"Ace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... situation as it presented itself on October 31st and November 1st, 1914, I believe that the vital interests of the British Empire were in great danger on both these days. That is to say, the whole coast-line from Havre to Ostend was within an ace of falling into the ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... certain sections of the city was stronger than the law, he had a hold upon her imagination. As the inspirer of her best work, he had a hold upon her gratitude. He had, or thought he had, a chance to win her affection in open and equal competition. And, highest card of all—ace of trumps—he had persuaded her that her influence upon him was such that with all the strength of remorse he was shaping ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... traversed three times the direct distance is setting a low estimate. Throughout all those swamps the great lizards hunted, and as the country was new to me I did not know places of harbour, and a hundred times was within an ace of being spied and devoured at a mouthful. But the High Gods still desired me for Their own purposes, and blinded the great beasts' eyes when I slunk to cover as they passed. Twice rivers of scalding water roared boiling across my path, and I had to delay till I could collect ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... growing recklessly in the thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she realized, ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... against my wish," she said in a firm voice, "but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... any love left to give the woman who had despoiled him of all a man values—broken his faith, destroyed the ideals that had once been his. Moreover, she had seen clear down into his soul that day at Berrier Cove, when Ann had come within an ace of death, and she knew that on the ruins of the old love a new ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... he maintained his silence - 'You!' she cried, pointing at him with her finger. "Tis you they threaten! Your rascal and mine have laid their heads together and condemned you. But they reckoned without you and me. We make a PARTIE CARREE, Prince, in love and politics. They lead an ace, but we shall trump it. Come, partner, shall I draw ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... paleness spreads o'er all her look; She sees, and trembles at th' approaching ill, Just in the jaws of ruin, and codille. And now (as oft in some distempered state) On one nice trick depends the general fate. An ace of hearts steps forth; the king unseen Lurked in her hand, and mourned his captive queen: He springs to vengeance with an eager pace, And falls like thunder on the prostrate ace. The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky; The walls, the woods, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... told his mother and she took it to the school board. I was a pretty tough little rascal in those days I guess and no doubt needed some lickings myself occasionally. But I remember I almost lost my nerve when I got back to school that day and came within an ace of stuffing the rose in my pocket instead of throwing it on your desk. I never dreamed the rose would be anything to you. It was only my way of paying tribute to you. You seemed to me something like a rose yourself, just dropped down out of heaven you know, you were so little and pink ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... the radiant being's window. The pretty girls of the household vanished with murmured excuses, leaving us at the mercy of the boy, who sighed grievously, dropped a sugar bowl, and spilled coffee within an ace of ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... suppose from the exhibition I've just been watching, that you're in the habit of seeing farther than to the end of your own nose. However, I may as well point out to you that if you had killed yourself, as you richly deserved, and as you came within an ace of doing, the run would have been stopped for the season. We should all have been deprived of the Grand National, and I, who come up here solely to ride the Cresta, which I have done regularly every winter for twenty years, would have had my favorite occupation snatched ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... peace. For anon the chief announced that this time a Kookwes—a burly, beastly villain, not two points better than his cousin the Chenoo—was coming to play at rough murder with them. And, verily, by this time the Micmac began to believe, without bating an ace on it, that all of these tall people were like the wolves, who, meeting with nobody else, bite one another. So they were bound and bundled up as before, and put to bed like dolls. And again they heard the horrible shout, the moderate shout, and the smaller shout, until sooel ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... round, then: here are dyce, and ile begin to ye. Have at your head, Sir John! dewce ace[206]; a doggs-head![207] The devill turnd this ace up. Farwell, velvet gowne! Thou hast mist the luckiest hand ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... king pointed out to the prince the impropriety of his conduct. Radziwill added, that the bears were not cross, as whip, gold, and patience can put in order every thing; He added also, that, sometimes the ace beats the king at cards, and paid liberally the damages. After some time, he gave a splendid party, to which he invited all the ambassadors, and all the leading personages in Poland, and displayed extraordinary luxury. The dancing was kept up in several drawing rooms. After the supper, he ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... much like your carrot-pated Poitevins, save only that all of them, men, women, and children, have their noses shaped like an ace of clubs. For that reason the ancient name of the country was Ennasin. They were all akin, as the mayor of the place told us; ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... was impeded with sobs and the oscillations of three semi-detached teeth, that waved in the breeze as he screamed: "Little Clarence Detwiller LICKED me! so he did! and I on'y p-pushed him off his sled into a puddle of ice wa-wa-water and he attackted me and kicked my f-f-Face-ace off." ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... married early—for love, and the issue was disastrous. Above her right temple, just at the roots of the hair, a scar was discoverable; it was the memento of an occasion on which her husband aimed a blow at her with a mantelpiece ornament, and came within an ace of murder. Intimates of the household said that the provocation was great—that Mrs. Lessingham's gift of sarcasm had that morning displayed itself much too brilliantly. Still, the missile was an extreme retort, and on ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... yards below the last house in the village, and some mist overhung the river. Under cover of this a small body of horse, with one gun, from Shields's forces, had reached the east end of the bridge and trained the gun on it. Jackson was within an ace of capture. As he spurred across, the gun was fired on him, but without effect, and the sound brought up staff and escort, when the horse retired north. This incident occasioned the order to me. After relating ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... last Cambridge vacation; then, in November of 1791, he crossed to France, ostensibly to learn the language, made the acquaintance of revolutionaries, sympathized with them vehemently, and was within an ace of throwing in his lot with the Brissotins, to give them the steady direction that they needed. When it came to this his relatives cut off his supplies, and he was obliged to return to London toward the close of 1792. But still he resisted all pressure to enter any of the regular professions, published ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... When you go to bed, place under your pillow a prayer-book open at the part of the matrimonial service 'with this ring I thee wed'; place on it a key, a ring, a flower, and a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread, and the following cards:—the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and the ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin handkerchief of gauze or muslin, and on getting into bed, cross ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... purchasing at a cost of many hours of crowded disappointment, it was as well that Mavis was ignorant of the way in which her prospects had been prejudiced by the trend of events at Melkbridge House since Mrs Devitt had replied to Miss Mee's letter. To begin with, Mavis's visit had been within an ace of being indefinitely postponed; it was owing to Harold's expressed wish that the original appointment had been allowed to stand. The reason for this indifference to Mavis's immediate future was that, the day after the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... end. He came out of his theories and clevernesses; his premature man-of-the-worldness, on which he had prided himself on his travels, 'shrank like a thing ashamed' before this real sorrow. Pride, wounded honour, pity and respect tussled together daily in his heart; and now he was within an ace of throwing himself upon his father's mercy, and now of slipping forth at night and coming back no more to Naseby House. He suffered from the sight of his father, nay, even from the neighbourhood of this familiar valley, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... consequence of these rumors our sentries were very nervous, and we scouts ran considerable risk returning to our lines before daylight. I was very nearly shot on several occasions, and once was within an ace of firing on one of my best pals. I saw a figure in the dark and, sneaking up to it, called out: "Put up your hands!" He did so, but then foolishly dropped them again. If he had not called out, "Who the hell are you?" at the same moment, ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... time he read some of the stanzas which he had completed. Even in the first winter after Hallam's death, he wrote a few lines in the manuscript book which he kept by him for the purpose during the next fifteen years, and which he was within an ace of losing in 1850, just when the poem was completed and ready for publication. As a statesman turns from his private sorrow to devote himself to a public cause, so the poet's instinct was to find comfort in the practice of his art. Under the stress of ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... dice; each dice with its six surfaces had six different numbers. While he beamed into the veiled eyes of the old Mexican he was figuring upon the various combinations possible and the likelihood, the theory of chances, of a six or an ace upon the second throw. From the jump the game fascinated him; it is to be questioned, however, if ever before a man knew just the sort of fascination which enthralled him. No matter who won or lost, when the rolling ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... depend upon it, Phil, if he knows how to watch for it; but there are so many men who get tired and go to sleep before their chances come to them. I've wasted a good deal of time, and a good deal of labour; but the ace of trumps is in the pack, and it must turn up sooner ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... dishonesties, for at the end of the game he gave up all his winnings, and they