, sent the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... a Friday, and on the Saturday following David did his first startling act—he offered marriage to Hope Marlowe, the only Quaker girl in Framley who had ever dared to discard the poke bonnet even for a day, and who had been publicly reproved for laughing in meeting—for Mistress Hope had a curious, albeit demure and suggestive, sense of humour; she was, in truth, a kind of sacred minuet in grey. Hope had promptly accepted ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the bishop said, "'Tis true for war thou art meant; "And reasoning—bless that dandy head! "Is not in thy department. "So leave the argument to me— "And, when my holy labor "Hath lit the fires of bigotry, "Thou'lt poke them with thy sabre. "From pulpit and from sentrybox, "We'll make our joint attacks, "I at the head of my Cassocks, "And you, of your Cossacks. "So here's your health, my brave huzzar, "My exquisite old fighter— "Success to bigotry and war, "The musket and the mitre!" Thus prayed the minister ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... a little lane through their wire at that point, and there would be, no doubt, a sap head or a listening post near. I tried to lie still and burrow into the dirt at the same time. Nothing happened. Presently the lights died, and Bellinger gave me a poke in the ribs. We started to crawfish. Why we weren't seen I don't know, but we had gone all of one hundred feet before they spotted us. Fortunately we were on the edge of a shallow shell hole when the sentry caught our movements and Fritz cut loose ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... aware that there are those who love to poke fun at the plain man's idea of reality. They are the idealists who spin endless proofs that nothing is real outside of the mind. They are the relativists who like to show that there are no fixed points in the universe from which we can measure ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... to put in your two cents' worth, you old croaker?" said Herb, giving Jimmy a poke in his well padded ribs. "I'll win that prize just as well by not working as you will by working. You know you're too fat and lazy, to make up a set all ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... is Henry Bridges. We was raised up children together and married. I had five sisters. My brother died here in Oklahoma about two years ago. He was a Fisher. Mary Russell, my sister, she lives in Parish, Texas; Willie Ann Poke, she lives in Greenville, Texas; Winnie Jackson, lives in Adonia, Texas, and Mattie White, my other sister, lives in Long Oak, ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... warmly. "I sneered at him the other day, I know. Like the little poppinjay I was I thought myself in the position to poke fun at him. To-day I got my first true idea of the man's nature. To-day I found out—can you guess what I found out? That Brayley in many things is ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... said Dan'l; "I've got it. You get a big strong clothes-prop, and I'll get another, and we'll poke him off. If he comes down your side, mind this: he'll be like a rat, and off as quick as quick; but don't you let him go. Drop your prop, and throw yourself on him; we'll ketch him, and take him in to the gov'nor, and he'll know now where the fruit goes. You couldn't ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... with another poke, and another, and then the old lord caught the parasol, and wouldn't give it up again, which induced the other lady to come to the rescue, and some very pretty ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... donkey that looked as if made of an old trunk, so rusty and rough was he as he went trotting along, his long ears wagging, and his small hoofs clattering over the fine hard road, while Marie sat on the shaft with a long whip, talking and laughing, and giving Andre a poke now and then, crying 'E! E! houp la!' to make ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... make a howling mistake," Collins told them, "that's when you all pull the wires like mad and poke the leader and whirl him around. That always brings down the house. They think he's got a real musical ear and is mad at his ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... amusements in Tengu-land are very curious. A pair of young tengus will fence with their noses as if they were foils. Their faces are well protected by masks, for if one tengu should "poke his nose" into the other's eye he might put it out, and a blind tengu could not walk about, because he would be knocking ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... evening at the cafe and there heard of the visits which Lily received during his absence. The neighbors he didn't mind about, but Jimmy. Jimmy again! The damned dog! Why should he poke his nose in? And, perhaps, at heart, Trampy was not sorry to have a scene with Lily, for he wasn't bringing home a pfennig, having spent all his money on champagne with girls. He felt himself at fault. He would get out of it ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... trustful young man, "I'm perfectly confident that you would never ask me to do anything that I couldn't do with profit to myself. Buy a pig in a poke? From you, without a moment's ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... remember the brutal reception given to the Saperda and Hylotoma grubs when I place them on a comb. Forthwith grabbed, bruised and riddled with stings, the poor wretches perish. It is quite a different matter with the offspring of the Volucella. They come and go as they please, poke about in the cells, elbow the inhabitants and remain unmolested. Let us give some instances of this clemency, which is very ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... kind of noise you fancy you hear. It was like somebody moving a chair. We held our breath and listened and then came another noise, like some one poking a fire. Now, you remember there was no one to poke a fire or move a chair downstairs, because Eliza and Father were both out. They could not have come in without our hearing them, because the front door is as hard to shut as the back one, and whichever ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... and younger than in former days. He had all the hilarious good spirits evinced by nine out of ten of the boys who came home on leave—the cheery capacity to laugh at the hardships and dangers of the front, to poke good-natured fun at "old Fritz" and to make a jest of the German shells and the Flanders mud, treating the whole great adventure of war as though it were ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... said Jeremiah, 'we've not told you particulars. Yo're thanking us for a pig in a poke; but we had more forethought, and we put all down on ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... makes my mouth water," she muttered. "Come here, little Gretelkin, poke your head into the oven and tell me if you think it hot enough for us to bake in." At this awful moment ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... know to this day how we got therewhether we jumped over the island or hauled round it; but there we was, and there we lay, under easy sail, fore-reaching first upon one tack and then upon tother, so as to poke her nose out now and then and take a look to windard till the gale blowed ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Miriam. "Almost any horse could do that. Did you ever see such an old poke as we have, and such a bouncy, jolting rattletrap of a carriage? It ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... not decided to bring his lead soldiers. They were heavy to carry and it was a very cold morning, so cold that although he kept his hands in his pockets, his fingers were red and stiff when he pulled off his mittens. He had had to stop all along the way to poke the box further up under his arm, and once he had dropped it. But, never mind, now he had something to show ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... you back every farthing honestly." "Charles Hawermann, Charles Hawermann," said Braesig, wiping his eyes, and blowing his imposing nose, "you're—you're an ass! Yes," he continued, shoving his handkerchief into his pocket with an emphatic poke, and holding his nose even more in the air than usual, "you're every bit as great an ass as you used to be!" And then, as if thinking that his friend's thoughts should be led into a new channel, he caught Lina and Mina by ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... No, I think not. Her captain he is too big fool. But I think she have gone down the coast. Those your gunboats poke her nose and shove her oar in every place. How ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... behind them. And in this same parlour at Arbitt Lodge had that little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in his time faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly as—ah! but I am forgetting—never mind, I may as well finish the sentence—just exactly as it made "us" ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... very far up the lane when she saw, seated on a bench, a bent old woman in a poke-bonnet with a crutch-handled stick in her hands, and this old woman Priscilla (who was very quick of observation) instantly guessed to be a fairy—in which, as it fell out, she ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... never did the slightest thing worth remembering; as there was no election, he did not even take part in a Whig procession. He got away two or three times. The first thing his owner would know when he pulled the chain out was that there was no coon at the end of it, and then he would have to poke round the inside of the box pretty carefully with a stick, so as not to get bitten; after that he would have to see which tree the coon had gone up. It was usually the tall locust-tree in front of the house, and in about half a second all ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... "fall in" certainly appeared to be translated "poke in" by the greater part of the corps, for it was directly followed by such a treading upon everybody's toes, and a ramming of elbows into other people's stomachs and chests, and such imminent danger incurred of every eye in the company being put out with bayonets held ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow
... my pet," she said; "but I do declare that stupid driver is taking us wrong. Oh, if he goes up that way it will be such a round that I shall be late for Jasper's dinner. Poke your parasol through the little window in the roof, Judy, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Lady Fotheringham asked us, and—it was dull enough to be sure, and poor Pelham was always in the way—but they were kind comfortable folks. Lady Fotheringham is a dear old dame, and I was in dull spirits just then, and rather liked to poke about with her, and get her to tell me about your brother ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a fine farm here, father,' I say. 'It's not so bad,' says father, 'but how's everything back home?' 'Oh, everything is all right there; last year we got twelve kroner for a ton of hay.' 'What!' says father. 'Are you here to poke fun at me, ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... dreadful suspense as the wind, soughing through across the open land behind the house, blew down the chimneys and set the window-frames jarring. At the commencement of one of the passages I was immeasurably startled to see a dark shape poke forward, and then spring hurriedly back, and was so frightened that I dared not advance to see what it was. Moment after moment sped by, and I still stood there, the cold sweat oozing out all over me, and ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... they didn't make up the dough. The gentleman that showed you around—old Sate, we call him—had his eyes on the preacher for a long time. When we got him, we had a barrel of liquor and carried him around on our shoulders, until tired of the fun, and threw him in the furnace yonder. We call him “Poke,” for that was his favourite game. Oh, Poke,’ shouted my friend, ‘come here; here's a gentleman who wants to see you—we'll give you five drops of water, and that's more than your old ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... not learn enough to form a basis for action. Presently the men went away, and after waiting until he considered it safe, Whitey left the bunk house, followed by the faithful Bull. Whitey decided not to tell Bill Jordan what he had heard. Bill probably would only poke fun at him and hand him one of those arguments ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... talked a good deal, and pretty loud sometimes, and had a way of turnin' up his nose when he didn't like what folks said, that one of my boarders, who is a very smart young man, said he couldn't stand, no how, and used to make faces and poke fun at him whenever he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... uncle; 'I don't want to poke fun at you. I was only going to suggest this. Why don't you go in for real scouting? Learn to play the game properly. It's a wonderful game if you tackle it seriously—splendid sport, and a thousand times more useful, and better fun, than ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... in a shaped dress to-day, but he had recalled her as she was in her poke-bonnet days, when she had been wont to accept the same kind of salutation without demur. It did not seem so very long ago since he had seen her bare-kneed, in short, crimson skirts and all sorts of fantastic caps and brilliant turbans; and he now reminded her of the ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... been placed across the other end of the room all the chairs in the house, as it seemed and Mademoiselle started violently when she saw that fully half a dozen of these chairs were occupied. And by the queerest people, too an old woman with a poke bonnet tied under her chin with a red handkerchief, a lady in a large straw hat wreathed in flowers and the oddest hands that stuck out over the chair in front of her, several men with strange, clumsy figures, and ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... is it common?" repeated the Captain; "why then, 'fore George, such chaps are more fit to be sent to school, and well disciplined with a cat-o'-nine tails, than to poke their heads into a play-house. Why, a play is the only thing left, now-a-days, that has a grain of sense in it; for as to all the rest of your public places, d'ye see, if they were all put together, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... a habit of poking out of mobs, grazing quietly as they edge off until "they're gone before you miss 'em." Camps seem to have some special attraction for pokers, but we learned they object to interference. Poke round peaceful as cats until "you rile them," Dan told us, and then glided into a tale of how a poker ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... with sticks. The mattress was stowed away in a lean-to behind the kitchen, and there it remained. It was not alone. Mary sometimes stood and considered, with a rueful eye, the many discarded objects that bore it company. Richard—oddly enough he was ever able to poke fun at himself—had christened this outhouse "the cemetery of dead fads." Here was a set of Indian clubs he had been going to harden his muscles with every morning, and had used for a week; together with an india-rubber gymnastic ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... "Pickett was bound to try to get me. Do you think that if I'd gone to the sheriff at Las Vegas, an' told him about Pickett, he'd have done anything but poke fun at me? An' that word would have gone all over the country—that I was scared of Pickett—an' I'd have had to pull my freight. I had to stand my ground, ma'am. Mebbe I'd have been a hero if I'd have let him shoot me, but I wouldn't have been here any more to know about it. ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... I am a Poker bold and free, And I poke the livelong day. I love the land and I hate the sea, But the sky and the clouds are ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... you for that, Fardorougha," said the Bodagh. "No, no; I'll never buy a pig in a poke. If you won't act generously by your son, go home, in the name of goodness, and let us hear no ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the semicircular seat let into a dismal little Temple of the Sun, we shall see a half-moon of apathetic figures. There, enjoying a moment of lugubrious idleness, may be sitting an old countrywoman with steady eyes in a lean, dusty-black dress and an old poke-bonnet; by her side, some gin-faced creature of the town, all blousy and draggled; a hollow-eyed foreigner, far gone in consumption; a bronzed young navvy, asleep, with his muddy boots jutting straight out; a bearded, dreary being, chin on chest; and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a white face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out her weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. The trooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed grandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares rigidly at ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... thing more, nor inclination for them, as I reckon every thing very dear when One has so little time to enjoy it. However, I cannot say but the plates by Rubens do tempt me a little—yet, as I do not care to, buy even Rubens in a poke, I should wish to know if the Alderman would let me see. if it were but one. Would he be persuaded? I would pay for the carriage, though I ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... thorax and arm, and nuzzles round among muscles as those horrid old women poke their fingers into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls at the Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or other. Victuality, (organ at epigastrium,) some other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... I was up to the window with my receipt, callin' for 'em to get a hustle on, as Mr. Doe had run out of veal and had to have it in a hurry. Ever try to poke up one of them box jugglers? They took their time about it—and me lookin' for trouble every tick of the clock! But I got an O. K. on it after awhile, and for a quarter I hired a wagon helper to drag the bundle out and chuck it into the hansom. Then I climbs in ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... of California, was so free and cordial that each one might have thought himself a dear friend of the Doctor, and he would have been right in thinking so. Again, his sense of humour was so great that he could laugh and "poke fun" at his critics with such ease and good humour that their arrows passed harmlessly over his head. "Men have a right to their opinions," he would genially say. "There are twenty tall pippin trees in the orchard to one crab apple tree. There are a million clover blooms to ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Commander Kerr. Though armed with only a single machine gun, this small boat was so persistently troublesome to the enemy that it earned for itself the name "Terror of the Danube." Of dark nights it would poke its way into creeks and passages, alarming the Austrians constantly and causing them no little loss. Once it even succeeded in persuading one of the monitors to pursue it into a carefully prepared mine field, over against the Serbian shore, with the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... them they managed, with bits of stick and by singeing their fingers a little, to poke and shove the dragon till they made it creep into the silver hunting bottle, and then the Prince ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si polui ducas, L. Aubanus Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the Alps, and [1393]Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, to proceed from the same cause, "and that the filth is derived from the water to their bodies." ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... will give you the slip. You can't keep a street-dog tied up all his life. It's against his natur'." The head groom is a nice old gentleman, but he doesn't know everything. Just as though I'd been a street-dog because I liked it! As if I'd rather poke for my vittles in ash-heaps than have 'em handed me in a wash-basin, and would sooner bite and fight than be polite and sociable. If I'd had mother there I couldn't have asked for nothing more. But I'd think of her snooping in the gutters, or freezing of nights under the bridges, or, ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... Wellington and we'll have a grand celebration. Any small contributions which you may feel it your duty to drag along will be thankfully received. I'm going to start for college a week from next Tuesday. I suppose I'll be there ahead of you, so I'll have everything fixed up comfy when you poke your distinguished head in ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... that female across the street came in, and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. "It scared the life out of Gussie," he said; then, with sudden angry gravity,—"These people that poke their noses into other people's business ought to be thrashed. Well, I'm going over to see Mrs. North." And off he stumped, leaving ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... This reflection made me suffer cruelly; but it did not conquer my longing to won the work of Clerk Alexander. While I was thus meditating, I heard a coachman swear. And I discovered it was I whom he was swearing at only when I felt the pole of a carriage poke me in the ribs. I started aside, barely in time to save myself from being run over; and whom did I perceive through the windows of the coupe? Madame Trepof, being taken by two beautiful horses, and a coachman all wrapped up in furs like a Russian Boyard, into ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... great enthusiasm and unwearying industry. His quick eye detected what others passed by without notice: the Indian relic, where another would see only pebbles and fragments; the rare mollusk, or reptile, which his companion would poke with his cane, never suspecting that there was a prize at the end of it. Getting his single facts together with marvellous sagacity and long-breathed patience, he arranged them, classified them, described ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... conversation, and, when it had reached the stage where all feeling of restraint was cast aside, the most insolent and often the rudest badgering was indulged in, or, if for any reason this was not allowed, the company began to rally certain individuals, or, as we might say, began to poke fun at them. One of the choicest victims of this favorite occupation of the whole round table was my papa. It had long been known that when it was a question of conversation he had three hobbies, viz., personal ranks and decorations in the Prussian State, the ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... marches of the Indians it was the custom for one to linger behind, and poke up the grass with a stick after a party had passed along, to conceal all traces of their footsteps, so a pursuit was seldom successful. In deviating from a direct course in order not to get lost, they noticed the moss upon the trees, which always grows ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... another, and so on, until all was got rid of, and on the following day they would return with goods to Hindon. This quiet little business went on satisfactorily for some years, during which the officers of the excise had stared a thousand times with their eagle's eyes at the quaint old woman in her poke bonnet and shawl, driven by a blind man with a vacant face, and had suspected nothing, when a little mistake was made and a jar of brandy delivered at a wrong address. The recipient was an honest gentleman, and in his anxiety to find the rightful owner ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... and he was rejected. So was Tibby. (Cheer up, Tibby!) It's no one we know. I said, 'Hunt, my good woman; have a good look round, hunt under the tables, poke up the chimney, shake out the antimacassars. Husband? husband?' Oh, and she so magnificently dressed ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... short while before in the post-office. Then he would have given much to be possessed of the opportunity which was now in his power; but many pause on the brink of a crime, who have contemplated it at a distance without scruple. Lord Etherington's first impulse had led him to poke the fire; and he held in his hand the letter which he was more than half tempted to commit, without even breaking the seal, to the fiery element. But, though sufficiently familiarized with guilt, he ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... give me time, and if God spares my life, I'll pay you back every farthing honestly." "Charles Hawermann, Charles Hawermann," said Braesig, wiping his eyes, and blowing his imposing nose, "you're—you're an ass! Yes," he continued, shoving his handkerchief into his pocket with an emphatic poke, and holding his nose even more in the air than usual, "you're every bit as great an ass as you used to be!" And then, as if thinking that his friend's thoughts should be led into a new channel, he caught Lina and Mina by the waist-band ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... high as the stars—with one of those keen profiled men who have such roguish eyes when they come to earth. Frenchmen strolling down the boulevards glanced skywards and smiled. They were brave lads who defended the air of Paris. No Boche would dare to poke the beak of his engine above the housetops. But one or two men were uneasy and stood with strained eyes. There was something peculiar about the cut of those wings en haut. They seemed to bend back at the tips, unlike ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... the Bowser brothers that they would soon be there to whip them. The brothers prepared to meet them. They cut a hole in the front side of the house, through which they could poke a gun. Night came on, and true to their word the 'Nigger Rulers' came. Samuel Bowser fired when they were near the house and one man fell dead. All of the rest fled to the cover of the neighboring woods. Soon they cautiously returned ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... "ayes" or the "noes" would seem to have it! And upon this a poll would be demanded. In such cases the Speaker calls on two members, who come forth and stand fronting each other before the chair, making a gangway. Through this the ayes walk like sheep, the tellers giving them an accelerating poke when they fail to go on with rapidity. Thus they are counted, and the noes are counted in the same way. It seemed to me that it would be very possible in a dishonest legislator to vote twice on any subject of great interest; but it may perhaps be the ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... as sensitive as a skinned eel, is Layman, and he winced at that poke at his soft sawder like any thing, and puckered a little about the mouth, but he didn't say nothin', he only bowed. He was a Unitarian preacher once, was Abednego, but he swapt preachin' for politics, and a good trade he made of ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... of course," said Effie; she felt herself turning pale. She could not imagine what George's trouble was. The night was dusk; she raised her eyes to her brother's face—he avoided meeting them. He had a stick in his hand, and he began to poke holes in the gravel. ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... relative hopped about in her flat slippers and piped indignantly, Jacobus towered over her and murmured placidly in his throat; I joined jocularly from a distance, throwing in a few words, for which under the cover of the night I received secretly a most vicious poke in the ribs from the old woman's elbow or perhaps her fist. I restrained a cry. And all the time the girl didn't even condescend to raise her head to look at any of us. All this may sound childish—and yet that stony, petulant sullenness ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... quite understood this, and that we should in fact reply that it was an offer "to buy a pig in a poke" which we were not prepared to accept. He added that he thought his Government would fully anticipate a reply in this sense, and he himself ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... gathering hickory-nuts and chestnuts for sale to patient parents, building wigwams in the woods, and sometimes playing Indians in too realistic manner by staining ourselves (and incidentally our clothes) in liberal fashion with poke-cherry juice. Thanksgiving was an appreciated festival, but it in no way came up to Christmas. Christmas was an occasion of literally delirious joy. In the evening we hung up our stockings—or rather the biggest stockings we could borrow from the grown-ups—and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... having exhausted her experiments on the frock, the bonnet, and the hoop petticoat bought for her in London and sent like the proverbial pig in a poke, had taken to watching the Yankee peddling sloop, which, having lain for an hour at Patterson's on the Virginia shore, was now heading for the Browne place. It was pretty to see the sloop heel over under a beam wind and shoot ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... year 18— (I had very nearly let my age slip then) had not been long ago numbered with the past. Strangely enough, some of the most vivid of my recollections are the efforts of the London street-boys to poke fun at my and my companion's complexion. I am only a little brown—a few shades duskier than the brunettes whom you all admire so much; but my companion was very dark, and a fair (if I can apply the term to her) subject for their rude wit. She was hot-tempered, poor thing! ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... and again with a stiff lurch to port and then to starboard, and diving her nose down one moment with her stern lifting, only to rise again buoyantly the next instant and shake the spray off her jib-boom as she pointed it upwards, trying to poke a hole ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a very stately air, he was quitting the room; but was soon stopt, upon Mr Briggs calling out "Ay, ay, Don Duke, poke in the old charnel houses by yourself, none of your defunct for me! didn't care if they were all hung in a string. Who's the ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... I poke the fire, I snugly settle, My pipe I prime with proper care; The water's purring in the kettle, Rum, lemon, sugar, all are there. And now the honest grog is steaming, And now the trusty briar's aglow: ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... interest in snakes, and used to poke amongst logs and brush-fences in search of rare specimens. Whenever he secured a good one he put it in a cage and left it there until it died or got out, or Dad threw it, cage and all, right out ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... Julie dropped into her chair while Peter knelt to poke the fire. Then he lit a cigarette, and she refused one for once, and he stood ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... Massachusetts lettuce—I'm perfectly convinced that they used it for floor-rags before they went and lost it in the sandwiches—and this thick crumby bread—oh, it's unspeakable. I do wish you wouldn't poke around in these horrid places, mama, or else leave me in the car when you are moved to go slumming. I'm sure I don't feel any call to ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... Gardner thought I had been deluding Mark! Then Lady Fotheringham asked us, and—it was dull enough to be sure, and poor Pelham was always in the way—but they were kind comfortable folks. Lady Fotheringham is a dear old dame, and I was in dull spirits just then, and rather liked to poke about with her, and get her to tell me about your brother and ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... warm sand or paddled on the edge of the sea. He waded after this winged robber until he reached Martha's Vineyard, where he found the bones of all the children that had been stolen. Tired with his hunt he sat down to fill his pipe; but as there was no tobacco he plucked some tons of poke that grew thickly and that Indians sometimes used as a substitute for the fragrant weed. His pipe being filled and lighted, its fumes rolled over the ocean like a mist—in fact, the Indians would say, when a fog was rising, "Here comes old Maushope's smoke"—and when he finished ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... in this school of humor, and it has its earnest and prosperous exponents today. In fact, a large majority of the people still like to have some one poke fun at the things in which they themselves are not proficient, whether it be ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... some admonition finer than any it might trust to chance for, and by the time he at last, Winch's residence recognised, was duly elevated to his level and had pressed the electric button at his door, he felt himself acting indeed as under stimulus of a sharp poke in the side. ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... reveille," exclaimed Rodney, hitting him a poke in the ribs the next morning about daylight. "But it's in the enemy's camp, and I don't think we'll pay much attention to it. I ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... hero is held up to the unqualified admiration of posterity for having starved to death his son, in an extreme case of family destitution, for the sake of providing food enough for his aged father. In another he unhesitatingly divorces his wife for having dared to poke fun, in the shape of bodkins, at some wooden effigies of his parents which he had had set up in the house for daily devotional contemplation. Finally another paragon actually sells himself in perpetuity as a slave that he may thus procure the wherewithal to ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... thinking that this was the whole truth, fell weeping upon Sidonia's neck, and asked forgiveness for her suspicions. "There, that will do," said Sidonia,—"that will do, old preacher; only be more cautious in future. What! am I to poke under my bed to see if any one is hiding there? You may go, for I suppose you have often hidden a lover there, your eyes turn to it ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... and gear arrangement that repeatedly pushed the single-step button. This allowed one to 'crank' through a lot of code, then slow down to single-step for a bit when you got near the code of interest, poke at some registers using the console typewriter, and then keep ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... temper of God (which is what interests an adult reader) is shocking and blasphemous. But it is a capital story for a child. It interests a child because it is about bears; and it leaves the child with an impression that children who poke fun at old gentlemen and make rude remarks about bald heads are not nice children, which is a highly desirable impression, and just as much as a child is capable of receiving from the story. When a story is about God and a child, children take ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... attitude toward Judge Willis Enderby. For Enderby was a man of real power. He might easily have been the most munificently paid corporation attorney in the country but for the various kinds of business which he would not, in his own homely phrase, "poke at with a burnt stick." Notwithstanding his prejudices, he was confidential legal adviser, in personal and family affairs, to a considerable percentage of the important men and women of New York. He was supposed to be the only man who could ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... at the direction of the owner, with which the men sought to poke Bruiser down. But the poles were too short. Then the men threw ropes and missiles at the baboon, most of which went overboard and ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... excitable, though he never lost his head, while Kreis and Hamilton were like a pair of cold-blooded savages, seeking out tender places to prod and poke. As the evening grew late, Norton, smarting under the repeated charges of being a metaphysician, clutching his chair to keep from jumping to his feet, his gray eyes snapping and his girlish face grown harsh and sure, made a grand attack upon ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... entered before a still audience as Imogene or Cato's daughter, the dress might have seemed right enough: the grace and dignity were in her limbs and neck; and about her simply parted hair and candid eyes the large round poke which was then in the fate of women, seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold trencher we call a halo. By the present audience of two persons, no dramatic heroine could have been expected with more interest than Mrs. Casaubon. To Rosamond she was one of those county divinities not mixing ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... trail all cluttered up with folks in here,' thought Howard. 'Wonder who was the last man to poke his fool nose into ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... my dear shark?... Let me see everything. Let me poke around everywhere. Everything of yours interests me. You will not say now that I do not love you. What a boast for Captain Ferragut! The ladies come to seek him ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sharply; "I don't think we'll have it out now. My head's too queer, and my eyes keep going misty, so that I can't see straight. You'd get the best of it. I don't want to meet my father, but I'd rather do that than be half killed. The poke from that pike was quite enough to last me ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... and then began to poke the fire. Soon it was blazing as readily as before, and then the light found its way into the inner cave, so that Sam and Tom could ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles, Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, 150 And leave in our town, not even a trace Of the rats!"—when suddenly, up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a, "First, if ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... any service to me in my trouble. Some of these letters must have been dispatched in a spirit of humor, but I see nothing mirthfull in the association of an honest man's name with crime, and the people who have sought to poke fun at me in this unpleasant affair need not be at all surprised if I do not bow to them the next time ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... books there is a certain class (it may be of men, or it may be of women, but that is not the question in point)—how comes it, dear sir, there is a certain class of persons whom you always attack in your writings, and savagely rush at, goad, poke, toss up in the air, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... every one has met a man like that, been casually introduced, even made a friend of him, yet felt he was the sort who aroused passionate dislike—expressed by some in the involuntary clinching of fists, and in others by mutterings about "takin' a poke" and "landin' a swift smash in ee eye." In the juxtaposition of Samuel Meredith's features this quality was so strong that it influenced ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Pickle, a few, a little. Pint (Scots), three imperial pints. Pit, put. Placads, proclamations. Plack, four pennies (Scots). Plackless, penniless. Plaiden, coarse woolen cloth. Plaister, plaster. Plenish'd, stocked. Pleugh, plew, a plow. Pliskie, a trick. Pliver, a plover. Pock, a poke, a bag, a wallet. Poind, to seize, to distrain, to impound. Poortith, poverty. Pou, to pull. Pouch, pocket. Pouk, to poke. Poupit, pulpit. Pouse, a push. Poussie, a hare (also a cat). Pouther, powther, powder. Pouts, chicks. Pow, the poll, the head. Pownie, a pony. Pow't, pulled. Pree'd, pried (proved), ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... halting every now and then in dreadful suspense as the wind, soughing through across the open land behind the house, blew down the chimneys and set the window-frames jarring. At the commencement of one of the passages I was immeasurably startled to see a dark shape poke forward, and then spring hurriedly back, and was so frightened that I dared not advance to see what it was. Moment after moment sped by, and I still stood there, the cold sweat oozing out all over me, and my eyes fixed in hideous expectation on the blank wall. What was it? ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... a lobster palace," grinned Jimmie. "We might find a pie-counter over there, too," he added, with a poke at Frank. ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... through till you come to the marble building with the pearls over the door," he said; and gave the Princess a poke with the handle of his sword, that pushed her through the gate, almost before she had time to draw on her ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... have had more practice at this thing you learn to wait for the signal before plunging the second hand into the suds, but being green on this occasion, you are apt to mistake the moving of the crock of suds over from the right hand side to the left hand side as a notice and to poke your untouched hand right in without further orders, hoping to get it softened up well so as to save her trouble in trimming it down to a size which will suit her. But this is wrong—this is very wrong, ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... obvious sources of deception were excluded. But Gurney's most important contribution to our knowledge of hypnotism was his series of experiments on the automatic writing of subjects who had received post-hypnotic suggestions. For example, a subject during trance is told that he will poke the fire in six minutes after waking. On being waked he has no memory of the order, but while he is engaged in conversation his hand is placed on a planchette, which immediately writes the sentence, "P., you will poke the fire in six minutes." Experiments like this, which were repeated ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... Dear, dear! how strangely things come about! Aunt Ca-iry we all called her, though she was no connection of ours. And to think of your having her scissors-case! Now I come to remember, I used to see this in her basket when I used to poke over her things, as I loved to ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... neither room for any thing more, nor inclination for them, as I reckon every thing very dear when One has so little time to enjoy it. However, I cannot say but the plates by Rubens do tempt me a little—yet, as I do not care to, buy even Rubens in a poke, I should wish to know if the Alderman would let me see. if it were but one. Would he be persuaded? I would pay for the carriage, though ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... at him, slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him at Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze it on ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... couldn't wrinkle my forehead and poke out my chin, and grimace at the judges, do you suppose I should ever have been—Class Pug. First Prize—Champion and ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... fop replied: "All realms polite, From Roman to the Muscovite, Now trim their beards and shave their chins; Shall we, like Monkish Capuchins, Alone be singular and hairy? One walks amidst the cities cheery, And men and boys all cease to poke Fun at the beard by way of joke— In days of old, so Romans jeered Stoic philosophers ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... end kept up his correspondence with Mrs. Howard, and his letters to her are often delightful reading, especially when he had nothing in particular to say, or when he was able to poke kindly fun at his ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... a little uncertain,—like a sailor just landed on a continent which seems to have been drinking,—but still it was up and ready to try a step or two if necessary. But now the dog, who had been keeping a sharp eye on every move, became so personally interested that he gave it a poke with his nose; and over it went. This must have been discouraging. The lamb, dazed for a moment, waited for the spirit to move it, and up it came again, a little groggy but still in the ring. It staggered, got its legs crossed and dug its nose in the dirt, but ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... the gaze of her guest. "Look you at all I've got for you. I didn't steal a bit of it— I saw from your face you wouldn't like things got that way. Here's a fine happing of fur to keep you warm; and I've got a full dozen of eggs given me, and a beef-bone to make broth, and a poke o' meal: and they promised me a cape at the green house, if I bring 'em some herbs they want. We shall get along grandly, you'll see. I've picked up a fine lot of chestnuts, too,—but them be for me; the other things be for you. I'll set ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... earliest infancy, must for ever disqualify me for a profession which—what do ye want? what do ye buy? O, it is only somebody going past. I thought it had been a customer.—Why was not I bred a glover, like my cousin Langston? to see him poke his two little sticks into a delicate pair of real Woodstock—"A very little stretching ma'am, and they will fit exactly"—Or a haberdasher, like my next-door neighbour—"not a better bit of lace in all town, my lady—Mrs. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... "Will you poke a smipe, Pet?" asked Mr. Bouncer, rather enigmatically; but, as he at the same time placed before Pet a "yard of clay" and a box of cigars, the professor of the art of self-defence perceived that he was asked ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... here," said Mrs. Wragge, in awestruck accents. "A woman in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. A rude woman. She scuttled by me on the stairs—she did. Here's the room, and no woman in it. Give us a Prayer-book!" cried Mrs. Wragge, turning deadly pale, and letting her whole remaining collection of parcels fall about her in a little cascade ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... first hour he gave voice to them in one simple, bitter sentence. "Just why the hell," he muttered, "did I ever join the Navy?" The silence offered no reply, and McKegnie, desperate from his cramped position, ventured to poke his head around the instrument panel. The faint emergency lights showed the control room to be empty. He decided to come out, and did so, worming his way ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... up out'n bed, An' she poke her head outside o' de d[o]'. She say: "Ole man, my gander's gone. I heared 'im w'en he holler 'quinny-quanio,' 'Quinny-quanio, quinny-quanio!' Yes, I heared ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... as he was coming round a bend he saw a coffin on the road in front of him. At first he thought it was a warning to him that he was soon to leave this world; but after some hesitation, he finally summoned up courage to give the thing a poke with his stick, when he found that the coffin was merely an outline of sea-weed which some passer-by had made. Whereupon he went on his ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... I poke de holes in de scoundrils, I was 'bleeged to bolt. When I come back, de ole house was in flames, an' eberybody gone—what wasn't dead. I hollered—ay, till I was a'most busted—but nobody reply. Den I bury de dead ones, an' I've hoed about eber since slobberin' an' wringin' ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... I daren't utter one word more than is proper, nor venture to recklessly take one step more than I ought to, you know very well which of the women servants, in charge of the menage in our household, is easy to manage! If ever I make the slightest mistake, they laugh at me and poke fun at me; and if I incline a little one way, they show their displeasure by innuendoes; they sit by and look on, they use every means to do harm, they stir up trouble, they stand by on safe ground and look on and don't give a helping hand to lift any ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... not like leaving his mother on Sunday, but Mrs. Worse said, "Go along, you great stupid! do you suppose that Samuelsen and I care to have you sitting and laughing at us when we are playing draughts; and besides," said she, giving him a sly poke with her finger, "don't you know there is somebody out there that ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... a mellow undertone of mowing machines everywhere, like the distant hum of a city. Fat cattle stood knee-deep in a stream as we passed, and others lay contentedly on the clover-covered banks. One restless spirit, with a poke on her neck, sniffed at us as we went by, and tossed her head in grim defiance of public opinion and man-made laws. She had been given a bad name—and was going to live up ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... of the stock, the butter-making, the sending off of the milk for sale; a thousand things get done while most people are fast asleep, and before lazy folk are well at breakfast she is off in her pony-carriage to the other farms on the place, to rate the "mamsells," as the head women are called, to poke into every corner, lift the lids off the saucepans, count the new-laid eggs, and box, if necessary, any careless dairymaid's ears. We are allowed by law to administer "slight corporal punishment" to our servants, it being left entirely to individual taste to decide what "slight" shall be, ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... the point of stepping on the floor, he stops you with another stair, or lets you through: in other words, you are never safe from a whimsical allusion or a twist in the thought. The narrative extends no thread which you may take in one hand as you poke along: it frequently disappears altogether, and it seems as if you had another book ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... move backwards and forwards in the crowd with cocks and ducks under their arms. The fowls are all lean and hungry. Chickens poke their ugly, mangy-looking heads out of their cages and peck at something in the mud. Boys with pigeons stare into your face and try to detect ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... or, if they do, they either draw correct inferences from wrong premises, or wrong inferences from correct premises; and they always poke the fire from ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... him," whispered back Eph McCormick; and Frank Perry picked up a long stiff corn stalk, and began to poke it in at ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... may have made a special trip to the Connecticut tract before deciding to purchase; for it was not in the nature of them to "buy a pig in a poke," as it were. And such a journey of nearly a hundred miles, mainly through a wilderness, was no child's task in those days. In after-years General Israel Putnam made many a longer journey, through wilds swarming with hostile Indians, ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... by several lengths of the Commissioner's pet mahseer-rod. "Tum along, Toby! Zere's a chu-chu lizard in ze chick, and I've told Chimo to watch him till we turn. If we poke him wiz zis his tail will go wiggle-wiggle and fall off. Tum along! I ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... are seventy-five people in the tramway. They sit in your lap; they stand on your toes; when they wish to pass they simply push you. Everything in silence; they know that silence is golden, and they have the worship of gold. When the conductor wishes your fare he gives you a poke, very serious, without a word. As for the types— but there is only one—they are all variations of the same—the commis-voyageur minus the gaiety. The women are often pretty; you meet the young ones in ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... beat us.' He says, 'I knew what stuff I had under me, so I went into the attack with only a few ships, perfectly sure the others would follow me, although it was nearly dark and they might have had every excuse for not doing it, yet they all in the course of two hours found a hole to poke in at. If,' he added, 'I had taken a fleet of the same force from Spithead, I would sooner have thought of flying than attacking the French in their position, but I knew my captains, nor could ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... sticks and try if you can knock down a few parrots or wattle birds for dinner. But don't you go far from the camp, and keep a sharp look-out for the blacks; for you can never trust 'em, and they might poke their spears through you." ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... young ladies obtained the melons from a farmer," explained Tom Reade, giving Dan an unseen poke in the ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... very closely and saw one boy run up to the hive, give it a quick poke, and then scamper away. With every poke at the hive, a number of bees would fly out of the opening and sail away on ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... giving him a good poke in the ribs. "This is Mr. Harris, who you will travel with—Jack ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... forwards by Aunt Barbara always made Kate shrink back into herself, and the presence of a little girl before elders likewise rendered her shy and bashful, so she came forth as if intensely disgusted, put out her hand as if she were going to poke, and muttered her favourite "—do" so awkwardly and coldly, that Lady Barbara felt how proud and ungracious it looked, and to make up said, "My niece has been very eager for your coming." And then the two little girls drew ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... left you," he ses, giving me a little poke in the ribs, "I picked up a cab and, fust leaving my bag at Aldgate, I drove on to your 'ouse and knocked at the door. I knocked twice, and then an angry- looking woman opened it and asked me ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... punkto. Point (cards) poento. Point (tip of) pinto. Point (to sharpen) pintigi. Point out montri, signali. Points (railway) relforko. Poise balanci, ekvilibri. Poison veneno. Poisonous venena. Poke the fire inciti la fajron. Poker fajrincitilo. Polar polusa. Pole (wooden) stango. Pole (shaft of car) timono. Pole (geography) poluso. Polecat putoro. Polemic disputo, polemiko. Police polico. Policeman ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... you make a howling mistake," Collins told them, "that's when you all pull the wires like mad and poke the leader and whirl him around. That always brings down the house. They think he's got a real musical ear and is mad at his orchestra for ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... green gooseberry!" grumbled Effie Hargreaves. "If we only take a stroll along the portrait gallery, she thinks we're going to knock down the armour, or poke our fingers through ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... Blakeney had been at Eton as a boy and at Christchurch, Oxford, afterwards as a young man. He was a Captain in the Genadier Guards, and he was aide-de-camp to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. It seemed quite impossible that an Irish dispensary doctor could be trying to poke fun at him. He supposed that Dr. ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... is such a fine chance!—all the girls are learning how to make their own hats. And I thought, maybe, after I'd learned how on my own, that maybe I could make you one. Do you remember that adorable violet straw you used to have when I was a little girl?—poke shape and with the pink rose? I remember father always said it was the most becoming hat you ever had. And I was thinking, maybe, I could make one ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... remark with a wink and a slight poke with his thumb in the smart boy's side, which, however, did not seem to have the effect of reassuring Billy, for he continued to raise various objections, such as the improbability of the sloop giving them time to get into a boat ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... of surprises in the Northern army, and D'ri was the greatest of all. That long, wiry, sober-faced Yankee conquered the smartness of the new camp in one decisive and immortal victory. At first they were disposed to poke fun at him. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... exciting escape from Ruhleben, gloried in the event and in the spirit it showed, and were ready to welcome them heartily—"you two, Henri and Jules, here is a loophole for each of you. You see the parapet of the trench is strengthened with logs cut from the forest, and if you are careful not to poke your heads up above the parapet you have little to fear from enemy bullets. Look away down below you; the ground slopes gradually, and there is nothing to obstruct your fire but the stumps of trees which were cut down months ago. ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Associate ourselves to make everybody else behave as we do. Chilly drafts and sarcasms on what we call the temperate zone Criticism by comparison is the refuge of incapables Crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire Don't know what success is Each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance Enjoyed poor health Enthusiasm is a sign of inexperience, of ignorance Fallen into the days of conformity Few people know how to make a wood-fire Finding the ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... When we flashed the lantern in their eyes, the hens set up a great cackling and flew about clumsily, scattering down-feathers. The mottled, pin-headed guinea-hens, always resentful of captivity, ran screeching out into the tunnel and tried to poke their ugly, painted faces through the snow walls. By five o'clock the chores were done just when it was time to begin them all over again! That was a strange, unnatural sort ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... rousing cheer, and then the thousands of feet went crash! crash! crash! Reddy fouled the first ball over the grand-stand. Umpire Kern threw out a new one, gleaming white. The next two pitches were wide; the following one Reddy met with the short poke he used when hitting to left field. The ball went over Martin's head, scoring Homans with the first run of the game. That allowed the confident Wayne crowd to get up and yell long and loud. Weir fouled out upon the first ball pitched, and ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... he who would poke hole in hornets nest had best be prepared with long legs." Ishie grinned. "You don't think anybody would really appreciate our doing that, do you Mike? Outside of the people themselves, that is, that ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... yourselves!" said the French dolly, as she stood before Annabel and Thomas, "You will make all of us sorry that you have joined our family if you continue to poke fun at us and look down upon us. We are all happy here together and share in each others' adventures ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... rebel, but I'll stop your treble, With a poke, poke, poke: Take this from my rudder—(dashing at the frogs)—and that from my oar, And now let us see if you'll trouble us more With your ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... and Spider fairly ran, and soon came back carrying seven plump partridges between them, at sight of which a great cheer arose. Like all fickle crowds, the boys now applauded Jud just as strongly as they had previously sought to poke fun ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... up his cane and gave the pig a poke. He poked it two or three times, and he had just remarked, "That certainly is a splendid pig," when he gave it another poke, and then somehow the pistol in the cane went off and the ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... mansion; an elderly spinster, accompanied by a little boy, also might be remarked coming thither daily. It was Miss Briggs and little Rawdon, whose business it was to see to the inward renovation of Sir Pitt's house, to superintend the female band engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke and rummage in the drawers and cupboards crammed with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a couple of generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take inventories of the china, the glass, and other properties in the closets ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sympathized Lizzie. "Why did you write and ask the Rainbow to put you together? It was rather buying a pig in a poke, wasn't it?" ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... on them, and gave an occasional poke with his cold nose to be sure they were there as they drove through the bustling streets of New York to a great house with ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... garden, the peach-trees, and the nest under the eaves where the swallows had lived when we first came there. Then, as it grew dark, we sat on the little veranda while we smoked our cigars—that is, Gregory Wilkinson and I smoked: all that Susan did was to try to poke her finger through the rings which I blew towards her—and I told why we had come down there, and what a good start we had made towards finding my great-great-great-uncle's buried money. And when I had got through, Susan ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... Pa., in 1940 are now 3 and 4 feet high and apparently in a good state of health. They are leisurely growing, which may be a good thing. Trees like the Manchurian walnut which grow 6 to 8 feet of new wood in a year, seem to freeze back and start over more frequently than the trees which poke along but harden their wood before cold weather. In 1946, a few more seedlings from D. C. Snyder, Center Point, Iowa, were set out and most of them have survived the first winter. Carl Weschcke reports that chestnuts ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... everything used being carefully weighed and measured. One day the machine was worked for 151/4 hours on end; the other days it was worked with an interval of half an hour every 12 hours to clear the hearth, poke the fire and lubricate the machine; and it was clearly established that with a big enough generator it would be quite possible to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... coming round a bend he saw a coffin on the road in front of him. At first he thought it was a warning to him that he was soon to leave this world; but after some hesitation, he finally summoned up courage to give the thing a poke with his stick, when he found that the coffin was merely an outline of sea-weed which some passer-by had made. Whereupon he went ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... finished the lines, Peter Glynn ran out and called to him to stop, and he set at work on the shoes then and there.' He even ventured to poke a little satire at a priest sometimes. 'He went into the chapel at Kilchreest one time, and there was some cabbage after being stolen from a garden, and the priest was speaking about it. Raftery was at the bottom of the chapel, and at last he called out in verse:—"What ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... towns with their pearl and jasper windows spangling the floor of the Spanish Main! To picnic in the anemone-meadows, dim blue and lilac-gray, that lie in the lowlands beyond the South Sea Garden! To throw somersaults on the springy sponge-beds of the Mexican Gulf! To poke about among the dead ships and see what wonders and adventures lie inside!—And then, on winter nights when the Northeaster whips the water into froth, to swoop down and down to get away from the cold, down to where the water's warm and dark, down and still down, till we spy the twinkle ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... was accompanied with another poke, and another, and then the old lord caught the parasol, and wouldn't give it up again, which induced the other lady to come to the rescue, and some ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... other, "an old fellow who used to live out in the country near me. He was not so very old, either, but he looked it. He had to be pushed around in a wheel-chair. People said he had locomotor ataxia, but that really meant syphilis. We boys used to poke all kinds of fun at him because one windy day his hat and his wig were blown off together, and we discovered that he was as bald as an egg. We used to make jokes about his automobile, as we called it. It had a little handle in front, instead of a steering-wheel, and a man behind to push, ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... the bear really means to charge out into the open, and also that the man with the stick can readily get out of the way, which he cannot do in the case of every cave. The native with a long pole, or rather stick, usually commences with a quiet nervous sort of poke, which awakes the bear out of his midday slumbers and causes him to rush at the stick with a furious growl. But this is merely a demonstration, and the experienced native does not expect a charge, though I need hardly say that he is well prepared to get out of the way. Then ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... the cattle. The cattle-train starts about daylight. It won't be so comfortable as the passenger; but you'll save your fare, and you can give Andy a hand with the cattle. You've only got to have a look at 'em every other station, and poke up any that fall down in the trucks. You and Andy are mates, ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... crossed, as though still he had not heard. Doubtless he felt as heavy as he looked, for the afternoon was warm, and luncheon—well, at any rate, he remained neutral and inactive. Something might happen to divert philosophical inquiry into other channels; a rat might poke its nose above the pond; a big fish might jump; an awfully rare butterfly come dancing; or Maria, as on rare occasions she had been known to do, might stop discussion with a word of power. The chances were in his favour ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... distrust a man of parts like you. But it is a dangerous game. Shall I give you an instance? Natoile, who runs a little outdoor theatre in the Champs Elysees, was arrested the day before yesterday for anti-patriotism, because he made Polichinelle poke fun ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... could see nothing of him. The shadows fell short and the old people and Guinea and Chyd returned from church, and the noon-tide meal was spread, but Alf came not. But save with me there was no anxiety, as he was wont to poke about alone they said. Evening, bed-time came. Chyd went home, and I went up to my room. I heard the old man locking the smoke-house door—heard his wife singing a hymn, heard Guinea's faint foot-steps as she returned ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... he exclaimed; and before Jerry suspected what was going to happen he found himself seated on the monster's tail! "There you go, on the back of a sea-elephant," exclaimed Mr Kilby, giving the beast a poke with his stick. "Hold on tight, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... disputations was that in his appeal to Letters and to what he conceived to be human nature, he overlooked the at least equally important appeal to History. He seems indeed to have avoided coming to close quarters with the historical defenders of the Christian Creed. It was easy enough to poke fun at Archbishop Thomson, Bishop Wilberforce, and Bishop Ellicott; Mr. Moody, and the Rev. W. Cattle, and the clergymen who write to the Guardian. But Bishop Lightfoot he left severely alone, with Bishop Westcott and Dr. Sanday and students of the same authority; and he would probably have justified ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... sermons that make you out a vial of revelations and discuss the probabilities of your being in the realms of Satan; a bust that slants you off at the shoulders and sticks you up on a bracket; a tombstone for the canes of the curious to poke at; an occasional attention in the way of withered immortelles or biographical Billingsgate, and a partial preservation shared in common with mummies, auks' eggs, snakes in bottles, and deformities in spirits of ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... and, scrambling to their feet, looked politely at the sideboard. David, who played host on these occasions, made haste to poke the apples at Mrs. Richie, who could not help whispering to him to pull his collar straight; and she even pushed his hair back a little from his forehead. The sense of possession came over her ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... interrupted by a poke in the ribs given by one of his companions, who did not think it prudent for him to say anything about his plans, if he had any in mind. But he had already revealed enough to interest Mr. Bailey, ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... of the Indians it was the custom for one to linger behind, and poke up the grass with a stick after a party had passed along, to conceal all traces of their footsteps, so a pursuit was seldom successful. In deviating from a direct course in order not to get lost, they noticed the moss upon the trees, ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... dropping the solder on the run and on the branch, catching the surplus solder on the catch cloth and heating the under side of the joint with it. To form the joint, distribute the solder and then wipe it into shape. Notice that I said wipe it into shape. A beginner is very apt to try to push or poke it into shape. This must not be done as it has a tendency to make the joint lumpy. All the edges are wiped off clean first, then the body of the joint is shaped and wiped. When forming the joint, be sure that the bottom and the top are symmetrical. Do not have one-half larger than the other. The ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... pleasanter, in a small library like this, to poke about by one's self—with the help ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... took hold of me, I did all I could to get a peep within the room. I had been bringing the meals, that were not enough to keep a kitten alive, to the crack she would open to take them in. Believe me, that the very first time I tried to poke my head around where I could see, that practice stopped, and my mistress, in a dull and heavy voice, told me to leave everything on the floor and go away. It seemed that she had grown suspicious. It ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... them near Church Butte and Granger stations, nearly nine hundred miles west of Missouri River. You have to poke among cobble-stones, etc. to find them, and when a person comes upon a handsome specimen, he will shout, as did a minister from Chicago, one day, with me, when he picked up a nice one as large ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... a husky voice, inevitably that of a horrified coloured person hastening from a distance: "Oh, my soul!" There was a scurrying, and the girl was heard in furious yet hoarsely guarded vehemence: "Bring the clo'es prop! Bring the clo'es prop! We can poke that one down from the garage, anyway. Oh, my goodness, look at ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... help thinking that many a touching story might be told by those silent but eloquent memorials. We were much amused with looking at a card put in one of the windows of these little comfortable state rooms, on which was written these words: "Anti-poke-your-nose-into-other-folks'-business Society. 5000 Pounds reward annually to any one who will really mind his own business; with the prospect of an increase of 100 Pounds, if he shall abstain from poking his nose into other folks' business." We returned ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... everything, even cooking, in crimson breeches; which in a hot climate, he protested, was "a grinding of him down." "He is a poor soft country fellow; and his master locks him up at night, in a basement room with iron bars to the window. Between which our servants poke wine in, at midnight. His master and mistress buy old boxes at the curiosity shops, and pass their lives in lining 'em with bits of parti-coloured velvet. A droll existence, is it not? We are lucky to have had the palace to ourselves until now, but it is ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... said: "Hi there, master, Can't you make your legs work faster? We can't poke along this way." Then he slowly flew away. Loddy held him fast, you bet, And ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... a tank, in which a lot of loathsome crocodiles are kept for the amusement of people who like that sort of thing. They are looked after by a venerable, half-naked old Hindu, who calls them up to the terrace by uttering a peculiar cry, and, when they poke their ugly noses out of the water and crawl up the steps, teases them with dainty morsels he has obtained at the nearest slaughter-house. It ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... thick carpet. At the fireside my wife was cutting out something and smiling at me from time to time; a new book awaited me on the mantelpiece, and the log on the hearth kept shooting out with a hissing sound those little blue flames which invite one to poke it. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... friendly snack—at Atkinson's expense; this by an insinuation of the neck out between his own bars and in between those of Atkinson, adjoining. But he doesn't understand the laws of space. Having once fetched his neck around the partition into Atkinson's larder by chancing to poke his head through the end bars, he straightway assumes that what is possible between some bars is possible between all; and wheresoever he may now be standing when prompted by companionable peckishness, straight he plunges among the nearest ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... cold weather for this Priest Captain fellow," Young commented, "if we've got hold of his boss miracle; and I guess you're about right, Professor—he'll want t' take it out of our hides. Just poke up th' Colonel t' telling all he knows about this old dodger. Th' Colonel's got his tongue pretty well greased just now with his own prime old Bourbon—pass me that jar, Rayburn, I don't mind if I have another ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... walking costume of Glenfern Castle. And, indeed, it must be owned their style of dress was infinitely more judicious than that of their fashionable niece; and it was not surprising that they, in their shrunk duffle greatcoats, vast poke-bonnets, red worsted neckcloths, and pattens, should gaze with horror at her lace cap, lilac satin pelisse, and silk shoes. Ruin to the whole race of Glenfern, present and future, seemed inevitable from such a display of ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... had, of course, bowed inside the door, and all that sort of thing. But Nikky was an informal person, and was quite apt to bow deeply before his future sovereign, and then poke him in the chest. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... then he drew a dial from his poke; And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says, very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock; Thus we may see,' quoth ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... My life is passed in grinding the people, is it?—in ruining virgins and robbing the poor? My good sir, this is very well in a comedy, where Job Thornberry slaps his breast, and asks my lord how dare he trample on an honest man and poke out an Englishman's fire-side; but in real life, Mr. Bows, to a man who has to work for his bread as much as you do—how can you talk about aristocrats tyrannizing over the people? Have I ever done you a wrong? or assumed airs of superiority over you? Did ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... morning in his shore suit of quiet gray. With the widow's ready aid Polly Candage had made her own attire presentable once more. When they walked down to the shore she smiled archly at Mayo from under the brim of a very fetching straw poke. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... turned his head so that his face was almost hidden against his hand upon the wall. Charlie's big eyes were full of tears, and I am sure I distinctly felt my ears poke forwards on my head with anxious curiosity to catch what Mr. Wood would tell us about that dreadful time of which he had ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... farther?' said the Captain, making a poke at the door with the knobby stick to assure himself that ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... in the cow-house, and the groom in the stables, and the bailiff to worry the tenants and workpeople. What am I to do—poke around making improvements?" ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... would poke him in the cheek, very gently, and say: "Why, I never! What a rum little beggar he is! He's got some tremendous joke ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... gave voice to them in one simple, bitter sentence. "Just why the hell," he muttered, "did I ever join the Navy?" The silence offered no reply, and McKegnie, desperate from his cramped position, ventured to poke his head around the instrument panel. The faint emergency lights showed the control room to be empty. He decided to come out, and did so, worming his way ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... head and stick by me in what's going to happen in the next few days. This bunch," he jerked his thumb in the direction of the captain's cabin, "are fixing their necks for halters, an' I for one don't intend to poke my head through any noose of another man's making. There's more in this thing if it's handled right, and handled without too many men in on the whack-up than we can get out of it if that man Divine has to be counted in. I've a plan ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... account of any obnoxious odor, but because of this unreasonable meddling with what she considered her own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might have forgotten, she ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... story as it is told in The Myroure of Oure Ladye, written for the delectation of the nuns of Syon in the fifteenth century: 'We read of a holy Abbot of the order of Citeaux that while he stood in the choir at matins he saw a fiend that had a long and great poke hanging about his neck and went about the choir from one to another and waited busily after all letters and syllables and words and failings that any made; and them he gathered diligently and put them in his poke. And when he came before the Abbot, waiting ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... to get away with a whole front," I heard the man say, "or with a poke or a souper, but instead he got dropped by a flatty and ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... judge said sharply, with a suspicious frown. Then he recovered himself with a start. For a moment he had half fancied that fellow, Forbes-Ewing, meant SOMETHING by what he said—meant to poke innuendoes at him. But, after all, it was a mere polite form. How frightened we all are, to be sure, when we know ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... steamer stopped by where I was watching the flying fish fizz out of the blue-ink-like water, skim along for some distance, and drop in again, often, I believe, to be snapped up by some bigger fish; and he gave me a poke in the shoulder with one finger, ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... he burst out; "You hardhearted old ruffian! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics. I've a good mind to clear out and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... and then in a minute, "I am glad to see that you feel her loss, I am sure." Here she got half off her chair to poke the damper of the stove. "There is no loss so great as the loss of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... shops, upon one that seemed that of a broker of all sorts of old decorations, armor, china, furniture. I entered the shop; it was dark, dusty, and low. The proprietor was busy scouring a piece of inlaid armor, and allowed me to poke about his shop, and examine the curious things accumulated there, just as I pleased. Gradually I made my way to the farther end of it, where there was but one window with many panes, each with a bull's eye in it, and in the dirtiest Possible state. When I reached this window, I turned about, and ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... You won't see my trail for smoke when I get a gait on for God's country, my wad in my poke and the sunshine in my eyes. Say! How'd a good juicy tenderloin strike you just now, green onions, fried potatoes, and fixin's on the side? S'help me, that's the first proposition I'll hump myself up against. Then a general whoop-la! ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... come and poke their noses Into our churns as sweet as roses; And to quiz MAUDLIN in clean kirtle The toffs of Town will crush ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... against Flanders, and well knowing that the queen-mother lay under his suspicion, 'My dear father,' said he, 'there is one thing herein of which we must take good heed; and that is, that the queen, my mother, who likes to poke her nose everywhere, as you know, learn nothing of this enterprise, at any rate as regards the main spring of it, for she would spoil all for us.' 'As you please, sir; but I take her to be so good ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... wise, perhaps without knowing it. Unadulterated truth sometimes comes off second best in the theatre, as is proved by the ancient story of the actor who was hissed because instead of imitating the squeaks of a pig he pinched the tail of a real porker in a poke; upon the stage a little truth is sometimes dangerous, a great deal often fatal. As a last word, in these as in all other germane matters our British productions are vastly more accurate than those that come from the other side of the Atlantic. It may ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... distrustful flock, we birds of prey. Come along! Why sit there sulking, like a spoiled child? You've made an ass of yourself, following me to Paris; sadly though you bungled that job in London, I gave you credit for more wit than to poke your head into the lion's mouth here. But—admitting that—why not be graceful about it? Here am I, amiably treating you like an equal: you might at least show gratitude enough to accept my invitation ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... not over-fond of our Paris police; they poke their noses in where they are least wanted. Their incompetence favours the machinations of rogues and frustrates the innocent ambitions of the just. However, in this instance the inspector looked amiable enough, though ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Gate of California, was so free and cordial that each one might have thought himself a dear friend of the Doctor, and he would have been right in thinking so. Again, his sense of humour was so great that he could laugh and "poke fun" at his critics with such ease and good humour that their arrows passed harmlessly over his head. "Men have a right to their opinions," he would genially say. "There are twenty tall pippin trees in the orchard to one crab apple tree. There are a million clover ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Cambridge and poke about after the dead languages until my brother passes on, and then drop into his chair in the university," he said to himself, "but the trustee was right. I can never build the East into the West. But I can learn from the East ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... brought him in opposition to a powerful element in his own party. Adams, writing in his diary under date of April 17, 1844, says: "The Western harbor bill was taken up, and the previous question was withdrawn for the homunculus Douglas to poke out a speech in favor of the constitutionality of appropriations for the improvement of Western rivers and harbors. The debate was continued between the conflicting absurdities of the Southern Democracy, which is slavery, ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... know your private affairs, for I never poke my nose into such things. You need the souls, and I am ready to sell them. Should you not buy them, I think you ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... moved through the black, stenchful passageways, up and down ramshackle stairs, from human warren to human warren, pausing here to question, there to peer and sniff and poke with an exploring cane. Out on the street again he ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... am able to say in all kindness. I bear no malice, no ill-will toward any individual that was connected with it, either as passenger or officer. Things I did not like at all yesterday I like very well to-day, now that I am at home, and always hereafter I shall be able to poke fun at the whole gang if the spirit so moves me to do, without ever saying a malicious word. The expedition accomplished all that its programme promised that it should accomplish, and we ought all to be satisfied with the management ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... There 'twas laid out on the table when I came down to poke up the fire and set the kettle on. There wasn't no name on it, so 'twan't till I'd read it clear through that I knew 'twas for Miss Martha. It said: 'Have gone to Boston to see—er—what's-his-name and Somebody-else and—' Never mind, Bancroft's all ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... no better means than by resorting to your agency. All I ask is, that you will have the book fairly printed, and that you will send one copy to my address, Householder Hall, Dorsetshire, Eng., and another to Captain Noah Poke, Stonington, Conn., in your own country. My Anna prays for you, and is ever your friend. Do not ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... his hoarse and conspiratorial whisper, 'I've been teaching you the elements of your art for two years, and all you have achieved is to poke your elbow in my eye. ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... slowly along. Let us overcome our repugnance and poke the heaps with a straw. We uncover, indeed we unclothe an ugly, pot-bellied, pale-orange larva. It is the grub ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... I've got two spears, And I'll poke your eyeballs out at your ears; I've got besides two curling-stones, And I'll crush you to bits, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... one; "Impudent jackass," says another; "Miserable puppy," cries a third; "I'd like to wring his neck," says Bruff, scowling over his shoulder at him. Clarence meanwhile nods, winks, smiles, and patronizes them all with the easiest good-humor. He is a fellow who would poke an archbishop in the apron, or clap a duke on the shoulder, as coolly as he would ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one can find, an' none as is any one's business. Don't you be a meddlesome wench an' poke your nose where it's no cause to go. Here, I must go on with my work. Get you gone an' play you. ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Christchurch, Oxford, afterwards as a young man. He was a Captain in the Genadier Guards, and he was aide-de-camp to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. It seemed quite impossible that an Irish dispensary doctor could be trying to poke fun at him. He supposed that Dr. ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... train but twenty feet away, they scuttle down out of sight the moment a man, dog or Coyote enters into the far distant precincts of their town; and downstairs they stay in the cyclone cellar until after a long interval of quiet that probably proves the storm to be past. Then they poke their prominent eyes above the level, and, if all is still, will softly hop out and in due ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... angels in the shimmering blue of heaven? Is he more disreputable than the knave who frisks his watch meanwhile? And suppose he does see an angel, or even only a blue acre of sky—is that not worth as much as the dial in his poke? ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... have penetrated very far beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the heads of the lances. Think you I let that chance go, without using my boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the contents of that ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... were again gone through. After this description it will scarcely be necessary to remark, that nothing can be poorer in its way than this tedious singing recreation, which, as well as everything in which dancing is concerned, they express by the word momek-poke. They seem, however, to take great delight in it; and even a number of men, as well as all the children, crept into the hut by degrees to ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... idea of what poor Amelia had to learn to do. There was no help for it. When she was working she very seldom saw the dwarfs; but if she were idle or stubborn, or had any hopes of getting away, one was sure to start up at her elbow and pinch her funny-bone, or poke her in the ribs, till she did her best. Her back ached with stooping over the wash-tub; her hands and arms grew wrinkled with soaking in hot soapsuds, and sore with rubbing. Whatever she did not know ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Elihu Burritt in linguistic attainments even if I must yield to him as a disciple of Vulcan. If I can learn a language and read the literature of that language each year, possibly some college may be willing to grant me a degree for work in absentia. If not, I shall poke along the best I can and try to drown my grief in ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... and even when you're outside the three-mile limit I want you to remember, Mike, that the good ship Narcissus is under the American flag. The Narcissus needs all her space for cargo, Mike. There is no room aboard her for a feud. Don't ever poke your nose into Terence Reardon's engine-room except on his invitation or for the purpose of locating a leak. Treat him with courtesy and do not discuss politics or religion when you meet him at table, which will be about the only opportunity you two will have to discuss anything; and ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... shouted the blacksmith-tyrant. "Ready, exercise—one, two"—and so on. And then he would yell: "No, Chalmers, don't punch out with your arms—swing up your gun! Swing it up from the bottom! That's the way! Poke 'em! Poke 'em! Put the punch into 'em!" And over Jimmie stole a cold horror. There was nothing on the end of those guns but a little black hole, but Jimmie knew what was supposed to be there—what ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... when the Three Bears discovered the Enchanted Land where bears may walk without fear of harm, and may safely poke their noses into any man's tent if they choose, from that day, Little Bear teased to ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... theer i' t' valley, wheer yon chimleys spit out smoke? Huthersfield is what they call it, wheer fowk live like pigs i' t' poke; ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... "All right," and went, leaving the others to poke up the fire and get all ready for the reception ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... He was the first boy Charity had ever played with. Her nurse had bragged about her to his nurse when Charity was just beginning to take notice of other than alimentary things. By that time Jim was a blase roue of five and his main interest in Charity was a desire to poke his finger into the soft spot in ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... seeing the fine wall of net, swim into it. Now the openings in the net—the meshes—are one inch across, just wide enough for the Herring to poke his head through. Once through, he is caught. His gill-covers prevent him from drawing back again. Thousands of other Herrings are held tight, all around him, and the rest of the shoal scatters for the ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... the fire, and with heads bent forward on our knees, made believe to sleep. Then we mimicked their speech, talking to each other in their fashion and making a great gibberish. I remembered seeing the wizened old hunter poke the fire with a stick. I poked the fire with a stick, turning up masses of live coals and clouds of white ashes. This was great sport, and soon we were coated white ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... delighted spectators who went up and down without accident, he resolved to try it, too, and so successfully that he was able after a few attempts to carry a stick with him, stand on the highest rung, and poke ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... threads in the smooth hair under her poke bonnet her dear face was still the face of a child, and never before had it seemed to me so helpless ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... man farther from my thought than him when I seed un poke up his carrot head under the moon. I was 'pon my awn affairs an' comed to see you. I wanted straight speech an' straight hitting; an' I got 'em, for that matter. An' fightin' 's gude for the blood, I reckon—anyway for my ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... the matter of the contents of them cases—I don't say they're not machine guns, but I've no way of knowing at present. If it turns out that they're any use to us we may strike a bargain, but I'll no pay for a pig in a poke." ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... peril? In his extremity he essayed to whistle for his dog, but his breath was too far spent for that. Mustering up all the remaining strength of his lungs, he sent pealing afar through the forest wilds the old familiar battle-cry, "I yi, you dogs!" at the same moment fetching the dam a poke of unusual vigor and directness, which brought her for once sprawling upon her back. But in the act, while yet his whole weight was thrown upon his right foot, one of the cubs, more sturdy than the rest, caught up his left foot by the top of the moccasin and continued ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... was bound to try to get me. Do you think that if I'd gone to the sheriff at Las Vegas, an' told him about Pickett, he'd have done anything but poke fun at me? An' that word would have gone all over the country—that I was scared of Pickett—an' I'd have had to pull my freight. I had to stand my ground, ma'am. Mebbe I'd have been a hero if I'd have let him ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... staff in hand: he thrust it up the hole and tried to poke the rat out. But the hole twisted among the roots, and was a safe fortress for its ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... sit ye down. Fire's welly out,' said he, giving it a vigorous poke, as if to turn attention away from himself. He was rather disorderly, to be sure, with a black unshaven beard of several days' growth, making his pale face look yet paler, and a jacket which would have been all ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... however, began to right itself a little when she saw how kind he was to Emma Thornycroft, who alternately screamed at the beasts, and made foolish remarks concerning them; also, how carefully he watched over little Missy and James, the latter of whom, with infantile pertinacity, would poke his small ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the man?" which was more certainly demonstrative of certain facts than had those facts been stated in the fullest detail, met his eye, Mr. Tatham paused and laid down the letter with a start. His ruddy colour paled for the moment, and he felt something which was like the push or poke of a blunt but heavy weapon somewhere in the regions of the heart. For the moment he felt that he could not read any more. "Do you know the man?" He did not even ask what man in the momentary sickness of his heart. Then he said to himself, almost angrily, "Well!" ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... said Flossie. "I can get a snowflake in my ear when I get home. Just now let's see if we can't get inside this little house. If the door is frozen shut, maybe you can find a stick and poke it open. Look for a ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... To poke fun in an offhand manner at little boys and girls seemed to have been the only conception of humor to be found in the children's books of the period, if we except the "Jests" and the attempts made in a ponderous manner on the title-pages. The title of "The Picture Exhibition; containing ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... in presence. When distant, or supposed to be distant, we can call him hard or tender names, nay, even poke our poor fun at him. Mr. Punch, on one occasion, when he wished to ridicule the useful-information leanings of a certain periodical publication, quoted from its pages the sentence, "Man is mortal," and people were found to grin ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... pretty sharp fellow—not educated, or polished, you know, but he seems to have some sensible ideas. He said he had never seen the Fletchers; because he didn't want to poke his nose in where he wasn't wanted. He showed his good sense also by saying that he had rather have me for a cousin ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... can't take it in. I'll tell you what—she goes slick through the water, a-head or a-starn, broadside on, or up or down, or any way; and all you have to do is to poke the fire and warm your fingers; and the more you poke, the faster she goes ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Garstang; "poke borak—it don't hurt me. But if you want to do anything in a workmanlike and perfessional manner, listen to advice. Isn't shipments of virgin gold made from the Coast? Isn't such shipments made public by the newspapers? Very good. When we see a steamer has brought up a pile of ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... molluscs, poke their heads out of the shell when feeding or moving. Oysters and their two-shelled cousins cannot do this, for the simple reason ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... life there are always off times, and Krok's Sundays, outside the simple necessities of farm life, had always been his own. His one enjoyment had been to scramble and poke and peer—without knowledge, indeed, or even understanding, save such as came of absorbed watchfulness, but still with the most perfect satisfaction—among the hidden things of nature which lay in pools, and under stones, and away in ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... from my clutches;—I, shoving at her with all my force—like Punch and the devil at the two ends of the stick. At last, after she had held me in a corner for half a minute, I made a rush upon her, drove her right to the opposite corner, so that the end of the handle gave her a severe poke in the body, which made her give up the contest, and exclaim as soon as she recovered her breath,—"Oh! you nasty, ungrateful, ungenteel brute! You little viper! Is that the way you treat your mother—and nearly kill her? Oh, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... a plenty of frigates, too. The Frenchy must have suspicioned where I was bound, for he has followed us up sharp, and as we came by South Head I seen him jest a bilin' along 'bout ten mile astarn, and now he'll poke into every hole of the bay till he finds us. Anyhow, there won't be no chance to trade long as he's round, for you folks don't dare say your soul's your own when there's a Frenchy ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... meet him, by Jove, I'd like to meet him. He has been teaching his wife to poke fun ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... rose and went to the dining-room as mechanically as though they had just been discussing the last "poke" bonnet or Mother Hubbard mantle, in the most usual way imaginable. However, a new tie bound them together now, and though no direct allusion, was afterwards made by either party to the strange narrative, yet their sympathy so strong, though new-born, ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... and, without force on your part, he will bend to your hand in every articulation. Without these, however unintentionally on your part, you will be perpetually subjecting him to the severest torture, to defend himself against which he will resist your hand, poke his nose, and stiffen his neck, and every other part of his body. The horse can endure no greater torture than that resulting from an uneven hand. This is known to every hack-cabman. Every hack-cabman has hourly experience that a job in ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... day with a rake—sometimes leaning on it, sometimes working with it. The beds are always beautifully kept. Only the most hardy annual would dare to poke his head up and spoil the smooth appearance of the soil. For those who like circles and rectangles of unrelieved brown, James is undoubtedly ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... When night was drawing near, the youth went up and made himself a bright fire in one of the rooms, placed the cutting- board and knife beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. "Ah, if I could but shudder!" said he, "but I shall not learn it here either." Toward midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one cornier, "Au, miau! how cold we are!" "You simpletons!" cried he, "what are you crying about? If you are cold, come and take a seat by the fire and warm ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... and chestnuts for sale to patient parents, building wigwams in the woods, and sometimes playing Indians in too realistic manner by staining ourselves (and incidentally our clothes) in liberal fashion with poke-cherry juice. Thanksgiving was an appreciated festival, but it in no way came up to Christmas. Christmas was an occasion of literally delirious joy. In the evening we hung up our stockings—or rather the biggest stockings we could borrow from the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... you cross the ferry and see if you don't find the waffles—but an old-fashioned sort of a high building of twenty years ago—old as the Pyramids now, with a friendly janitor who comes to me when I send for him instead of my going to his "Office" when he sends for me; friendly elevator boys who poke their heads from out their iron cages and wait five seconds until I reach them, and an obliging landlord who ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... at once, "It's—so much nearer Christmas than it was half an hour ago! Are you sure everything will keep? All those big packages that came yesterday? That humpy one especially? Don't you think you ought to peep? Or poke? Just the teeniest, tiniest little peep or poke? It would be a shame if anything spoiled! A—turkey—or a—or a fur ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... carriages can pass. Donkeys are the chief carriers. As to dogs, they are born and bred in the streets and are the property of the town, and in the day-time He by dozens in the streets, young and old, are always under the feet of the traveller, and he must constantly poke them out of the way with his stick; by night they are furious. The shops present a jumble of all kinds of wares; and the Turks sit cross-legged in the window, or ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... place for any of us to poke our heads into. I talked about "pitiless storms" to my poor Harry—no shelter to be had unless we go down to Lymport, and stop ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... walked to and from the boxes. At length the Captain found himself in a perfect hornet's nest, surrounded by vicious young secessionists, so perfectly nullified in the growth that they were all ready to shoulder muskets, pitchforks, and daggers, and to fire pistols at poor old Uncle Sam, if he should poke his nose in South Carolina. The picture presented was that of an unruly set of children dictating their opinions to a hoary-headed old daddy-accusing him of pragmatism, and threatening, if he was twice as old, they'd whip him unless he did as they directed. The knowledge of South Carolina's ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... loose-minded trollop of history, I dare say Monsieur de Puysange will hold to his bargain with indifferent content. Look you, niece, he, also, is buying—though the saying is somewhat rustic—a pig in a poke." ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... counter! When a need arose, as when a birthday was suddenly remembered the day before it fell due, or an anniversary suggested the propriety of a little offering, it was the easiest thing in the world to poke about in the cupboard until a suitable ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... for combining pleasure with business. This is the reason why, when he is sent to the spring for a pitcher of water, he is absent so long; for he stops to poke the frog that sits on the stone, or, if there is a penstock, to put his hand over the spout, and squirt the ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... "Oh, a poke is a pocket; or a hiding-place of any sort. Of course, this information sent father to digging around every fir tree and oak tree on the place. As you know, there are hundreds of both kinds of trees, so the ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... couldn't if you wanted to—but you don't really want to, I know. Now poke up the fire and get me some tea. I hope you ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... her a gentle humming as from some small winged thing when the sun first touches it and warms it, and sometimes by the time the Indian shawl, which could go through a wedding ring, but never would when it was wanted to, had been refolded and fastened again with the great cameo brooch, and the poke bonnet, like some fractious child, shaken and petted into good condition, she would be singing softly to herself, nodding her head to the words: which were generally to the effect that somebody ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. "It scared the life out of Gussie," he said; then, with sudden angry gravity,—"These people that poke their noses into other people's business ought to be thrashed. Well, I'm going over to see Mrs. North." And off he stumped, leaving Cyrus ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... mine, of course, not a bit! I am only a good-for-nothing old heyduke. What right have I to poke my nose into your honour's affairs? Make friends with him again, by all means! What do I care. Kiss and hug each other if you like, I don't care. It was not me but your honour whom the worthy man insulted, and if your honour likes that, why, be it ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... with one of his grim outbursts of humor. "Here I am at your mercy—a martyr at the stake. Poke the fire! poke ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... sides and supports. Does Alexander sit here in the autumn sunshine and while the hours away? Nay, in fact he is still one of the active, working members of the family, ever in the fields with his grandchildren, poke around his neck, extracting fleecy cotton from the bolls and putting it deftly into the poke. He can carry his row equally as well as any of the six grandchildren. He has a good appetite at meal time, digestive organs good, sleeps well, and is the early ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... fat, the small, the lean and the tall. They're all after you. The moment you poke your nose outside the gate next year, they're all going to pounce on you and ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... heaven only knows what you don't poke your nose into. But now don't go chattering about this. Do be good—for father's sake. ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... if she objected to having her picture taken she said, "all right, but don't you-all poke fun at me because I am just as ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... right back. "Remember? You're not allowed to browbeat the help anymore. There are no secrets here. Not only that, but I probably know more about this thing than you do just by looking at it. Oil, water and fuel go in these three openings, you poke a light in somewhere, probably in that smoky hole under the controls, open one of those valves for fuel supply, another one is to make the engine go slower and faster, and the third is for your water feed. The disks are indicators of some kind." Narsisi paled and stepped back. "So keep the trap ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... but to increase Our euphony: there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff, Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arsniew of modern Greece, And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff, And others of twelve consonants apiece; And more might be found out, if I could poke enough Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet), It seems, has got an ear as well ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... peeped into the basket and exclaimed in joy as she breathed in the sweet perfume of the fresh flowers. Millie paused in the act of pouring coffee into big blue cups to "get a sniff of the smell," but Aunt Rebecca was impatient at the momentary delay. "My goodness, but you poke around. I like to get the supper ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... was the latest rage back on Earth. They're even making toys like it. I'm sure they're not designed to ... to poke fun at anyone." ...