were equally divided. Gain, as may readily be supposed, was not his object; but he always expected that fortune would grant him an ace or a ten at the right moment with the same confidence with which he looked for fine weather on the day of battle. If he were disappointed he wished nobody to ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... put 'em along faster, as it is—" His sentence remained unfinished, the sleigh bumped and lifted on to one runner. It was within an ace of overturning. There was no need ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... me some tips. One of them was to shout at your scout for at least a week to show that you are not an infant, another was not to row, and the last was not to play cards all day and night. My brother's an odd kind of chap, the sort of man who doesn't know the ace of spades by sight, but it's as easy to shout as it is not to row. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... is; Yet that would not serve, but I must bear his charges; And yet for all that, rode astride on a beast, The worst that e'er went on three legs, I protest: It certainly was the most ugly of jades, His hips and his rump made a right ace of spades; His sides were two ladders, well spur-galled withal; His neck was a helve, and his head was a mall; For his colour, my pains and your trouble I'll spare, For the creature was wholly denuded of hair; And, except for two things, as bare as my nail, A tuft of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Blount asked for the family touring-car, more than half-expecting to be told that his father had taken it. The garage man nodded and laughed. "You can have it, but you came within an ace of losing out," he said. "The senator was just here, and he was going to take it, but he changed his mind when I told him the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... recall what I had heard of cannibals. I was within an ace of calling for help. But the mere fact that he was a man, however wild, had somewhat reassured me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in proportion. I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some method of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... horse-thief in voice softened by the vapors of his steaming dinner, "that friend of yours with the whiskers all over him is ace-high over here in this end of the dump! And say, friend, they could keep me here for life if they'd send purty girls like that one down here to see me once in a while. You're in right, friend; you certainly ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... of the numbers come as full words, seems to me to point most clearly to the whole key of the situation. Anything which cannot be brought into such a simple number series, for instance, a colour impression, can never be transmitted. If the mother looks at the ace of diamonds, Beulah says that she sees the red of the diamond before her in her mind, but if the mother looks at the picture of a blue lake, this blue impression can never arise in Beulah's mind, ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... a valuable wash-stand. Chippendale furniture ain't in it with this kind. I reckon the king of England's is ace high against a straight flush when it bucks up ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... was his lordship," he went on, scanning the judge still harder. "I do mind his vurry voice. It was 'im, no doubt about it. I've zeed a zight o' people, since I zeed 'im that day, but I do mind his voice, and I do mind his 'ands, and I do mind his ve-ace the zame as if it wur yesterday. Now I come to look, blessed ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... gravely and simply that old Bridewell watched him quizzically, half suspecting that there was a touch of irony hidden somewhere. It gradually dawned on him that a man who was flat broke was refusing money which he had won fairly on a bet. The idea staggered Bridewell. He was within an ace of putting Bull Hunter down as a fool. Something held him back, through some underlying respect for the physical might of the big man and a respect, also, for the honesty which looked out of his eyes. He pocketed the money slowly. He was never ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... press gang!" said the cook, who was a negro black as the ace of spades named Job. "Dey am comin' to take off everybody dat looks like a Britisher. Golly! do I look ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... man,' says Burke. Flaherty cut th' king iv spades. Burke, th' robber, cut th' ace iv hearts. He was reachin' out f'r th' money, whin Flaherty put his hands over it. 'Wud ye take it?' says he. 'I wud,' says Burke. 'Wud ye rob th' church?' says Flaherty. 'I wud,' says Burke. 'Thin,' says Flaherty, scoopin' ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... Scotty told them. "I talked it over with Tony, and came within an ace of diving after you, although I doubt that I could have reached bottom and found you. But we watched, and we couldn't see any bubbles at all. It was too dark, and we were right where the ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... He looked like the Ace of Diamonds when we had finished with him.... Move on there! Keep on ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... experience we lear-rn. An' th' sooner a man lear-rns, th' bether ut is fer um, that all women know more thin they let on—an' they've always an ace fer a ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... with fatigue after a long journey, sank down at the very brink of a deep well and presently fell asleep. He was within an ace of falling in, when Dame Fortune appeared to him and touched him on the shoulder, cautioning him to move further away. "Wake up, good sir, I pray