— Blind Spot • Bascom Jones
... said so, rather wished he had not decided to bring his lead soldiers. They were heavy to carry and it was a very cold morning, so cold that although he kept his hands in his pockets, his fingers were red and stiff when he pulled off his mittens. He had had to stop all along the way to poke the box further up under his arm, and once he had dropped it. But, never mind, now he had something to ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... a very inquiring disposition, begged leave to ask Monipodio in what way two persons so old, grave, and formal as those he had just seen, could be of service to their community. Monipodio replied, that such were called "Hornets" in their jargon, and that their office was to poke about all parts of the city, spying out such places as might be eligible for attempts to be afterwards made in the night-time. "They watch people who receive money from the bank or treasury," said he, "observe where they go ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of gaming is universal amongst men. Every nation indulges in it to a greater or less extent. Every nation, civilised or savage, has its game, from whist and cribbage at Almacks to "chuck-a-luck" and "poke-stick" upon ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... with long poles, with which to "poke" the fox out of his refuge. Brave and Sport were unceremoniously conducted away from the tree, and ordered to "lie down;" and Frank took hold of the grayhound, intending to restrain him until the fox could get ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... And Jeemsie's poke was brawly lined, There wasna mony couldna' find His cantie hoosie i' the wynd, "The Salutation": For there ye'd get, wi' sang and clink, What some ca'd comfort, wi' a wink, And some that didna care for drink Wad ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob
... was anxious to do the best he could for them, and the Confirmation made a good opportunity; but the boys did not like to be interfered with—it made them shy to be spoken to; and they liked lounging about much better than having to poke into that mind of theirs, which they carried somewhere about them, but did not like to stir up. They had no notion of going to school again—which no one wanted them to do—nor to church, because it was like little boys; and ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... if you make a howling mistake," Collins told them, "that's when you all pull the wires like mad and poke the leader and whirl him around. That always brings down the house. They think he's got a real musical ear and is mad at his ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... development of the West brought him in opposition to a powerful element in his own party. Adams, writing in his diary under date of April 17, 1844, says: "The Western harbor bill was taken up, and the previous question was withdrawn for the homunculus Douglas to poke out a speech in favor of the constitutionality of appropriations for the improvement of Western rivers and harbors. The debate was continued between the conflicting absurdities of the Southern Democracy, which is slavery, and the Western Democracy, which ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... coming in at the window and casting shadows on the sloping whitewashed ceiling; and your guttered candle. What will you try on to-night? A hat, or a dress, or the two-and-eleven-three-farthing blouse? Shift the candle. Show yourself to the looking-glass. A poke here and a pull there—and now put everything away carefully in the box under the bed, and go ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... spied their most particular friend, Dame Elizabeth, coming. She lived a little way out of the village. Nan saw her approaching the gate through the rain and mist, with her great blue umbrella and her long blue double cape and her poke bonnet; and she cried out in the greatest dismay: "O, mother, mother! there is our dear Dame Elizabeth coming; she will have to ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... from his cigarette boxes, and other little pictures that, being held to a strong light, developed additional figures and lettering. He called her "Miss O'Farrell of Page Street" sometimes, and liked to poke her plump little person until she giggled herself ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... present in possession of the field, poke fun at these new-fangled schemes. A parody in Esperanto verse, entitled Lingvo de Molenaar, and sung to the tune of the American song Riding down from Bangor, narrates the fickleness of Pan-Roman and how it ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... and long. A man can outwalk any other animal. After thirty miles, a horse is nowhere and the man is still going, but even fifteen miles leaves the ordinary dog limp and sorry. And then, when every bone in him was aching, a wretched village might poke up at an elbow of the way, and there would be dancing to do and his whole fatuous repertoire to accomplish, while his legs were soft ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... especially became a great favorite. Every one declared there had never been such book agents in the town. "They're such gentlemanly fellows. They don't press anybody to buy. They don't rush about and 'poke their noses where they're not wanted.' They are more like merchants with books to sell." The only person who failed to see the attraction in them was Ed Brann, who was popularly supposed to be engaged to Maud. He grew ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... up, whimpering, "Oh, they didn't do that! They didn't poke fun at my feast, that I ordered so carefully for them! And my little Chinese costume that I was so happy making—I made it secretly, to surprise them. And they've been ridiculing it, all ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... whistle of sheer exuberant joy of life. He intended to surprise the folks by walking down and taking his place with the others when the dinner bell rang. Daisy Ellington would clap her hands and sparkle in her enthusiastic way. Shorty would begin to poke fun at him. Mrs. Seymour would probably just smile in her slow, motherly fashion and see that he got one of the choice steaks. And Ruth—would she flash at him her swift dimpled smile of pleasure? Or would she still be harboring malice toward ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... know those odious little "saas-plates" that figure so largely at boarding-houses, and especially at taverns, into which a strenuous attendant female trowels little dabs, sombre of tint and heterogeneous of composition, which it makes you feel homesick to look at, and into which you poke the elastic coppery tea-spoon with the air of a cat dipping her foot into a wash-tub, —(not that I mean to say anything against them, for, when they are of tinted porcelain or starry many-faceted crystal, and hold clean bright berries, or pale virgin ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... imperial pints. Pit, put. Placads, proclamations. Plack, four pennies (Scots). Plackless, penniless. Plaiden, coarse woolen cloth. Plaister, plaster. Plenish'd, stocked. Pleugh, plew, a plow. Pliskie, a trick. Pliver, a plover. Pock, a poke, a bag, a wallet. Poind, to seize, to distrain, to impound. Poortith, poverty. Pou, to pull. Pouch, pocket. Pouk, to poke. Poupit, pulpit. Pouse, a push. Poussie, a hare (also a cat). Pouther, powther, powder. Pouts, chicks. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... pour Rire" was a caricature (if such a thing were possible) of the English female traveler of that period. Coal-scuttle poke bonnets, short and scanty skirts, huge splay feet arrayed in indescribable shoes and boots, short-waisted tight-fitting spencers, colors which not only swore at each other, but caused all beholders to swear at them—these were the outward and visible signs of the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him at Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze it on ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... seven brothers. He would return with their seven heads swinging pitifully from his girdle, and, when he reached the castle gates, he would gnash his teeth through the keyhole with a noise like the grinding together of great rocks, and would poke his head through the fanlight of the door, and say, fee-faw-fum in a voice of such exceeding loudness that the castle would be shaken to ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... Friday, and on the Saturday following David did his first startling act—he offered marriage to Hope Marlowe, the only Quaker girl in Framley who had ever dared to discard the poke bonnet even for a day, and who had been publicly reproved for laughing in meeting—for Mistress Hope had a curious, albeit demure and suggestive, sense of humour; she was, in truth, a kind of sacred minuet in grey. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "why should he want to poke his nose in there? I judged him by the way I should feel, supposing it was you being spliced to some other fellow. I'd sooner be at the North or South Pole than have to watch it done, unless I could bounce out with an impediment why you shouldn't lawfully ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... taught you with one word how to cast the figure without fault. This would have brought me great honour and you much profit. I shall be able to make good my reputation; but you will now lose both your honour and your profit. Let then this lesson teach you another time to work, and not to poke fun at your masters." ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... said she, after surveying me, in great apparent astonishment, for some moments—"Vell, Monsieur?—and vat den?—vat de matter now? Is it de dance of de Saint itusse dat you ave? If not like me, vat for vy buy de pig in the poke?" ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... horse of another color," replied Mrs. Worthington, bridling and relapsing into injured silence for the period of ten seconds, when she resumed, "I hope they ain't going to poke themselves ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... unties the poke, Which out of it sent such a smoke, As ready was them all to choke, So grievous was the pother; So that the knights each other lost, And stood as still as any post; Tom Thumb nor Tomalin could ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... was somethin' wrong with Grabow too, eh? I s'ppose that's the reason he's livin' in his new house this day.—I wish there'd be somethin' like that wrong with you onct in a while. But if somebody don't pull an' poke at you, you'd grow fast to the ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... frequently poke about the city in the end of afternoon "when the mind of your man of letters requires some relaxation." I peer into shop windows, not so much for the wares displayed as for glimpses of the men and women engaged in their disposal. I watch laborers trudging home with the ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... hopelessly countrified, he would never betray it. Presently the conversation got to politics, the President, the situation at Albany. Conny, with her negligent manner and her childish treble voice, gave the talk a poke here and there and steered it skilfully, never allowing it to get into serious pools or become mere noise. In one of the shifts Cairy asked Isabelle, "Have you seen ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... want you to know that the fine gentleman who plays cribbage with you at your club to-night will lift the hair off your head down here on the Street to-morrow, because that's the game; and nobody shakes hands with you before giving you the poke that puts you to sleep. There are a lot of old men out in the almshouse just because they trusted too much in human nature; and I wanted to show you how hard and cruel men can be and excuse their piracy on the plea that it is business! I tell you, Matt Peasley, ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... would have given much to be possessed of the opportunity which was now in his power; but many pause on the brink of a crime, who have contemplated it at a distance without scruple. Lord Etherington's first impulse had led him to poke the fire; and he held in his hand the letter which he was more than half tempted to commit, without even breaking the seal, to the fiery element. But, though sufficiently familiarized with guilt, he was not as yet acquainted with it in its basest shapes—he had not yet acted ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... them, and gave an occasional poke with his cold nose to be sure they were there as they drove through the bustling streets of New York to a great house with an ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... and nuzzles round among muscles as those horrid old women poke their fingers into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls at the Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or other. Victuality, (organ at epigastrium,) some other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... two-headed tarrier. All we wanted was a live man, to say, 'Here, boys, all together now! You've got your stint, and I've got mine. I'm boss in this shop,—but I can't do the first thing, unless every man pulls his pound. Now, then, my hand is on the throttle, grease the wheels, oil the walves, poke the fires, hook on, and let's yank her through with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... euphony: there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff, Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arseniew of modern Greece, And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,[378] And others of twelve consonants apiece; And more might be found out, if I could poke enough Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet), It seems, has got an ear as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... their Jews' market is in full caw. The more complaisant chestnut dandles its sticky knobs. Soon they will be brussels-sprouts, and then they will shake open their fairy umbrellas. So says a child of my acquaintance. The water-lilies already poke their green scrolls above the surface of the pond; a few buttercups venture into the meadows, but daisies are still precious as asparagus. The air is warm as your love's cheek, golden as canary. It is all a-clink and a-glitter, it trills ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... to whistle for his dog, but his breath was too far spent for that. Mustering up all the remaining strength of his lungs, he sent pealing afar through the forest wilds the old familiar battle-cry, "I yi, you dogs!" at the same moment fetching the dam a poke of unusual vigor and directness, which brought her for once sprawling upon her back. But in the act, while yet his whole weight was thrown upon his right foot, one of the cubs, more sturdy than the rest, caught up his left foot by the ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... I have something to say to you," said La Cibot. "M. Pons' heirs are about to make a stir; they are capable of giving us a lot of trouble. God knows what might come of it if they send the lawyers here to poke their noses into the affair like hunting-dogs. I cannot get M. Schmucke to sell a few pictures unless you like me well enough to keep the secret—such a secret!—With your head on the block, you must not say where the pictures come ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Arbitt Lodge had that little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in his time faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly as—ah! but I am forgetting—never mind, I may as well finish the sentence—just exactly as ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... as an experiment. That's what makes unhappy marriages; at least, that's one thing. There are others too numerous to mention. There's just one reason why a man and a woman should join themselves together in matrimony, and that is love, the love that the poets sing and the rest of us poke fun at, the love that is the nearest thing to Heaven we find on earth." The Doctor sat silent a moment, looking past the girl's grave face into the green blur of the garden. Then he stirred, sighed, and looked at his watch. "Well, well, I must ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... do to be too proud, Felicity," he remarked, giving her a poke. "You'd better not say too much ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... chambre. In this costume and condition he will dance into Honeyman's apartment, where that meek divine may be sitting with a headache or over a novel or a newspaper; dance up to the fire flapping his robe-tails, poke it, and warm himself there; dance up to the cupboard where his reverence keeps his sherry, and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not come in which she must apprise Alice of Mr Grey's intended visit. As Alice had questioned her at the breakfast table she would say nothing about it then, but waited till the teacups were withdrawn, and till the maid had given her last officious poke to the fire. Then she began. She had Mr Grey's letter in her pocket, and as she prepared herself to speak, she pulled it out and held it on the ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... palace. He, the bishop, positively assured Mr Harding that he wanted another resident chaplain,—not a young working chaplain, but a steady, middle-aged chaplain; one who would dine and drink a glass of wine with him, talk about the archdeacon, and poke the fire. The bishop did not positively name all these duties, but he gave Mr Harding to understand that such would be the nature of ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... of the silver threads in the smooth hair under her poke bonnet her dear face was still the face of a child, and never before had it seemed to ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... mouth open, he gits mostly flies. The old birds, with a nest full o' howlin' young ones, might go on, I s'pose, pickin' up grasshoppers till the cows come home, an' feedin' 'em, but they don't. They jest poke 'em out o' the nest, an' larn 'em to fly an' pick up their own livin'; an' that's what makes birds on 'em. They pray mighty hard fur their daily bread, I tell ye, and the way the old birds answer is jest ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... along the river. The dark outlines of strange, wildly-fantastical figures silently move amongst the flames. Sometimes they raise their arms towards the sky, as if in a prayer, sometimes they add fuel to the fires and poke them with long iron pitchforks. The dying flames rise high, creeping and dancing, sputtering with melted human fat and shooting towards the sky whole showers of golden sparks, which are instantly lost in the clouds of ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... Mrs. Jellison's mouth twitched, and she threw a sly provocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have liked to poke him in the ribs. But she was not going to help him out; and at last the one male in the company found himself obliged to clear his throat ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the road," said he, "and poke your batons in front of you. Keep a tight hold of that ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... a skinned eel, is Layman, and he winced at that poke at his soft sawder like any thing, and puckered a little about the mouth, but he didn't say nothin', he only bowed. He was a Unitarian preacher once, was Abednego, but he swapt preachin' for politics, and a good trade he made of it too; that's ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... back every farthing honestly." "Charles Hawermann, Charles Hawermann," said Braesig, wiping his eyes, and blowing his imposing nose, "you're—you're an ass! Yes," he continued, shoving his handkerchief into his pocket with an emphatic poke, and holding his nose even more in the air than usual, "you're every bit as great an ass as you used to be!" And then, as if thinking that his friend's thoughts should be led into a new channel, he caught Lina and Mina by the waist-band and put them on Hawermann's knee, saying "There, little ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... affair, isn't it? I think I'll ask first and see if anybody else is going to give in our names. Perhaps Iva or Nesta may. It would be much nicer than seeming to poke ourselves forward." ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... cunnin'a little thing As a hummin'-bird upon the wing, And as liable to poke his nose Jest where folks would least suppose,— And more'n likely build his nest Right in the heart you'd leave unguessed, And live and thrive at your expense— At least, that's MY experience. And old Jeff Thompson often thought, In his se'fish way, that the quiet John Was a ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Mrs. Clover, is to put Polly face to face with you and so get the truth out of her. That we will do, cost what it may. We're not going to have that girl making trouble and disturbance just to please herself. I don't want to poke myself into other people's business, and I'm sure you won't think ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... dance on the oak floors with a brush fastened to his right foot; and, after a rehearsal or two, she made him wait at table. Didn't he bang the things about: and when he brought a lady a dish, and she did not instantly attend, he gave her elbow a poke to attract attention: then she squeaked; and he grinned at her double absurdity in minding a touch, and not minding the real business ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... feasts and weddings. I won't have that sort of thing. I hope I know my duty at my time of life! I certainly sha'n't take lessons from my daughter, or from anybody else. I shall do for my nephew what it is proper to do, and you have no need to poke your nose into it. As for you, Eugenie," he added, facing her, "don't speak of this again, or I'll send you to the Abbaye des Noyers with Nanon, see if I don't; and no later than to-morrow either, if you disobey me! Where is that fellow, has ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... to sling no gun on you as long as you owe me money. I ain't a-goin' to cut the bottom out of m' own money-poke, Chad; you don't need to swivel up in your hide, you ain't ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... books, and which we wish them to assimilate, has been wrought out of human experience, and not brought down miraculously from some remote storehouse of wisdom that is accessible only to the elect. We poke a good deal of fun at book learning nowadays, and there is a pedantic type of book learning that certainly deserves all the ridicule that can be heaped upon it. But it is not wise to carry satire and ridicule too far in ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... the whole of the day, Working and toiling without any pay, Only perchance a few mouthfuls of hay, From earliest dawn till late. Held by the horns 'neath this cumbersome yoke, Firmer fixed thus than a "pig in a poke," Feeling the "prong" and the lengthy stick's stroke, Ours, alas, is a ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... burst out; "You hardhearted old ruffian! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics. I've a good mind to clear out and not ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... man, "and I'm here to say that moral force is a grand thing, but in these latitudes when you poke Betsy Jane under the nose of an erring comrade, he sees the truth with much more clearness than otherwise. I stick to the gun—and you can go in hard for ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Vuyning. "Six months old in cut, one inch too long, and half an inch too much lapel. Your hat is plainly dated one year ago, although there's only a sixteenth of an inch lacking in the brim to tell the story. That English poke in your collar is too short by the distance between Troy and London. A plain gold link cuff-button would take all the shine out of those pearl ones with diamond settings. Those tan shoes would be exactly the articles to work into the heart of a Brooklyn ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... bury. A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Hunts an old woman in a ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... got a year's leave of absence from the Navy just to study up some outlandish disease that attacks the sailors in foreign ports. She says why should he take a whole year out of the best part of his life to poke around the huts of dirty heathen to find out the kind of microbe that's eating 'em? He'd ought to think of Barbara and what's eating her heart out. I've taken a great fancy to that girl, and I'd like to give Justin a piece of my mind. It probably ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... heard the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple; "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles! Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats!"—when suddenly, up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a "First, if ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... tire—that would delay her fifteen or twenty minutes. Don't worry, my dear boy. I showed her how to fix a punctured tire all right. It's simple enough—you take the rubber thing they give you and fasten it in that metal thingumbob, glue it up, poke it in, pull it out, pump her up, ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... and "poke" in remnant boxes on the ends of counters in the big department stores, and unearth bits of trimming and of lace with which Godmother, who was clever with her needle and "full of ideas," showed Mary Alice how to put quite ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... I never saw anything so tiresome as you are. Why will you poke your nose in where you're not wanted? You're ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... not be the Chilian, for he would never be making all that disturbance—unless indeed he had gone mad under the stress of being hunted—so it must necessarily be a stray Peruvian soldier. Jim at once sprang to his feet and began to poke about among the bushes with the muzzle of his carbine, as though searching for somebody who might possibly be hidden among them, at the same time turning his back on the approaching man, who was still pushing his way through the bush and singing ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... as a head of asparagus ever presumed to poke itself out of the ground without the especial permission of Ceres, you may conceive what a terrible calamity had here fallen upon the earth. The husbandmen ploughed and planted as usual; but there lay ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... upon a bedstead after he growed up a hard boy-chap—never could get one long enough. When 'a lived in that little small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open his chamber door every night at going to his bed, and let his feet poke ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... mark was The Shepherd's Week (1714), six burlesque pastorals, a subject proposed to him by Pope, who was then smarting from the praise Philips had received in The Guardian. But if Pope meant Gay to poke his fun at Philips in The Shepherd's Week, he must have been disappointed, for the poems were accepted as genuine bucolics, and although humorously absurd, are, to say the least, more true to rustic life than the pastorals either of Philips or of Pope. The Shepherd's Week was followed by Trivia ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... of. Squirrels have an awful vocabulary, but I never knew one that could talk like Blacky. And every time he thought of something new to say he waved his tail at us in a way that was particularly aggravating. You have no idea how other animals poke fun at us because we have no tails, and how sensitive we really are on the subject. They say that it was to hide our lack of tail that we originally got into the habit of sitting up on our haunches whenever ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... a stern-eyed folk Who may or may not take a joke; It really isn't safe to poke Light fun at any three-ringed bloke; You may be sorry that you spoke. Their ways are proud; they sport the oak; They are not tame enough to stroke; I greatly dread ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... farthest from the door, standing between the hearth and the wall, and in this the old woman was lying. The child, about eight years, had jumped out of bed, stark naked, and now in this condition was endeavouring with a bit of stick to poke the hot embers together, so as to give out a better heat and light. But Thady was in want of neither, and he therefore desired the boy to get into bed, and upsetting with his foot the little heap which the urchin had so industriously collected together ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... stars and other dangers—when these queer people began to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, and a couple hanging from each brawny arm, sent the spectators into shrieks of amusement, and they there and then christened ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... fashion. Yet if she had entered before a still audience as Imogene or Cato's daughter, the dress might have seemed right enough: the grace and dignity were in her limbs and neck; and about her simply parted hair and candid eyes the large round poke which was then in the fate of women, seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold trencher we call a halo. By the present audience of two persons, no dramatic heroine could have been expected with more interest than Mrs. Casaubon. To Rosamond she was one of those county ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... terrible only in presence. When distant, or supposed to be distant, we can call him hard or tender names, nay, even poke our poor fun at him. Mr. Punch, on one occasion, when he wished to ridicule the useful-information leanings of a certain periodical publication, quoted from its pages the sentence, "Man is mortal," and people were found to grin broadly over the exquisite stroke of humour. ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... whispered suddenly from a window. Then, with a last poke at her hair, Miss Letitia admitted the teacher. They spoke their greeting in a half whisper and stood near, waiting timidly ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... called these pale, frightened youths and sobbing maidens to his footstool, gave them each a poke in the ribs with his sceptre (to try whether they were in good flesh or no), and dismissed them with a nod to his guards. But when his eyes rested on Theseus, the king looked at him more attentively, because his ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... years on making an item about the first tomatoes that are served in spring at any dinner or reception, together with the cost per pound of the tomatoes, the town has become used to our attitude and does not buzz with indignation when we poke a risible finger at the homemade costumes of the Plymouth Daughters when they present "The Mikado" to pay for the new pipe-organ. Indeed, so used is the town to our ways that when there was great talk last winter about Mrs. Frelingheysen for serving fresh strawberries over ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... are ze evilest leetle beasts in all ze vorld! Venever you sink you are rid of zem, zere zey are at your elbow. (Brownies laugh again.) Vey steal, zey pinch, zey poke, zey pry, and at night, ven all ze house is still, zey come out, and if you do not keep your eyes ver' wide awake zey vill pinch you till you die—zat is, ven you ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... old mutton bone and a few potatoes go metaphorical miles. The knowledge would be a great comfort to him when his little "darlikins'" feet-of-clay began to show through her silk stockings. As it is, marriage to him is little but a supreme example of buying a pig in a poke, followed by an immediate slump in his own ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... was sadly goaded along. An Arab boy of about the same age was her goad, who was whipping her and goading her along with a sharp piece of wood. Sometimes the young rascal would poke up her person. I could not see this without interfering, although I am afraid to interfere. She had got far behind, and the boy was thus tormenting her like a young imp. I made him take one hand, and I the other. But we could not get her up to the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... ladyship's sister asked them. Mrs. Brent had scolded her and "poked about" her cottage, going into her tiny "wash 'us," and up into her infinitesimal bedroom under the slanting roof, to see that they were kept clean. Miss Vanderpoel showed no disposition to "poke." She sat and listened, and made an inquiry here and there, in a nice voice and with a smile in her eyes. There was some pleasure in relating the whole history of your eighty-three years to a young lady who listened as if she wanted to hear it. So old Mrs. Welden prattled on. About ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the farm any longer. He used to sit in a big cane-bottomed chair close to the fireplace, in winter, and under a big lilac-bush, at the north-east corner of the house, in summer. He kept a stout iron-tipped cane by his side: in the winter, he used it to poke the fire with; in the summer, to rap the hens and chickens which he used to lure round his chair by handfuls of corn and oats. Sometimes he would tap the end of the wooden leg with this cane, and say, laughingly, "Ha! ha! think of a leg like that's being ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... as well as men, the ladies began to find the hinder pokes of their hats uncommon nuisances; and so, in a fit of spleen, one day the Duchess of G——, or some other woman of fashion, cut off this hinder protuberance, and appeared, to the scandal of her neighbours, plus the front poke, minus the back one. This was a daring, free-thinking, revolutionary innovation. Somebody had probably done it at Paris before her; but the startling idea had gone forth—women began to see daylight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... Three Bears discovered the Enchanted Land where bears may walk without fear of harm, and may safely poke their noses into any man's tent if they choose, from that day, Little Bear ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... hymn. Wandering about the earth, he had observed man and found him in all things contemptible, especially in his vanity begotten by what he called "reason"; he, the miserable little cricket, vaingloriously jumping out of the grass in an effort to poke his nose among the stars, then falling back to chirp, had almost taken away from the devil all desire to tempt him to evil doings. "Knowest thou Faust?" asks the Divine Voice; and Mefistofele tells of the philosopher's insatiable thirst ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a friendly snack—at Atkinson's expense; this by an insinuation of the neck out between his own bars and in between those of Atkinson, adjoining. But he doesn't understand the laws of space. Having once fetched his neck around the partition into Atkinson's larder by chancing to poke his head through the end bars, he straightway assumes that what is possible between some bars is possible between all; and wheresoever he may now be standing when prompted by companionable peckishness, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... real ideas blotted out. No wonder he hates what he calls destructive criticism, sometimes called by free spirits the elimination of buncombe. "Above all things," says Bagehot, "our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it." [Footnote: The English Constitution, p. 127. D. Appleton & Company, 1914.] For poking about with clear definitions and candid statements serves all high purposes known to man, except the easy conservation of a common will. Poking about, as every ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... contents of the book; likewise hard work and tactful persistence; also, honesty. But opposed against the combination is the bookseller, on guard against overstocking, to some extent a purchaser of a pig in a poke, conscious that one unsold book eats up the profit on five copies ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... crowd—there are seventy-five people in the tramway. They sit in your lap; they stand on your toes; when they wish to pass they simply push you. Everything in silence; they know that silence is golden, and they have the worship of gold. When the conductor wishes your fare he gives you a poke, very serious, without a word. As for the types— but there is only one—they are all variations of the same—the commis-voyageur minus the gaiety. The women are often pretty; you meet the young ones in the streets, in the trains, in search of a ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... force—like Punch and the devil at the two ends of the stick. At last, after she had held me in a corner for half a minute, I made a rush upon her, drove her right to the opposite corner, so that the end of the handle gave her a severe poke in the body, which made her give up the contest, and exclaim as soon as she recovered her breath,—"Oh! you nasty, ungrateful, ungenteel brute! You little viper! Is that the way you treat your mother—and nearly kill her? Oh, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... in a pouch of kit fox with the tail attached, which hung from the front of his girdle like the sporran of a Scotch Highlander. Out of it he drew a roll of birch bark painted with juice of poke-berries. The Tallega spread it on the grass, weighting one end with the turtle-back, as he read, with the children looking ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... Knight, in a note on As You Like It, gives us the description of a dial presented to him by a friend who had picked it "out of a deal of old iron," and which he supposes to be such a one as the "fool i' the forest" drew from his poke, and looked on with lacklustre eye. It is very probable that this species of chronometer is still in common use in the sister kingdom; for my brother mentions to me that, when at school in Ireland some ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... quite useless, mamma," said Gwendolen, coldly. "Governesses don't wear ornaments. You had better get me a gray frieze livery and a straw poke, such as my aunt's ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... us fair arrangement make: A pig in poke you'd neither give nor take; Confront these halves in nature's birth-day suit; To neither, then, will you deceit impute. The project was most thoroughly approved; Like inclination ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... given to thee gratis by one who would enslave thee. Go thy way, O my Brother. And if my words lead thee to Juhannam, why, there will be a great surprise for thee. There thou wilt behold our Maker sitting on a flaming glacier waiting for the like of thee. And he will take thee into his arms and poke thee in the ribs, and together you will laugh and laugh, until that glacier become a garden and thou a flower therein. Go thy way, therefore; be not afraid. And no matter how many tears thou sheddest on this side, thou wilt surely be poked in ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... expect you to, all by yourself, Just," Huge told him. "Poke the end of it down here, and keep a good stiff grip on the butt. Then we'll hold on, and find places to set our feet. Inch by inch, and foot by foot, we'll manage to climb up. You can help a little by keeping ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... ranged in a double line along a spacious, well-aired sleeping-room; some, too young for this, rocked in cosy cradles; but all clean, safe, and happy. What needs it to say whether the good ladies who tended them wore the habit of St. Vincent de Paul, the poke-bonnet of the Puseyite "sister," or the simple garb of unpretending Protestantism? The thing is being done. The most helpless of all our population—the children of the working poor—are being kept from the streets, kept from harm, and trained ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... near them," cautioned Mr. De Vere. "If you breathe too deeply of those fumes, you'll be killed. Get a boat hook, poke them out of the locker, spear them with the sharp point, and thrust them up through ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... be laid to his account is that, in his zeal, he sometimes makes a ring of small holes so continuous as to inadvertently damage the tree by girdling it. The bird, like most others, does not debar himself entirely from fruit diet, but enjoys berries, especially poke-berries. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... you eat them Christmas. They put a little one on the table with an apple in its mouth. And they pick out the fattest turkeys and ducks and geese and chickens; and they go to the smoke-house and punch and poke the hams and things; and the oysters come from the river; and Mammy Malaprop comes up from the gate, where she lives now, and helps make the cakes and the, pies and plum-puddings and beaten biscuits; and Cousin Claudia says when she was a little girl Mammy Malaprop ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... had not heard. Doubtless he felt as heavy as he looked, for the afternoon was warm, and luncheon—well, at any rate, he remained neutral and inactive. Something might happen to divert philosophical inquiry into other channels; a rat might poke its nose above the pond; a big fish might jump; an awfully rare butterfly come dancing; or Maria, as on rare occasions she had been known to do, might stop discussion with a word of power. The chances were in his favour on the ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... to come and back me," said Tom to a small school-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just stopping for a moment to poke his head into the school-house hall, where the lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, "Fight! Tom ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... down. Fire's welly out,' said he, giving it a vigorous poke, as if to turn attention away from himself. He was rather disorderly, to be sure, with a black unshaven beard of several days' growth, making his pale face look yet paler, and a jacket which would have been all ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... my coffee for lunch, in his own little cell, looking out on the olive woods; then he tells me stories of conversions and miracles, and then perhaps we go into the Sacristy and have a reverent little poke out of relics. Fancy a great carved cupboard in a vaulted chamber full of most precious things (the box which the Holy Virgin's veil used to be kept in, to begin with), and leave to rummage in it at will! Things ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... Wheat looks well. Corn is scarce and dear. Twenty-two shillings here, thirty shillings in Amherst. Our blossoms are but just opening. I have begun the demolition of my house, and hope to get through its re-edification in the course of the summer. We shall have the eye of a brick-kiln to poke you into, or an octagon to air you in. Adieu ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... any thing more, nor inclination for them, as I reckon every thing very dear when One has so little time to enjoy it. However, I cannot say but the plates by Rubens do tempt me a little—yet, as I do not care to, buy even Rubens in a poke, I should wish to know if the Alderman would let me see. if it were but one. Would he be persuaded? I would pay for the carriage, though I ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... It would seem as if we had forgotten about the self-interest and selfishness of the modern movement, which is there on all sides to poke its tongue at a mother's devotion to her ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... balloons, and all; loud roared the bulls, hideous, and the crash of wheels, and chaos of confusion drear, resounded far from earth to heaven. And still more fierce in charge the great Lord Whittington, from poke of ermine his famed Grimalkin took. She screamed, and harsh attacked my bulls confounded; lightning-like she darted, and from half the troop their eyes devouring tore. Nor could the riders, crickets throned sublime, escape from rage, from fury less averse than ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... to get one, anyway," said Mrs. Comstock. "I forgot all about bringing anything to put them in. You take a pinch on their wings until I make a poke." ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... that Leonardo de Pourceaugnac is a man to buy a pig in a poke, and that he has not the sense to find out what goes on in the world, and to see if, in marrying, his ...
— Monsieur de Pourceaugnac • Moliere
... alone. Yes, La Couteau has all sorts of tricks to evade the law. And, besides, all the folks of Rougemont close their eyes—they are too much interested in keeping business brisk; and all they fear is that the police may poke their noses into their affairs. Ah! it is all very well for the Government to send inspectors every month, and insist on registers, and the Mayor's signature and the stamp of the Commune; why, it's just as if it did nothing. ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... the wind?" Paul asked himself, when he was alone. "Bitter as Stanley is against me, he can't have set on his cousin to hoax and poke fun at me. ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... railroadin'—wait till you hit the Pennsylvania, four tracks, no water tanks, take water on the fly, that's goin' some." "The Northern Pacific's a bad road now." "Salinas is on the 'hog,' the 'bulls' is 'horstile.'" "I got 'pinched' at El Paso, along with Moke Kid." "Talkin' of 'poke-outs,' wait till you hit the French country out of Montreal—not a word of English—you say, 'Mongee, Madame, mongee, no spika da French,' an' rub your stomach an' look hungry, an' she gives you a slice of sow-belly an' ...
— The Road • Jack London
... in dumb show defies the sniggerers to 'heave' a marble or two in his direction. Here in he is detected by the aunt (a rigorous reduced gentlewoman who has the charge of offices), and I perceive that worthy relative to poke him in the side, with the corrugated hooked handle of an ancient umbrella. The nephew revenges himself for this, by holding his breath and terrifying his kinswoman with the dread belief that he has made up his mind to burst. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... blazes up, but very soon there's nothing left to blaze with. The fire'll be out directly, so I says to our Mary, you look after the fire, so our Mary goes to the heap and fetches a shovel of coal, and claps it on the top of the hot cinders, and she won't let our Esther poke it no more, so it burns steady and bright, and throws out a good heat, and lasts a long time. Now, when you take your drop of beer, you're just poking the fire, you're not putting any coal on; you can work like a lion for a bit, but you're only using up the old stock of strength ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... Astracan breeds worms in such as drink it. [1390] Axius, or as now called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si polui ducas, L. Aubanus Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the Alps, and [1393]Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, to proceed from the same cause, "and that the filth is derived from ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... for once to acknowledge her botany to be at fault, and, though Bess did not triumph, Francie gave Kitty a poke and ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... for play on his plantation. Even the very small children were assigned tasks. They hunted hen's eggs, gathered poke berries for dyeing, shelled corn and drove the cows home in the evening. Little ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... thought of it the more worried he became; more earnest became his efforts to shut out the chilly dampness. It occurred to him that it would be wise to crawl out and poke up the fire in the next room. Then he remembered that there was a gas grate in his bedroom, behind the bureau. Of course, it would be quite a task to move the bureau and even then he might find that the gas pipe ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... a few went over to the French. I kind o' mistrust thar's some o' them runnygades behind us. They're 'spectin' to git a lot o' plunder an' a horse apiece an' ride 'em back an' swim the river at the place o' the many islands. We'll poke down to the trail on the edge o' the drownded lands afore sunrise an' I kind o' mistrust we'll ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... stock, the butter-making, the sending off of the milk for sale; a thousand things get done while most people are fast asleep, and before lazy folk are well at breakfast she is off in her pony-carriage to the other farms on the place, to rate the "mamsells," as the head women are called, to poke into every corner, lift the lids off the saucepans, count the new-laid eggs, and box, if necessary, any careless dairymaid's ears. We are allowed by law to administer "slight corporal punishment" to our servants, it being left entirely ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... horses. He's going to own a stock farm— so he says. You'd better combine interests," said Helen, with some scorn. "I like horses to ride, and butter to eat, but— well, I prefer buttercups just now. Hurry up, Miss Slow-poke! We'll never get enough flowers ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... out and walked to the window of the room on the ground floor that she knew the young Californian occupied. It was open. Leaning through the rose-vine she called faintly,—"Archie! Archie!" But the young painter slept solidly, and she was forced to take a stick and poke the bunch of bed-clothes in the corner before she could arouse the sleeping Archie. When he came to ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... it's not far from where we suffered ship-wreck. Well, it seems the man cried so sore, if he could just see his little bairn before he died! that at last the king of the Good People took peety upon him, and sent one flying that brought back the bairn in a poke* and laid it down beside the man where he lay sleeping. So when the man woke, there was a poke beside him and something into the inside of it that moved. Well, it seems he was one of these gentry ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... something, for she quite jumped and exclaimed, "Why, you baby, I had forgotten all about that two dollars and seventy-five cents I borrowed of you last month. And here it is only the sixth of November, but my allowance is nearly gone. Why didn't you poke up my memory?" ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... did the slightest thing worth remembering; as there was no election, he did not even take part in a Whig procession. He got away two or three times. The first thing his owner would know when he pulled the chain out was that there was no coon at the end of it, and then he would have to poke round the inside of the box pretty carefully with a stick, so as not to get bitten; after that he would have to see which tree the coon had gone up. It was usually the tall locust-tree in front of the house, and in about half a second all the boys in town would be there, telling ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... of his head. But, little John (who though of a spare figure was a very spirited boy), started up from the little bench on which he sat; gave Master C. J. London a hearty pat on the back (accompanied, however, with a slight poke in the ribs); and told him that if Master Wiseman, or Young England, or any of those fellows, wanted any thing for himself, he (little John) was the boy to give it him. Hereupon, Mrs. Bull, who was always proud of the child, and always ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... when he appeared that morning in his shore suit of quiet gray. With the widow's ready aid Polly Candage had made her own attire presentable once more. When they walked down to the shore she smiled archly at Mayo from under the brim of a very fetching straw poke. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... business, as Fred saw it, was not to poke into other people's private affairs, but to get the clothes of Sam dry as soon as possible. Then he would feel that he and ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... under them like wet hay. Their heads were bent, their eyes fixed upon the ground, their faces bearing a look of utter concentration. Cleek watched them moving slowly across the wide, flat reaches of the Fens, stopping now and then to poke among the rank marsh-grass, and prod into the earth, and then turned ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... correct explanation. The "allegria" is used by the New Mexican belles to preserve the complexion, and get it up towards some special occasion, such as a grand fiesta or "fandango," when it is washed off, and the skin comes out clear and free from "tan." The "allegria" is the well known "poke-weed" of the United ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... and the colonel had to poke his words into the conversation in wedge-shaped queries, and Mrs. Culpepper, being in due and proper awe of so much family and such apparent consequence, spoke little and smiled many times. And if it was "Miss Molly" this and "Miss Molly" that, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... very sad when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight. The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too. You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks— till she is swallowed up. But suppose that day after day you were to watch for her ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... Cinderella, was standing lonely and hanging her head by the tiled stove at the end of the room. I forthwith hastened to her, pressed the little packet which Mistress Grosz had given me into her hand—for I had it still hidden in my poke—and, whispered to her: "I had two of them, little Ann; make haste and pour them on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... beans swell, and consequently cause greater discomfort the longer they are in; do not poke at any foreign body lodged either in the nose or the ear, for the ear drum may thus be injured, while in the former case it may be pushed into ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... she repeated, bobbing a curtsy and momentarily eclipsing the rolling eye under the poke of a very large bonnet, "Mrs. Snummitt, sir, which though a widder I'm respectable and of 'igh character and connections. Which me 'aving only one heye ain't by no manner of means to be 'eld ag'in me, seeing as it were took away ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... whispered Lavinia to Bella when this was done, and they stood over the roasting fowls. 'If one was the most dutiful child in existence (of course on the whole one hopes one is), isn't she enough to make one want to poke her with something wooden, sitting there bolt upright ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... 'He said not a word—they only found it out—because he found that seat for you, and papa sent him away with you. They only meant to poke fun, and it was his caring that made it come home to him. I wonder you don't like to find that such a fellow stood ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you trying to poke out of the sky with that squat nose of yours? And why are you here at all? You come from the contractor, you say?—from Vasili Sergeitch? Well, well! Then your job is to hurry us up, to keep barking out, 'Mind what you are doing, such-and-such ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... had not decided to bring his lead soldiers. They were heavy to carry and it was a very cold morning, so cold that although he kept his hands in his pockets, his fingers were red and stiff when he pulled off his mittens. He had had to stop all along the way to poke the box further up under his arm, and once he had dropped it. But, never mind, now he had something ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... Thus early did this cunning and ingenious people display a shrewdness at making a bargain, which has ever since distinguished them, and a strict adherence to the good old vulgar maxim about 'buying a pig in a poke.' ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... be permitted to garner his unholy harvest of eggs in his pocket, then lose his balance, catch the seat of his pantaloons on a knot-hole, and hang doubled up, with the smashed eggs trickling down his jacket, and getting into his hair and eyes. Then the good little girls should be lugged in, to poke fun at him, and ask him if he likes 'em hard or soft. This would be a most ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... moment, he burst out; "You hardhearted old ruffian! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics. I've a good mind to clear out and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... man who went to sea, and had many adventures. The English nautical terms were employed continually in describing his life on the ship, but the man seemed to feel that they were not in their place, and stopped short when one of them occurred to give me a poke with his finger and explain gib, topsail, and bowsprit, which were for me the most intelligible features of the poem. Again, when the scene changed to Dublin, 'glass of whiskey,' 'public-house,' and such things ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year: all these are about him, but not in him. You will not buy a pig in a poke: if you cheapen a horse, you will see him stripped of his housing-cloths, you will see him naked and open to your eye; or if he be clothed, as they anciently were wont to present them to princes to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... ingenuity—for barbarians, that is. Not in the same class with you seaboard nobles, of course, but we poke along." The Barbarian stood up, and his expression turned serious. "Look, son—you remember that knife of mine you borrowed for a while? I'll have to lend it to you again, in about twenty minutes. Your friend Dugald's going to have one just like it, ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... put on his overalls an' said He'd work down in the cellar till 'twas time to go to bed. He started in to rattle an' to bang an' poke an' stir, An' the dust began a-climbin' up through every register Till Ma said: "Goodness gracious; go an' shut those things up tight Or we'll all be suffocated an' the house will ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... and Quixote, all against her, started fierce, o'erturning boat, balloons, and all; loud roared the bulls, hideous, and the crash of wheels, and chaos of confusion drear, resounded far from earth to heaven. And still more fierce in charge the great Lord Whittington, from poke of ermine his famed Grimalkin took. She screamed, and harsh attacked my bulls confounded; lightning-like she darted, and from half the troop their eyes devouring tore. Nor could the riders, crickets throned sublime, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... desolate hearts behind them. And in this same parlour at Arbitt Lodge had that little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in his time faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly as—ah! but I am forgetting—never mind, I may as well finish the sentence—just exactly as it made "us" ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... Charliet's head poke around the corner of the kitchen door and called to him to carry Marcia to her room, and to get fires going and something to eat; for the queer part of it was that there seemed to be two of me, and one of them was thinking it was starving. It saw Charliet ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... wished she would go away, for they were afraid of her. No wonder, when she would catch up a dear sugar baby and eat him, or break some respectable old grandmamma all into bits because she reproved her for naughty ways. Lily calmly sat down on the biggest church, crushing it flat, and even tried to poke the moon out of the sky in a pet one day. The king ordered her to go home; but she said, "I won't!" and bit his head off, crown ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... will join hands and proceed due east at a break-neck toddle, while an excitable big sister is roaring for them to follow her in a westerly direction, is most amusing—except, perhaps, for the big sister. They walk round a soldier, staring at his legs with the greatest curiosity, and poke him to see if he is real. They stoutly maintain, against all argument and much to the discomfort of the victim, that the bashful young man at the end of the 'bus is "dadda." A crowded street-corner suggests itself to their minds as a favorable spot for the discussion of family affairs ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... snatched at the stick. Again and again he nearly caught it, but I was just a little too quick for him, and he fell back, gasping and cursing, on the wagon-shafts. And then the end came with inevitable suddenness. He rushed out on me with upraised knife. I stopped him with a vigorous poke in the chest; but before I could whisk away the stick he had clutched it with a howl of joy. I gave a final drive, pressed the button and sprang back, leaving the scabbard-end in his hand. Before ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... increase Our euphony: there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff, Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arseniew of modern Greece, And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,[378] And others of twelve consonants apiece; And more might be found out, if I could poke enough Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet), It seems, has got an ear as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a poke in her back from a parasol, just as Charley had expended half a crown, one of Mr. M'Ruen's last, in purchasing for her one simple beautiful flower, to put into her hair ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... till you come to the marble building with the pearls over the door," he said; and gave the Princess a poke with the handle of his sword, that pushed her through the gate, almost before she had time to draw on her golden ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... had to crowd by the other occupants of the trench. And each took a poke at us as we went by, some with their bayonets, saying: "Verdamnt Englaender" and: "Englaender Schwein,"—pigs of English. Also quite a number of them spoke English after a fashion. There was in these men none of the soldier's usual tolerance or good-natured pity for ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... a little too much like General Triscoe's pessimism," said Mrs. March; and she added: "But whether we have any national melodies or not, we don't poke women out in the rain and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "how comes it that in your books there is a certain class (it may be of men, or it may be of women, but that is not the question in point)—how comes it, dear sir, there is a certain class of persons whom you always attack in your writings, and savagely rush at, goad, poke, toss up in the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... heads stood the drivers of the various vehicles, anxious to miss none of the fun. The dachshunds sat on their haunches, looking up, and probably wondering why their friend, Tommy, insisted on roosting up a tree. The Captain and Charley were immediately below, engaged in an earnest effort to poke the 'coon into ascending the hole. Tommy was reporting the result of these efforts from above. The General, his feet firmly planted, had unlimbered a huge ten-bore shotgun, so as to be ready for anything. Uncle Jim stood by, smoking his ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... good, so everything, Jenny,' said Adeline, 'that I am sure you will have her confidence in time, if only you won't poke after it.' ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... raised prow of what looked to be a genuine birch bark canoe poke in sight. In these modern days when even the Indians up in Maine manufacture up-to-date canvas canoes by the thousand, it is a rare event to run across one made of birch bark. The trees that are large enough for the purpose have about all been destroyed, so the Indians claim, ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... never dreaded any thing more in all my life than taking that dog home. Mother hates dogs. She never would have one in the house, though I've always wanted a dog of my own. I knew Liz would call him a horrid little monster, and Fred would poke fun at me—and, oh, dear! I'd rather have gone to the dentist's or taken a Saturday-night scrub than go into that dining-room ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... go to his rooms at once. It's of no use to give the police time to poke their dirty ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Take of poke root 3 ozs., lard 1 lb., boil for a quarter of an hour and strain. This ointment has quite a reputation in Virginia, with the old ladies, for all kinds of old sores and ulcers, and it is an excellent application to indolent and purulent ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... trying to taunt Reynolds. "You're tiresome, Jig," Reynolds said without heat. "Somebody's going to poke you sometime..." ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... and gave him a moment to get his breath. Then he set him to turning somersaults. They spread the cushions from the couch in the tent on the roof, and Jim would poke his head down and say a prayer, and then curve over as gracefully as a sausage and come up gasping, as if he had been pushed off ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... an' don't give a damn. Someone that's got more money than brains. I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw a bull by the tail, an' you needn't think I've forgot the poke in the jaw you give me. ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... any considerable stream, their mode of proceeding is, to hide their horses in some lonely glen, where they can graze unobserved. They then build a small hut, dig out a canoe from a cotton-wood tree, and in this poke along shore silently, in the evening, and set their traps. These they revisit in the same silent way at daybreak. When they take any beaver they bring it home, skin it, stretch the skins on sticks to dry, and feast upon the flesh. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... at the Universities there is, or is expected to be, more deliberate and conscious effort. Men are in a position to "try all things" before committing themselves to any. Their new-found freedom does not merely consist in the right to poke their own fires, order their own breakfasts, and use their own cheque-books. These things, which make so much impression on the mind at first, are only the outward signs of freedom. The boy who has just left ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... writes against Master's Gowns, and Poke Sleeves, with a Word in Defence of large Scarves. Answer. I resolve not to raise Animosities amongst ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... in the French window that opened from the terrace to the library Mrs. Keep lingered irresolutely. "Fred," she begged, "you—you're not going to poke around in the bushes, are you?—just because you think ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... his back to her for the moment, having turned to poke up the fire, and Magda raised herself on her elbow, preparatory to getting off the ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... by Aunt Barbara always made Kate shrink back into herself, and the presence of a little girl before elders likewise rendered her shy and bashful, so she came forth as if intensely disgusted, put out her hand as if she were going to poke, and muttered her favourite "—do" so awkwardly and coldly, that Lady Barbara felt how proud and ungracious it looked, and to make up said, "My niece has been very eager for your coming." And then the two little girls drew off into the window, ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Sir, what should I be doing at home among the Malvern Hills upon a patrimony of 800 pounds?—for to that it has dwindled. Can I hoe turnips, or poke a knowledgeable finger into the flanks of beeves? I wonder if your literary explorations ever led you across the furrow ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... cattle. One man went slowly by driving a huge pig; he was in sight for quite five minutes, dawdling along, and allowing the pig to have his own sweet will as far as speed was concerned, but occasionally giving him a gentle poke with a stick when he paused to burrow his nose in the mud. Small groups of men stood talking at the corner of the market place; a big family went by, evidently returning from a country walk; presently the lamps were lighted, and then immense excitement ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... when we of the cabin returned to the deck after a hasty meal, which we had bolted in less than a quarter of an hour, all hands were on deck, ready and waiting for orders. Accordingly no sooner did the skipper poke his head out of the companion and bellow the order to loose all fore-and-aft canvas than the group on the forecastle split itself up into sections, one section actually running aft to cast loose the mainsail, while a second attacked the foresail, a third laid ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... inspected the Museum, and were shown SHAKSPEARE'S jug, a rather ordinary concern; the identical dial which one of the clowns in his plays drew out of a poke, and a ring with W. S. engraved on it, found in the churchyard some years ago, and, no doubt, dropped there by the poet himself, while absorbed in the composition of his ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... turtle as big as a wash tub in the river" she sobbed, "and I wish it would eat that old Black Bass to the last scale. And I'm going to take the shotgun, and go over to the embankment, and poke it into the tunnel, and blow the old Kingfisher through into the cornfield. Then maybe Dannie won't go off too and leave me. I want this onion bed spaded right away, so ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... with its winding sheet all in ribbons around it; and the tattered cerements are like in shape and colour to the seaweed it frequents, so that it hides and feeds in safety. The long ends of ribs which seem to poke through the skin to excite our compassion are really 'protective resemblances,' and serve to allure the prey more effectually within reach of these awful ghouls. Just as the leaf-insect is imitative of a leaf, and the staff insect of a twig, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... "I'll hold your legs so you won't fall in, and you can fish for it with a stick." She ran for a stick to poke with, while Jan bravely mounted the box again, and, firmly anchored by Marie's grasp upon his legs, he soon succeeded in ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... it on-ding o' snaw!" said Mrs. Keith. He said to himself, "On-ding,'—that's odd,—that is the very word. Hoot, awa'! look here," and he displayed the corner of his plaid, made to hold lambs [the true shepherd's plaid, consisting of two breadths sewed together, and uncut at one end, making a poke or cul-de-sac]. "Tak' your lamb," said she, laughing at the contrivance, and so the Pet was first well happit up, and then put, laughing silently, into the plaid neuk, and the shepherd strode off with his lamb,—Maida gamboling through the snow, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... this is such a fine chance!—all the girls are learning how to make their own hats. And I thought, maybe, after I'd learned how on my own, that maybe I could make you one. Do you remember that adorable violet straw you used to have when I was a little girl?—poke shape and with the pink rose? I remember father always said it was the most becoming hat you ever had. And I was thinking, maybe, I could ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... ould moon looked so moighty plisint that night that I took a lunar or two, jist to divart mesilf with, when Spokeshave wint below and there was nobody lift to poke fun at, sure!" ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... stairs, with a carpet nearly as handsome as yours, Mr. Bows. My life is passed in grinding the people, is it?