you," she said; "had you fallen into the well, the blame would have been thrown not on your own folly ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... he shuffled the cards, of slily inclining the painted sides upwards. He had another knack of leaving an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity for an amateur. He could, when occasion seemed to make it profitable, discard with a fair air of unconsciousness. An ace dropped out of sight a hand or two earlier, was followed by a valueless card dropped openly. The ace was taken to supply its place with a perfect smiling effrontery. But Mr. Barter's favourite trick came out when he had a weak hand. Then he smiled across at his opponent, breathed softly the ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... glance at Howle, old Stoneman shoved a stack of blue chips, worth fifty dollars, over the ace, playing it to win on Howle's ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... were the waving elm boughs and a clear sky. He was aroused by a knock on his door, and, as he jumped out of bed, Big Abel, the Major's driver and confidential servant, came in with the warm water. He was a strong, finely-formed negro, black as the ace of spades (so the Major put it), and ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... alive, why didn't you play your Ace of Spades? If you had brought out that Ace you'd have a trump- -then you'd beat this with a trump ... and ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... shines, and my heart is high. This is a great day. The Stars and Stripes ace flying at my gate, and they are flying over all France. What is more they will soon be flying—if they are not already—over Westminster, for the first time in history. The mighty, unruly child, who never could quite forgive the parent it defied, and never has been wholly pardoned, is to ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... of the R.E., as I thought—didn't tell him much, luckily, but we hadn't parted five minutes when he was 'wanted,' and there was no end of a hunt, but he managed to get clear, and a genuine English major was within an ace of being shot in mistake for him if he hadn't been recognised by one of the ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... spectacle, (and thinking of Maria Dolores? revolving still her cryptic valediction?), all at once, as his eye rested on the shimmer at the valley's end which he knew to be the lake, lifted up his hand and clapped his brow. "By Jove," he muttered, "if I wasn't within an ace of clean forgetting!" The sight of the lake had fortunately put him in mind that he was engaged to-day to lunch with ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... three queens and an ace. "One card," he said to Allen. Allen tossed him the card, and Hugh's heart leaped when he saw that it ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... to Beverly who had often ridden fifty in one day with Uncle Athol and her brother? Just a breather. And when there swept through the gateway of Kilton Hall a most exalted, hatless, rosy-cheeked, dancing-eyed lassie mounted upon a most hilarious steed, the gate-keeper came within an ace of having apoplexy, for she was a ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... proponentibus.[43] The principle involved in this phrase continued to be hotly disputed all through the sessions of the Council. But Pius knew that so long as he stuck fast to it he always held the ace of trumps, and nothing would ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... consisted of a gentleman and two old ladies. The gentleman (a plump, black-whiskered elderly Cupid, with a vast expanse of shirt-front like an immense white ace of hearts, and a rose in his button-hole) was standing on the hearth-rug in a graceful attitude, with one hand resting on his hip, and the other under his coat-tails. Of the two old ladies, who seemed as if expressly created by nature to serve as foils ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... almost beyond belief, and there was a general rush toward that row of lodges, and beyond them into the bushes and through the corral. It came within an ace of stampeding every pony there, and every trace of anything like a "trail" left by the feet of Two Knives and his ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... shall not have last word as you think,—all the 'risk' shall not be mine, neither; how can I, in the event, throw ambs-ace (is not that the old word?) and not peril your stakes too, when once we have common stock and are partners? When I see the unicorn and grieve proportionately, do you mean to say you are not going to grieve too, for my sake? And if so—why, you clearly run ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... receive you on board the Liffy frigate, which, by a combination of circumstances, is now lying in Cork Harbour,—fortunate for us, but which might have proved disastrous to her gallant officers and crew, for she was dismasted in a gale, and was within an ace of being driven on shore. But a miss is as good as a mile; and when under jury-masts she scraped clear of the rocks, and got into port in safety. Here my letter, after wandering about for many a day, found him, and he has lost no time in replying ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... theme and make it immortal, because some botcher had tried his hand upon it before, and left it for stone-dead? Because he could not help throwing sizes, was he to avoid the dice which for others would only come up ames-ace? ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... 