—in ruining virgins and robbing the poor? My good sir, this is very well in a comedy, where Job Thornberry slaps his breast, and asks my lord how dare he trample on an honest man and poke out an Englishman's fire-side; but in real life, Mr. Bows, to a man who has to work for his bread as much as you do—how can you talk about aristocrats tyrannizing over the people? Have I ever done you a wrong? or assumed ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Being the heavier and clumsier of the two, the climb was harder for him. "You're so spry, s'pose you just pack this poke!" He unslung a heavy leather sack from his belt ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... cold, although I was in a burning fever; and they allowed me to get up to warm my hands. As soon as I reached the fire-place, I snatched out the red-hot poker, and, brandishing it over my head, made for the door. They all jumped up to detain me, but I made a poke at the foremost, which made her run back with a shriek, (I do believe that I burnt her nose.) I seized my opportunity, and escaped into the street, whirling the poker round my head, while all the women followed, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs were laid down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each other. To be sure, an occasional twig might poke a sleeper's ribs, but what mattered that? To the English boys especially—having the charm of entire novelty—it was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich with balsamic ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... am glad of it! Associate ourselves to make everybody else behave as we do. Chilly drafts and sarcasms on what we call the temperate zone Criticism by comparison is the refuge of incapables Crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire Don't know what success is Each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance Enjoyed poor health Enthusiasm is a sign of inexperience, of ignorance Fallen into the days of conformity Few people know how to ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... that night. And Friday, too, dragged itself out of existence without a sign from Nellie or the dreaded officers of the law. You may be sure he did not poke his nose outside the door all that day. Somehow he was beginning to relish the thought that she would be gone on Sunday, gone forever, perhaps. He loved her, of course, but distance at this particular time was not likely to affect the enchantment. In fact, he was quite sure he would ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... tiny square of earth that I called my own, where I was at liberty to pull up my pinks and lady's delights every day, to see whether they had taken root, and where I could give my lazy morning-glory seeds a poke, morning after morning, to help them get up and begin their climb. Oh, I should miss ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... declared ourselves ready to set out forthwith. Off we set, with a little pemmican and bread in our pockets, and our rifles and long poles in our hands, fully expecting some good sport. Short said that the she-bears and cubs are supposed to hibernate; but that no doubt we should be able to poke them out of their holes. We soon left the plain, when the trail led us up among the rugged defiles of the mountains. I confess that I could not have distinguished the marks of the bear's feet in the snow; but Short's more practised eye did so, and he every now and then pointed them out to me, ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... intelligent knowledge of the contents of the book; likewise hard work and tactful persistence; also, honesty. But opposed against the combination is the bookseller, on guard against overstocking, to some extent a purchaser of a pig in a poke, conscious that one unsold book eats up the profit on ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... then, Billee," asked Mr. Merkel, "that nothing happened to me? I just came from there. I don't buy a pig in a poke. I went to Dot and Dash and sized the place up before I closed the deal with Jed Barter. How is it Death ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... fine wall of net, swim into it. Now the openings in the net—the meshes—are one inch across, just wide enough for the Herring to poke his head through. Once through, he is caught. His gill-covers prevent him from drawing back again. Thousands of other Herrings are held tight, all around him, and the rest of the shoal scatters for ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... sorrowfully at her with an unblinking eye. If he liked his new lodging under the cozy eaves he made no mention of it, and if he pined for his winter palace in the Canadian forest he was equally uncommunicative. Hinpoha longed to poke him in order to make him give some expression of feeling. But at all events, he did not struggle against his captivity, and Hinpoha reflected judicially that after all it was a good thing that he had such a ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... "All folks ain't got a funny side to see. They're just naturally nasty. Always seein' what's wrong and talkin' about it. Muther says some folks is born to poke for rubbish, and if they can't find a thing mean to say they'll say it anyhow. Crittersizers, I believe she calls 'em. Some who ain't good at anything else is great at ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... indignantly, Jacobus towered over her and murmured placidly in his throat; I joined jocularly from a distance, throwing in a few words, for which under the cover of the night I received secretly a most vicious poke in the ribs from the old woman's elbow or perhaps her fist. I restrained a cry. And all the time the girl didn't even condescend to raise her head to look at any of us. All this may sound childish—and yet that stony, petulant sullenness had an ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... talk in which words and sign language both were used and frequently repeated. Eventually an understanding was reached. The three stepped back, picked up some small game which they had dropped on beholding Lourenco, returned, and led the way along the path. Lourenco cast aside his poke stick and resumed his usual place in the column. The whole line moved ahead at a much ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... a look at him—the stiffening is out of his back-bone now, I tell you!" cried Ben, triumphantly. "See him a trying to poke his head under the moss just at the sight of a yaller ash leaf—ain't he ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... as a duck-pond as soon as you're past Cape Finisterre. I'll run a Clovelly herring-boat there and back for a wager of twenty pound, and never ship a bucketful all the way. Who'll join? Don't think you're buying a pig in a poke. I know the road, and Salvation Yeo, here, too, who was the gunner's mate, as well as I do the narrow seas, and better. You ask him to show you the chart of it, now, and see if he don't tell you over the ruttier as well as ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... of the world at large, and to nibble the grass amongst which its mother is feeding. Sometimes it has a little run by itself, but seeks the maternal bosom at the slightest intimation of danger. It quits the pouch for good when it can crop the herbage freely; but even now it will often poke its head into its early home and get a little refreshment on the sly, even though a new-comer may have ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... put an end to all rational conversation. Philip jumped up to inspect the crackers and pin-wheels. To my surprise, Mr. Flint showed no annoyance, but began to poke about among the Roman candles and rockets, as if he rather liked it. Jimmy has taken a great fancy to him, it seems. I must admit that it is in a man's favor to be liked by boys and dogs. So they drove stakes into the grass, and set up inclined planes for the rockets; and, when it grew dark ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... the climbing wicked boys of the neighbourhood, who sometimes at the risk of their lives contrive to get upon it from the frightfully steep northern bank, and snatch a fearful joy, as, whilst lying on their bellies, they poke their heads over its sides worn by age, without parapet to prevent them from falling into the horrid gulf below. But from the steps in the hollow the view of the Devil's Bridge, and likewise of the cleft, is very slight and unsatisfactory. To view it properly, and the wonders connected with ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... exhausted her experiments on the frock, the bonnet, and the hoop petticoat bought for her in London and sent like the proverbial pig in a poke, had taken to watching the Yankee peddling sloop, which, having lain for an hour at Patterson's on the Virginia shore, was now heading for the Browne place. It was pretty to see the sloop heel over under a beam wind and shoot steadily forward, while the waves dashed fair against her weather side ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... glory vines, in bloom at this season, climbing around the sides and supports. Does Alexander sit here in the autumn sunshine and while the hours away? Nay, in fact he is still one of the active, working members of the family, ever in the fields with his grandchildren, poke around his neck, extracting fleecy cotton from the bolls and putting it deftly into the poke. He can carry his row equally as well as any of the six grandchildren. He has a good appetite at meal time, digestive organs good, sleeps well, and is the ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... due by the Books; none;—if an extraordinary case for payment arise, consult my Wife, and she must sign her order for it. Generally in matters of any moment, consult my Wife; but her only, "except her and the Privy Councillors, no mortal is to poke into my affairs:" I say no ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... they do, they either draw correct inferences from wrong premises, or wrong inferences from correct premises; and they always poke the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... swinging the nobbly stick in his hand, "can't come on more nor two at vunce. Be ready vith your stick—at their eyes—poke at 'em—no 'itting—" the rest was drowned in the echoing rush of heavy feet and the boom of hoarse voices. But now, seeing their quarry stand on the defensive, the pursuers checked their advance, their cries sank ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... stumble only of purpose to entreat me lie down and rest me! But now, and I could find my fellow Dick, I would play the knave with him honestly, i'faith. Well, I will grope in the dark for him, or I'll poke with my staff, like a blind man, to prevent a ditch. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... people, and people never like me. There is an old saying that you should know a man seven years before you poke his fire. I want to know persons seven years before I can ask them how they do. To take me out to dine in this way was of all things ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... no wise are they like the sweet South upon your senses. There is even a suspicion in you—such is your distemper—that it is too much a witch's cauldron in the kitchen, "eye of newt, and toe of frog," and you spy and poke upon your food. Bus boys bear off the crockery as though they were apprenticed to a juggler and were only at the beginning of their art. Waiters bawl strange messages to the cook. It's a tongue ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... for more water, the starling said to him, "Not so fast, not so fast, little Tsar Novishny, for thy dogs have gnawed their way through four doors!" As he was returning to the hut his sister said to him, "That water does not boil up quickly enough! Take the fire-shovel and poke the fire!" So he did so, and the faggots blazed up, but when she had gone away he sprinkled them with water again, so that they might burn more slowly. Then he went into the courtyard again, and the starling met him and said, "Not so fast, not so fast, little Tsar; be as slow as thou ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... thee Lest that the housemaid or, perchance, the cat Should mischief thee, imponderable pat. Ah, mine no more! for lo! 'tis noised around How thou wilt soon cost seven bob a pound. As well demand thy weight in radium As probe my 'poverished poke for such a sum. Wherefore, farewell! No more, alas! thou'lt oil These joints that creak with unrewarded toil; No more thy heartsick votary's midmost riff Wilt lubricate, and, oh! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... his mind was "impelled to concern itself with all the needs of mankind, impelled to poke its nose into every pot where the good God cooks the future." The theatre offered for a time another form of dissipation than his religious hysteria. He hated concerts, and compared himself to a conjurer or a clever trick poodle; he took up with the Revolution of 1830; Saint-Simonianism enmeshed ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... lights not his taper For him who, in a trading paper, Behind a printed notice screens, And fears to tell us what he means. Why don't he to the busy marts Come forth and seige our tender hearts? 'Tis wrong to buy pigs in a poke: To wed so—what a silly joke! In promenade, church, or bazaar, At proper moments, there we are, To be secured by manly hearts, And, when secured, to do our parts To temper life with him we love, And woman's fondest instincts prove; To yield submission to his will, And, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, and a couple hanging from each brawny arm, sent the spectators into ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... and Stan nodded beside the stove. An hour passed and he roused himself to poke in more wood. He dozed off again and was roused by an orderly making the rounds calling the crews. The stove was cold and he fumbled with stiff fingers as he lighted it again. When it was cherry red in spots, O'Malley poked ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... The gentleman that showed you around—old Sate, we call him—had his eyes on the preacher for a long time. When we got him, we had a barrel of liquor and carried him around on our shoulders, until tired of the fun, and threw him in the furnace yonder. We call him "Poke," for that was his favourite game. Oh, Poke,' shouted my friend, 'come here; here's a gentleman who wants to see you—we'll give you five drops of water, and that's more than your ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... placed the cutting- board and knife beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. "Ah, if I could but shudder!" said he, "but I shall not learn it here either." Toward midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one cornier, "Au, miau! how cold we are!" "You simpletons!" cried he, "what are you crying about? If you are cold, come and take a seat by ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... Her nurse had bragged about her to his nurse when Charity was just beginning to take notice of other than alimentary things. By that time Jim was a blase roue of five and his main interest in Charity was a desire to poke his finger into the soft spot ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... I could only see Dick and Bob poke their noses over some of these rocks around here," said Archie. "They will be after us, as soon as they find out that we are captured; and when they get their eyes on these 'Greasers,' as they ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... together and whenever she spoke he contradicted her with a sort of vicious playfulness. Tried to poke clumsy fun at her. Called her 'Lady Harman.' Only it was quite evident that what she said stuck in his ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... until all was got rid of, and on the following day they would return with goods to Hindon. This quiet little business went on satisfactorily for some years, during which the officers of the excise had stared a thousand times with their eagle's eyes at the quaint old woman in her poke bonnet and shawl, driven by a blind man with a vacant face, and had suspected nothing, when a little mistake was made and a jar of brandy delivered at a wrong address. The recipient was an honest gentleman, and in his anxiety to find the ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... them to search with the greatest care, and to poke into places that they had not disturbed before. They returned an hour later with no further specimen of the blue and orange variety, although on a subsequent date they succeeded in unearthing one, but they were rejoicing over ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... as well poke along the top to camp," he said at last, getting to his feet. "I sent that breed back, down there, so we could talk without having to keep cases on him. This is beginning to look like a hopeless case, ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... come up a side way somewhere, old thing! They've given me a chunk of cardboard with little holes in it. You've got to poke your finger in till you see which fits. Lord, I'm glad you don't get married more than once ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... that he find her no Guinevere or Semiramis or other loose-minded trollop of history, I dare say Monsieur de Puysange will hold to his bargain with indifferent content. Look you, niece, he, also, is buying—though the saying is somewhat rustic—a pig in a poke." ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... my old hearty, the first thing for you to do is to poke out your manifest, and any other little matters of vallew ye may have stowed away; and be quick, mind ye, for you haven't much time to sail in this 'ere craft. Howsoever, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... an option on certain remote lands supposed to be of great value for water and power, and no one wants to buy a pig of that size in a poke, so it was ordained that the city fathers, with their engineer and various clerks and functionaries entitled to a vacation and desiring information (or vice versa), should visit the ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... them this; it was she, too, who drew back the sheet from Avery's face in order that they might see it. She was a rosy, apple-cheeked woman, and her vivid colouring was thrown into relief by the long black cloak and the close-fitting, black poke-bonnet that she wore. Maurice, for whom the dead as such had no attraction, turned from his contemplation of the stark-stretched figure on the shelf, to watch the living woman. The exuberance of her vitality had something ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... ses, giving me a little poke in the ribs, "I picked up a cab and, fust leaving my bag at Aldgate, I drove on to your 'ouse and knocked at the door. I knocked twice, and then an angry- looking woman opened it and asked me ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... fists full of sweet things; "they're tied up in that bandana—not the blue one! That blue one got some o' his mammy's things I gwine look over; maybe might be something make him shirts or aprons, an' if there is a clean dress in that poke I—I like to have it put on 'im 'fore she sees him—Madame Caron, an', an' Mist'ess, o' course! I like her to ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... big stick, laughing as if he thought it great fun. Well, the years went on, and Mr. Calf grew to be big and strong. Sammy also grew, but not as fast as the calf did, and the time came when he didn't dare pull his tail, or poke ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... correspondences. Thus "to look a gift-horse in the mouth" is literally reproduced in French and German. Sometimes the symbols vary, e.g., the risk one is exposed to in acquiring goods without examination is called by us "buying a pig in a poke."[75] French and German substitute the cat. We say that "a cat may look at a king." The French dramatis personae are a dog and a bishop. The "bird in hand" which we regard as the equivalent of two in the bush is in German compared advantageously ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... the beast there close to him, and his first thought was to poke the butt of the rifle directly at its head, striking with all his force. The blow landed heavily, but as the beast gave way, Bob lost his balance, and fell directly ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... campfire blaze. The evening sky was sinister and cold; The willows shivered, wanly lay the snow; The uncommiserating land, so old, So worn, so grey, so niggard in its woe, Peered through its ragged shroud. The lone man sighed, Poured back the gaudy dust into its poke, Gazed at the seething river listless-eyed, Loaded his corn-cob pipe as if to smoke; Then crushed with weariness and hardship crept Into his ragged ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... made myself and can make another—certainly—the coal I paid dearly for by fatigue, but I can get another lump, and send it home by coach, yes; then why am I so uncomfortable. I looked at the glowing fire which was getting insufferably hot, and gave it a passionate poke, exclaiming, I wish I could stop your draught. Draught! draft, I repeated, what has become of my draft that I received yesterday for my last paper? I began to recollect myself where I had laid it, and quickly came to the awful conclusion that I had placed it carefully between the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... "I maintain that the new way is infinitely less fraudulent, less ruinous, more straightforward than the old. Publicity means time for reflection and inquiry. If here and there a shareholder is taken in, he has himself to blame, nobody sells him a pig in a poke. The manufacturing industry——" ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... cane-bottomed chair close to the fireplace, in winter, and under a big lilac-bush, at the north-east corner of the house, in summer. He kept a stout iron-tipped cane by his side: in the winter, he used it to poke the fire with; in the summer, to rap the hens and chickens which he used to lure round his chair by handfuls of corn and oats. Sometimes he would tap the end of the wooden leg with this cane, and say, laughingly, "Ha! ha! think of a leg like that's being paralyzed, if ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... leap-frog it with a few other boys. He has a natural genius for combining pleasure with business. This is the reason why, when he is sent to the spring for a pitcher of water, and the family are waiting at the dinner-table, he is absent so long; for he stops to poke the frog that sits on the stone, or, if there is a penstock, to put his hand over the spout and squirt the water a little while. He is the one who spreads the grass when the men have cut it; he mows it away in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... always full of slits where long, smoky sun-rays can poke in. An amber warmth cheers the darkness of garrets; you feel certain there is nothing ugly hiding behind the remotest and dustiest box. If rats or mice inhabit it, they are jovial fellows. But how different is a cellar, and especially a cellar neglected. ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... as he asked me, and as I was going, I tried with my stick to poke the ground from which the dog had wished to turn. I wanted to know why he was not willing to let ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... hour he gave voice to them in one simple, bitter sentence. "Just why the hell," he muttered, "did I ever join the Navy?" The silence offered no reply, and McKegnie, desperate from his cramped position, ventured to poke his head around the instrument panel. The faint emergency lights showed the control room to be empty. He decided to come out, and did so, worming his ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... pushed her glasses up on her forehead, and looked with a dreamy, retrospective gaze through the doorway and beyond, where swaying elms and maples were whispering softly to each other as the breeze touched them. "She had on her old black poke-bonnet and some black yarn mitts, and she didn't come nigh up to Job's shoulder, but Job set and listened as if he jest had to. I heard Dave Crawford shufflin' his feet and clearin' his throat while Sally Ann was talkin' to Job. Dave's farm j'ined Sally Ann's, and they had a lawsuit ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... red tam or the brown velvet hat was the most becoming, and finally favored the tam, because she had once heard the Doctor say that red was the color for winter, and besides, the brown hat had a sharp rim that might give a person a nasty poke in ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... what it was that made me poke my head out of the friendly shelter of the blanket, perhaps because I found that the mosquitoes were biting right through it. Anyhow, as I did so I heard Job whisper, in ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... have blackened it. That was the spirit of our treatment. People were always walking about with their faces to us. One never saw anything in profile. One got an impression of a world that was insanely focused on ourselves. And when I began to poke my little questions into the Lord Chancellor and the archbishop and all the rest of them, about what I should see if people turned round, the general effect I produced was that I wasn't by any means displaying the Royal Tact they had ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... other dingy and eccentric shops, upon one that seemed that of a broker of all sorts of old decorations, armor, china, furniture. I entered the shop; it was dark, dusty, and low. The proprietor was busy scouring a piece of inlaid armor, and allowed me to poke about his shop, and examine the curious things accumulated there, just as I pleased. Gradually I made my way to the farther end of it, where there was but one window with many panes, each with a bull's ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Jabez, as he helped himself to a third potato, "'S you say, it's a chance fer her, an' she's a likely sort er girl,—pass the salt, will ye?—but I hope it won't poke her head full er notions,—I'll thank ye fer a biscuit,—so's when she comes home she won't remember who ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... fantastically, and the child running in advance, an agile and bedrabbled looking little creature, was more in masquerade than the others. She wore an old poke bonnet and carried a crooked stick, and there seemed to be a hump ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... a battle are always plentiful, but at H.Q. one has an opportunity of sifting these, in fact I could always get the exact truth by asking members of the Staff, but I feel as a non-combatant that I have no right to openly poke my nose into purely military matters. Rumour said we had taken 700 prisoners yesterday; another rumour puts the number at 2000. I heard at dinner that eighty had come in. Mention was laughingly made of "the lost regiment". I could ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... abnormal had happened. It educates him in an impersonal attitude towards calamity which makes it bearable. It forces him not to regard anything too tragically. If you can stand aside from yourself and poke fun at your own tragedy—and tragedy always has its humorous aspect—that helps. The songs which have been inspired by the trenches are examples ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... woman's figure enter, and she kept her eyes idly upon it as she walked on toward the house. The woman came slowly and hesitatingly toward the yard. When she drew nearer, Margaret could see that she wore homespun, home-made shoes, and a poke-bonnet. On her hands were yarn half-mits, and, as she walked, she pushed her bonnet from her eyes with one hand, first to one side, then to the other—looking at the locusts planted along the avenue, the cedars in the yard, the sweep of lawn ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... "I promised to go down and have breakfast with dear Mrs. Chifney at the stables, but I can be back here by eleven. Would you be inclined to come out with me then? We could ride over to that burnt land and have a poke round for ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the owners thereof; and I learned that sitting had begun, and that the brooding bird was fed by her mate. He came, always from a distance, directly to the nest, alighted on the edge, leaned over and gave one poke downward, while low yearning or pleading cries reached my ears. Without lingering an instant he flew to a perch a foot above, stood there half a minute, and then went to the ground. Not more than thirty seconds elapsed before he returned to his mate, the cries greeted him, the mouthful was administered, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... get into its little ways, and was busily driving about and attending to my business as I had planned, 6,000 more men suddenly wanted something, brought me up to a full stop one rainy day, and said that they had decided that if I wanted to ride I would have to walk, or that I would have to poke dismally about in a 'bus, or worm my way through under the ground. As I understood it, there was something that they wanted and something that they were going to get; and while of course in a way, they recognized that ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... is told of a party of foraging apes who went into a cornfield with the purpose of robbing it, and discovered two men. They immediately rushed upon them and attempted to poke their eyes out with sticks and would have succeeded but for the intervention of two other men who chanced to be near. The extreme cleverness of apes in applying their reason and judgment is shown in Vosmaer's account of the ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... under those briers," he said; "I'm going to poke the tip of my rod under—this way—Hah!" as a heavy splash sounded from depths unseen and the reel screamed as ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... had settled enough for thorough inspection of the entire aft portion of the wreck. Rick and Scotty helped the frogmen poke into every possible place without finding more than a ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... door open, and this bore poke in his head: "Oh I forgot to tell you; the Old Turks are going up today, like a shot." And with this he slammed the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... him—teasingly). Me and Tom had a race, Papa. I beat him. (She sticks her tongue out at her younger brother.) Slow poke! ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... that some day I would myself sail those adventurous seas in a vessel of my own, that I would poke the nose of my craft up steaming tropic rivers, that I would drop anchor off towns whose names could not be found on ordinary maps, and that I would go ashore in white linen and pipe-clayed shoes and a sun-hat to take tiffin with sultans and rajahs, and to barter beads and brass wire for ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
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