'twas an undacent deed, and a hundred confessions would barely wipe it from yer sowl. It's a pity, too, that ye've died widout absolution from a praist, sich as I've tould ye off. Barrin' the brache of good fellieship, I could have placed yer own scalp wid the rest, as a p'ace-offering, to his Honour, the Missus and ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... was saying: It was a cinch to see that Sandy's girl thought you was ace high, alrightee. She kept her eyes glommed onto you ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... the rule has been that everywhere the lower forms of life precede the higher. In the plant world flowerless plants precede the flowering ones. The coal we burn to-day is mainly the remains of the wonderful growth of the flowerless vegetation of the Paleozoic Ace. When flowering plants appear, it is the lower forms ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... you, you dear, brave, blessed ace of hearts in a world where hearts are trumps! If you ain't one of the right old girls, then they don't make ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... 'I've got him here. Such a clerk for you, Brass, such a prize, such an ace of trumps. Be quick and open the door, or if there's another lawyer near and he should happen to look out of window, he'll snap him up before your eyes, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... General, his face as black as the ace of spades, (which, by the way, is blue.) "I might go to Nova Zembla for a quiet smoke, and some sneaking politician would crawl out from the ice with a petition. I went fishing in Pennsylvania, and I found twenty of those fellows to every trout. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... had a drop too much. That very night there was an alarm, and out we went to the front, half seas over! We did catch it, I can tell you, when Aleksei Petrovich came to hear about us! Heaven save us, what a rage he was in! He was within an ace of having us court-martialled. That's just how things happen! You might easily spend a whole year without seeing a soul; but just go and have a drop and ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... hearts, knave of clubs, ace and duce of trumps, at whist: also the lubberly seamen, put to swab, and ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... the railing before him and gasped. The second seemed an age. The lower fan of the aeropile passed within an ace of touching the people, who yelled and screamed and ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... suffix -iti, found in Armaiti, Khnathaiti, and the like. Astibaras is perhaps "great of bone," from Zend agta (Sans, asthi), "bone," and bereza, "tall, great." Harmamithres, if that is the true reading, would be "mountain-lover" (monticolus), from hardam, ace. of hara, "a mountain," and mithra or mitra, "fond of." If, however, the name should be read as Armamithres, the probable derivation will be from rama, ace. of raman, "pleasure," which is also the root of Rama-tea. Armamithres may then be compared with Rheomithres, Siromitras, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... become ice. Yes, he understood at last what Destiny had always been trying to tell him—that love and happiness were not for him. He was consecrate to great causes: His Will, entangled with that of others, grew feeble, fruitless. Women were truly enfants du diable. He had been within an ace of abandoning his historical mission. Now he would arise, strong, sublime: a mighty weapon forged by the gods, and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... matter; people of that ilk are not fit subjects to discuss with you. All that I know of the woman is that she has travelled pretty well over the world; that some six or eight months ago she was in Ceylon with a—er—a certain member of her crew, and came within an ace of falling foul of the law. She had put up a plan to loot the depository of the Pearl Fisheries Company at a period when there were thousands of pounds worth of gems awaiting transport. With her usual luck she slipped out of the net and ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... you pannierman's by-blow!" she cried; "you bony muckfowl, with the bony back sticking out like the ace of spades on the point of a small-sword! you lie, Bobchin, Changeling, Horseleech! 'Slid, you Shrovetide Cutpurse, I'll scald your hide ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... an Italian card-game ("the little Calabrian game") for three players. All the tens, nines and eights are removed from an ordinary pack; the order of the cards is three, two, ace, king, queen, &c. In scoring the ace counts 3; the three 2; king, queen and knave 1 each. The last trick counts 3. Each separate hand is a whole game. One player plays against the other two, paying to each or ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... is a singular fact, that before the public, or rather the booksellers, had given their decision, he no more knew whether he had written well or ill, than whether a die thrown out of a box was to turn up a size or an ace. However, he instantly resumed his spirits, and expressed his wonder rather that his poetical popularity should have lasted so long, than that it should have now at last given way. At length he said, with perfect cheerfulness, 'Well, well, James, so be it—but you know we must ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... happier he who ne'er hath known! By absence who hath chilled his love, His hate by slander, and who spends Existence without wife or friends, Whom jealous transport cannot move, And who the rent-roll of his race Ne'er trusted to the treacherous ace. ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... irresistible. As a delineator of types, accurate beneath the caricature, he is deadly; particularly, perhaps, when he turns his attention to the Senior Service. But his Brigadiers and his Clubmen are also always within an ace ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... giving the least heed to his cards. It was true his eyes were resting on the ace, king, and queen of spades; but his mind was tortured by the belief that by his fantastic conceit in sending Helen to this Alpine fastness he had delivered her bound ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... seems beyond me, while the golden hours glide swiftly away, and before many days have passed our visit with all its risks must have an end. I shiver sometimes, boy, as I stand close by and listen to our master's careless, light-hearted speech. Again and again he has been within an ace of betraying who he is, and at any moment some of the sharper-witted of the courtiers by whom we are surrounded may grasp the truth, and then, Denis, as Francis has said, we are in the lion's den and the ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... awkward predicaments which occurred frequently during the ups and downs of the war. When Lord Roberts's army swept on from Bloemfontein, the Boers in a measure swept back, and our host was for months persecuted by his own people, finally made a prisoner, and was within an ace of being shot; in fact, it was only the ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... he said; 'I have been sick and tired of it this many a day, and care not now to see men abuse good liquor and addle their silly pates to fill my purse. And I have something, boy, put snug away in Dorchester town that will give us bread to eat and beer to drink, even if the throws run still deuce-ace. But we must seek a roof to shelter us when the Why Not? is shut, and 'tis best we leave this Moonfleet of ours for a season, till Maskew finds a rope's end long enough to hang himself withal. So, when our work is ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... devotion to the Great First Cause, and a strong, feeling of gratitude for the benefits which He confers, is one of the prominent traits which characterise the mind of the untutored Indian."—(Heck. Hist. Ace. p. 84.) Loskiel says, (History of the Mission of the United Brethren, p. 33) "The prevailing opinion of all these nations is, that there is one God, or, as they call Him, one Great and Good Spirit, who has ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... hope. Artistic and critical London had hailed him as a newcomer of promise, amounting to genius: and Lilamani Sinclair, daughter of Rajputs, had only escaped becoming the craze of the moment by her precipitate withdrawal to Antibes, where she had come within an ace of losing all, largely through the malign influence of Jane—her evil genius during those wonderful, difficult, early months ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... conference with the judge. The two contestants, Sinclair and Du Sang, were ordered back thirty-five paces on their horses, and the railroad man, walking over to the targets, held out between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand the ace of clubs. The man that should first spot the pip out of the card was to take the prize, a Cheyenne saddle. Sinclair shot, and his horse, perfectly trained, stood like a statue. The card flew from Smith's hand, but the bullet ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... Vulcan's hammers could silence the clamours of that outrageous whore his Goddess; nay, even Jupiter himself led such a life with a termagant wife, that once, they say, Juno out-scolded the noise of all his Thunders, and was within an ace of brawling him out of Heaven. But to ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... began a sequence in hearts; the hearts all lay between himself and Sylvie; the colonel won her ace, though it was protected ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... sections, unless the page (p.) is given. The following abbreviations are used: ace. accusative; adj. adjective; adv. adverb; expr. expressed; ftn. footnote; inf. infinitive; intrans. intransitive; prep. preposition; trans. transitive. For Esperanto words whose use or meaning is specially explained, references are given ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... Since then, Armenia has more than once challenged fortune, but always with the same result; it fared no better under Tigranes in the Roman epoch, than under Sharduris in the time of the Assyrians; it has been within an ace of attaining the goal of its ambitions, then at the last moment its strength has failed, and it has been forced to retire worsted from the struggle. Its position prevented it from exercising very wide influence; ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... "ace in the hole"—had hurled the bowie knife hidden in a sheath sewn inside the back of ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... this date he had been still the nominal owner of a small freehold farm between Pengarth and Carlisle, bordering on the Threlfall property. But he was then within an ace of ruin, and irreparable ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... weary the reader with Bob's experiences during the next few hours. In the letter he wrote to me about them, he gave but few details. Nevertheless, he told me enough to make me realise that for hours he was within an ace of ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... and having gone three in "no trumps" and found seven to the ace, king, queen in hearts lying before her in dummy, she wore a smile of beatific satisfaction. So also did Alice—for two reasons. The deal obviously spelled money, and Vere Millet could be trusted to get every trick out of it. There were four bridge tables fully occupied ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... were chiefly hand engraved, and often sold in small metal and silver boxes, those dating from the time of Queen Anne being the most interesting. The most popular card counters in the early days of the nineteenth century were brass copies of the spade-ace gold guinea, which they closely resembled, and it is feared, when gilt, were not infrequently palmed off as ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... orders, and took the fiery steed along the coast. She proved a very "wicked" animal, and a few yards prancing and capering made me heartily wish that I was safely on terra firma. Suddenly a volley was fired, and as suddenly the horse gave such a lurch that I was within an ace of being pitched where I wanted to get—though not quite so precipitately. Volley after volley was fired, and I lost all command over the snorting steed, which was flitting along at the rate of so many miles an hour. Had it not been for a heavy guard-cloak which I was wearing, and which by wrapping ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... cards as I was told. There were seven left on the table. My aunt removed two from one end of the row and two from the other, and desired me to call the two outermost of the three cards now left on the table. I called the Ace of Clubs and the Ten of Diamonds. My aunt Chance lifted her eyes to the ceiling with a look of devout gratitude which sorely tried my mother's patience. The Ace of Clubs and the Ten of Diamonds, taken together, signified—first, good ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... and endearing expressions upon him, of which he was utterly undeserving; but my attentions were quite thrown away, and might as well, for any good they produced, have been bestowed upon a rocking-horse. At length, after a final struggle, in which we were both within an ace of falling into a water-course which crossed the park in that direction, I gave the matter up as hopeless; and with a sigh (for I love not to be foiled in anything I have attempted, and, moreover, I could not help looking upon it as an unlucky omen) dismounted, 285 and leading ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Records 1. 5125—Petition of the Ship's Company of the Shannon, 16 June 1796.] in which there was conveyed a threat that afterwards, when the mutiny at the Nore was at its height, under the leadership of a pressed man whose coadjutors were mainly pressed men, came within an ace of resolving itself in action. That threat concerned the desperate expedient of carrying the revolted ships into an enemy's port, and of there delivering them up. Had this been done—and only the ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... his foot. In his choler he was within an ace of striking Ombreval, and might have done so had not the broad-minded and ever-reasonable old Des Cadoux interposed at that moment to make clear to the Marquis's guests a situation than which nothing could have been clearer. He put it to them that the times were changed, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... did not wait for a second hint, but shoved the lever over so hard that the wheels spun and the whole train came within an ace of bucking off the track. And before the caboose had passed us Ayisha was alongside Grim abusing him for not having broken the locks ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... to be turned out of his father's house because of the disgrace of his birth. In the eye of the law he was nobody. The law allowed to him not even a name;—certainly allowed to him the possession of no relative; denied to him the possibility of any family tie. His father had succeeded within an ace of giving him that which would have created for him family ties, relatives, name and all. The old Squire had understood well how to supersede the law, and to make the harshness of man's enactments of no avail. Had the Squire ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... some hocus-pocus with the cards, but in the circumstances made no protest. As it chanced he must have hocus-pocused them wrong, for though his hand was full of trumps, Rodd held nothing at all. The battle that ensued was quite exciting, but the end of it was that an ace in the hand of Anscombe, who really was quite a good player, did the business, and we ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... sailor. "They've let me know as much a'ready. There be two captains to their crew; one's the smoke-dried old sinner as brought yer in; the other a big nayger, as black as the ace o' spades. You saw the swab? He's inside the tent here. He's my master. The two came nigh quarrelling about which should have me, and settled it by some sort o' a game they played wi' balls of kaymal's dung. The black won me; an' that's why I'm kep by his tent. Mother av Moses! Only to think ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... Accounts kalkularo. Account (rendered) raporto. Accoutre (milit.) armi. Accrue kreskigxi. Accumulate amasigi. Accumulation amaso. Accuracy akurateco. Accurate akurata. Accursed malbena. Accusation kulpigo. Accusative akuzativo. Accuse kulpigi. Accustomed, to be kutimi. Ace aso. Acerbity acideco. Acetous acida. Ache doloro. Achieve plenumi. Achievement elfaro. Acid acida. Acid acido. Acidity acideco. Acidulous acideta. Acknowledge konfesi. Acknowledge (letters, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... his right hand, stood squarely in the centre of the street, with the sturdy bearing of one who has his quarrel just, and who besides can pierce the ace spot on a card ten yards further away than any other man in ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... last, looking mighty white about the gills, 'this ship that we are in is more than half mine. I am chief owner. I'll stake me share of the ship on the next game against all that I have lost.' 'Done!' said I, and shuffled, cut, and dealt. He went four on three highest trumps, and an ace, and I held four small trumps. 'It's a bad job for my creditors,' he said, as he threw his hand down. Ged! I started on that vyage a poor captain, and I came into port very fairly well off, and sailing in me own ship, too! What d'ye ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... put himselfe in Armes, the aduerse windes Whose leisure I haue staid, haue giuen him time To land his Legions all as soone as I: His marches are expedient to this towne, His forces strong, his Souldiers confident: With him along is come the Mother Queene, An Ace stirring him to bloud and strife, With her her Neece, the Lady Blanch of Spaine, With them a Bastard of the Kings deceast, And all th' vnsetled humors of the Land, Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries, With Ladies faces, and fierce ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the pasting you got By the boys down in Callaghan’s store, When Tim Hooligan found a fifth ace in his hand, And you holding his pile ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... it may prove," was the reply; "for the company of this house ace as various at times as can be met with in any other situation. However, this appears to wear the form of one of our fashionable, high-life Gentlemen; but appearances are often deceitful, we shall perhaps hear more of him presently—he may turn out to be one of the prodigals ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... masther,' sez Kiss, dealin'. 'Black Jack, sorr, I shud expaytiate to you, is the Ace av Shpades which from time immimorial has been intimately connect wid ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... the grain, and was canonised as a martyr. The shrew-mouse took him by the ears and placed him on the door the granary, after the fashion of the Ottoman Porte, where my good Panurge was within an ace of being spitted. At the cries of the dying wretch the rats, mice, and others made for their holes in great haste. When the night had fallen they came to the cellar, convoked for the purpose of holding a ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... coterie, had already met the too exclusive metropolitan—four days ago, by the lucky fluke of turning in at the Country Club at an out-of-the-way morning moment, when she might have motored straight on home, and had been within an ace of doing so. An omen, wasn't it? Five minutes she and Mr. Canning had talked, over so-called horses' necks provided by his sedate host, and before the end of that time she had perceived an interest dawning in the young man's somewhat ironic eyes. With the usual of his sex one ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... he surveyed his victim, "because a man looks sad at the opening of a jack-pot, it doesn't necessarily follow that he's only got ace-high." ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... captain was still playing cards, and whether he was winning or losing, the old historians do not tell us, but very suddenly a newcomer took a hand in the game. This was Peter the Great, and he played the ace of trumps. With a great pistol in his hand, he called upon the Spanish captain to surrender. That noble commander glanced around. There was a savage pirate holding a pistol at the head of each of the officers at ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... here that I'm a-lookin' at," said Miss Becky, "they stan' for the past. Them there, they er the present; and the t'others, they er the future. Here's a bundle"—tapping the ace of clubs with her thumb—"an' here's a journey as plain as the nose on a man's ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... us this time," declared little Robey, the youngest subaltern, to whom the nights were a torment unspeakable. He had been within an ace of heat apoplexy more than once, and his nerves were ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... "'Bate me an ace, quoth Bolton.' At the age at which a man commonly takes no care of himself, nor of any other belike. Nor you are not the wisest man of your age in this world, my master: don't go for to think it. You don't need to look at me in that way, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... could get no hands at all, but he never went out; sometimes he drew four cards to an ace or a queen, sometimes he took the whole five; while his losses, if steady, were not material. Occasionally he bluffed, and got a small pot; but it was risky, as he was distinctly in a run of bad luck. At last he was dealt nine, ten, knave, queen, ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... and then the Quarrel rose to that Height on both Sides, that we were within an Ace ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... explain why I thought so. It sounds a silly argument even to myself; I feel I have not got it quite right. Added to which it was not my partner who played the two of clubs, it was Dummy. If I had only remembered this, and had concluded from it—as I ought to have done—that my partner had the ace of diamonds—as otherwise why did he pass my knave?—we might have saved the odd trick. I have not the head for bridge. It is only an ordinary head—mine. I have ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... forsook, A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look; 90 She sees, and trembles at the approaching ill, Just in the jaws of ruin, and Codille. And now, (as oft in some distemper'd state) On one nice trick depends the general fate, An Ace of Hearts steps forth: the King unseen Lurk'd in her hand, and mourn'd his captive Queen: He springs to vengeance with an eager pace, And falls like thunder on the prostrate Ace. The nymph, exulting, fills with shouts the sky; The walls, the woods, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al |
