"Croquet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... other side of the Luxembourg you will find a garden of roses, with a rich bronze group of Greek runners in the center, and near it, back of the long marble balustrade, a croquet ground—a favorite spot for several veteran enthusiasts who play here regularly, surrounded for hours by an interested crowd who applaud and cheer the participants in ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... monstrous contours of Victorian crinolines, a sunken memory stirred in her that was almost romance—a memory of a dusty volume of Punch in an aunt's house in infancy: pictures of crinoline hoops and croquet hoops and some pretty story, of which perhaps they were a part. This half-perceptible fragrance in her thoughts faded almost instantly, and Diana Duke entered the house even more promptly than her companion. Tall, slim, aquiline, and dark, she seemed made for such swiftness. ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... Lavery perpetuated the fact—so pregnant a contribution to the philosophy of Exhibitions—that a profit of L10,000 was derived from the switchbacks. The picture would then have made a nice supplement to Mr. Lavery's famous studies of "Croquet" and "Tennis." The very slabs of the Corporation staircase are infected with Impressionism, and their natural veinings body forth, here a charge of cavalry, there a march of infantry, and yonder a portrait ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... clothing. I have seen ladies playing in hats that rather suggested the comparative repose of a croquet lawn on a hot summer's day. But of course you only want good sense as your guide in this matter. Ease without eccentricity should be your aim. Remember, too, that whilst men like to play golf in old clothes, and often have a kind of superstitious regard for some disgracefully old and dirty ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... PLAY GAMES.—A complete and useful little book, containing the rules and regulations of billiards, bagatelle, backgammon, croquet, ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... minister's sermon, "had enjoyed a large and rich matrimonial experience," and went straight to the point, being married the very day of his successful wooing. Some one in a story of Mr. Wilkie Collins's asks the fatal question at a croquet party. At lawn-tennis, as Nimrod said long ago, "the pace is too good to inquire" into matters of the affections. In Sir Walter's golden prime, or rather in the Forty-five as Sir Walter understood it, ladies ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... her warm couch. This was too much. From that point Hosley received the worst denunciations; his ferocity made the wife murderers of criminal history and the cruel Roman emperors seem like mud-pie and croquet efforts in this line of infamy. The entreaty was ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... measure England could take to benefit Ireland would be to drain the large bogs and so improve fuel. In some places the bogs are likely to be exhausted, but in others there is plenty of turf (turf, O Saxon, is not the grass on which you play cricket or croquet, but is the Hibernian for peat). Indeed, there is ample for all the needs of Ireland for a hundred years to come, but it should not be used in the shamefully wasteful way so often noticeable. It is no excuse that the heat it contains is not so great ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... boat; and then we all went back to the house and had breakfast. After breakfast we had a merry time at croquet, and then a still merrier ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... keep regular hours and habits, and love my work. I have always loved to sing, as far back as I can remember. Music means everything to me—it is my life. As a child and young girl, I was the despair of my playmates because I would not join their games; I did not care to skate, play croquet or tennis, or such things. I never wanted to exercise violently, and, to me, unnecessarily, because it interfered with my singing; took energy which I thought might be better applied. As I grew older I did not care to keep late ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... and sixty-five they were free to do as they liked with the vegetable kingdom over which on every other day he reigned as monarch supreme. Marquees now dotted the lawns, and one or two brass bands played rather shrill music. There were tennis-courts and croquet lawns, and fields set aside for archery. Luxurious seats, with awnings over them, were to be found at every turn, and as the grass was of the greenest here, the trees of the shadiest, and the view ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... she continued, going in imagination to the sofa-side of the dear friend who was to her like a second conscience. She shut her eyes and invented a long talk,—her questions, Cousin Helen's replies. But, as everybody knows, it is impossible to play croquet by yourself and be strictly impartial to all the four balls. Katy found that she was making Cousin Helen play (that is, answer) as she herself wished, and not, as something whispered, she would answer were she ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... had been made for a barn-like structure called a hotel, with rooms rough and not always ready. The beautiful recreation grounds mentioned in the advertising matter consisted of a plowed field worked over into a space designated as a tennis court and a grass-grown croquet ground. ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... you, I've got enough. Yes," she went on, "the engagement was known far and wide in less than two hours. There was a croquet party at the house yesterday, and BELINDA ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... shone, and the friendly winds blew out of a cloudless heaven; by night the moon ruled a firmament powdered with stars of multitudinous splendor. The conditions inspired Dunham with a restless fertility of invention in Lydia's behalf. He had heard of the game of shuffle-board, that blind and dumb croquet, with which the jaded passengers on the steamers appease their terrible leisure, and with the help of the ship's carpenter he organized this pastime, and played it with her hour after hour, while Staniford looked on and smoked in grave ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... entering. In the first three rooms are the tables for roulette, which is played with one zero, and at which the smallest sum admitted is 5frs., and the largest 6000 frs. or 240. The fourth room, ornamented with panel paintings by Clairin and Boulanger, representing young lady riders, croquet-players, fencers, fishers, archers, mountaineers, shooters, and sailors, is devoted to trente-et-quarante, at which the smallest sum admitted is 20 frs., and the largest 12,000 frs. or 480. Only French coin and notes ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... stationary till some one approaches, and then pursues them with monstrous springs. The person it touches invariably dies within a year. I well recollect when I was in my teens, on just such a night as this, driving home with my father from Lady Colin Ferner's croquet party at Blair Atholl. When we got to the spot you name, the horse shied, and before I could realise what had happened, we were racing home at a terrific pace. My father and I sat in front, and the groom, a ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... caring much about books, is still gentleman enough to value good breeding, felt a relief in exchanging the forms of his native language without the shock of hearing that a bishop was "a swell" or a croquet-party "awfully jolly." ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... barely endurable by the help of croquet! I trust so! He was very patient and tolerant—made holidays for me that first summer which ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... August. The summer had broken; there had been rain, and, though fine, the temperature was fitter for active sports than anything else. Croquet was not yet invented, and, besides, most of the party were of the age for regular games at play. Ellen and Emily did their part in starting these—finding, however, that the Reynolds boys were rather rough, in spite of the objurgations of their sister, who evidently thought herself ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... difficult to understand what young people did with themselves in the country when lawn-tennis and croquet were not. There was archery for the few, and a good deal more amateur gardening and walking, with field-sports, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... of doors till luncheon, and played croquet against myself, wishing that Stan would run down; for although Stan rather fancies himself as a Gorgeous Person since poor father's death gave him the title, he is quite nice to me, when it occurs to him. I'm always glad when he comes to the Towers, but he hardly ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... absorbed in a folio containing the works of the sainted Father Parsons, and then the Earl showed Logan and Father Riccoboni over the house. From a window of the gallery Scremerston could be descried playing croquet with Miss Willoughby, an ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... upon Miss Prescott as a coadjutor in the alphabet of good works needed in the neglected district of Arnscombe, where Mr. Earl was wifeless, and the farm ladies heedless; but they were interrupted by Mysie running up to claim Miss Prescott for a game at croquet. "Uncle Redgie was so glad to see the hoops come into fashion again," and Vera and Paula hardly knew the game, they had always played at lawn tennis; but they were delighted to learn, for Uncle Redgie proved to be a very ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... wants of the patients, whose tastes and needs are carefully considered. Amusements of various kinds, including billiards, etc., are provided within the building, which afford pleasure and profit to the patients. Out-door pastimes, such as games of ball and croquet, and other invigorating sports, are encouraged and practised. The asylum grounds embrace over four hundred acres, part of which are in a state of cultivation. The remainder diversified in character, and partly ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... Hebrides. Of the population, a large proportion are of Scottish extraction. The climate is not unlike that of Scotland. The winters are misty and rainy, but not excessively cold. So violent are the winds that it is said to be impossible to play tennis or croquet, unless walls are erected as shelter, while cabbages grown in the kitchen-gardens of the shepherds, the only cultivated ground, are at times uprooted and scattered like straw. The surface, much of which is bogland, is in some parts mountainous, and is generally wild and rugged. Small ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... in, leaving the door open, and sat down at the writing-table. The room was a friendly heterogeneous place, the one repository, in the well-ordered and amply-servanted house, of all its unclassified odds and ends: Effie's croquet-box and fishing rods, Owen's guns and golf-sticks and racquets, his step-mother's flower-baskets and gardening implements, even Madame de Chantelle's embroidery frame, and the back numbers of the Catholic Weekly. The early twilight had begun to fall, and presently a slanting ray across the desk showed ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... the "club house" was a rude, grass-roofed shed made of pine slabs. Its doors and windows were mere openings which could not be closed. It was erected in about a week. Three holes of a golf course and a croquet ground had been prepared. These decidedly primitive club facilities nevertheless served to bring the people of Baguio together and give them an opportunity for a good time out ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... for their physical development and amusement? Hot, gas-lighted theatric and operatic performances, beginning at eight, and ending at midnight; hot, crowded parties and balls; dancing with dresses tightly laced over the laboring lungs,—these are almost the whole story. I bless the advent of croquet and skating. And yet the latter exercise, pursued as it generally is, is a most terrible exposure. There is no kindly parental provision for the poor, thoughtless, delicate young creature,—not even the shelter of a dressing-room with a fire, at which she may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... of life in her steady eyes actually lighted a spark in the being of Joe Buttle. Young ladies in villages—gentry—usually visited the cottagers a bit if they were well-meaning young women—left good books and broth or jelly, pottered about and were seen at church, and playing croquet, and finally married and removed to other places, or gradually faded year by year into respectable spinsterhood. And this one comes in, and in two or three minutes shows that she knows things about ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had imagined that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and luxuriant side whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. I played ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... beach, and when we have people in the house at this time of the year we always have the motor-car ready to take them down and back. That is for those who bathe early. Later on it is only a pleasant walk. Then you can learn games if you like,—golf and tennis, cricket and croquet." ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... experienced woman told him in confidence that it is difficult for her sex not to cheat at cards. Croupiers in gambling halls know things much worse. They say that they must watch women much more than men because they are not only more frequent cheaters, but more expert. Even at croquet and lawn-tennis girls are unspeakably smart about cheating if they can thereby put their masculine ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... kitchen-garden and the flower-garden, and the paddocks and the shrubberies and the lawns, and they had wandered down towards the river. There seemed to be nothing special to do. The tennis-lawn was not properly mowed for tennis, and anyhow the net was not out, and there seemed to be no croquet-ground anywhere. In consequence, there was nothing whatever to do but to pace up and down under the shadow of the trees a little way from ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... cried the Curate, or (as some say) something much more manly, and ran, whirling his croquet mallet and shouting, to head off ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... go among the gayly painted yachts of a summer regatta to find war vessels as to go among the light spray of the summer watering-place to find character that can stand the test of the great struggle of human life. Ah, in the battle of life you want a stronger weapon than a lace fan or a croquet mallet! The load of life is so heavy that in order to draw it, you want a team stronger than one made up of a masculine grasshopper and a ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... lately. A morning party is seldom given out of the season—that is to say, during any months except those of May, June, and July. It begins about two o'clock and ends about five, and the entertainment consists for the most part of conversation, music, and (if there be a garden) croquet, lawn billiards, archery, &c. "Aunt Sally" is now out of fashion. The refreshments are given in the form of a ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... cast-off shoes. I found nothing in the shape of ammunition except two or three dozen spherical iron cannon-balls, which lay scattered over the rocky floor of the esplanade, as if the soldiers of the garrison had been accustomed to play croquet with them there, just to pass away the time in the intervals between ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... Nieman, who lives three houses down the street, will come up and ask if she may bring her cousin (just on from the West) to play a set until someone wants the court. Lillian's cousin has never played tennis before but she has done a lot of croquet and thinks she ought to pick tennis up rather easily. For three hours there is a great deal of screaming, with Lillian and her cousin hitting the ball an aggregate of eleven times, while Daddy ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... the lads and lasses betook themselves down the green, shady alleys to the woods in search of blackberries, or to gather bunches of clustering hazel-nuts. The intimate friends of the lady of Vellenaux amused themselves with archery and croquet on the lawn, and strolled about the grounds watching the tenantry and others in their pursuit of pleasure. All the servants and retainers, for none had been discharged, hailed with delight the return of their young mistress and ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... horses' feet got balled with the stiff red clay exactly as though it had been snow, and from time to time as they galloped along, six fresh ones at every stage, I received a good lump of clay, as big and nearly as solid as a croquet-ball, full in my face. It was bitterly cold, and the night was closing in when we drove up to the door of the best hotel in Maritzburg, at long past eight instead of six o'clock. It was impossible to get out to our own place that night, so there ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... would have been made subservient to that. I should have kept my grip on the men through their vacation, and somehow or other I would have contrived a young woman to match them. I think I could have seen to it effectually enough that they didn't get at croquet and tennis with the vicarage daughters and discover sex in the Peeping Tom fashion I did, and that they realised quite early in life that it isn't really virile to reek of tobacco. I should have had military manoeuvres, training ships, aeroplane work, mountaineering ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... welcome hearty, A merry country party, A drive, and then croquet, A quiet, well-cooked dinner, Three times at billiards winner,— The evening sped away; When Brown, the dear old joker, Cried, "Come, my worthy broker, The hour is growing late; Your room is cool and quiet, As for the bed, just try it, Breakfast at ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... book-cases; but they were full of old discarded things, and even if he emptied the drawers, the photographs, in their heavy frames, were almost all too large to fit into them. He turned next to the top shelf of his cupboard; but here the nurse had stored Paul's old toys, his sand-pails, shovels and croquet-box. Every corner was packed with the vain impedimenta of living, and the mere thought of clearing a space in the chaos was too ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... little curiosity left. Therefore I shall not narrate in detail what happened on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, seeing that it was just what might have been expected to happen at a week-end party during the season when there is nothing in the world to do but to play golf, tennis, or croquet, or to ride or drive all day, and to work hard at bridge all the evening; for that is what it ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... and mild, and Mary, who had been lunching at the Abbey, was playing croquet with Morris upon the side lawn. This game was the only one for which she chanced to care, perhaps because it did not involve much exertion. Morris, who engaged in the pastime with the same earnestness that he gave to every other pursuit in which he happened ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... in one of these houses, the shutters are tied with strips of mournful, black alpaca for a year and a day. Engineers, dockmen, express-drivers and mechanics largely make up the citizens of Camden. Of course, Camden has its smug corner where prosperous merchants most do congregate: where they play croquet in the front yards, and have window-boxes, and a piano and veranda-chairs and terra-cotta statuary; but for the most part the houses of Camden ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Templestowe, who had developed a turn for household art, and seemed to enjoy lying for hours on his back on a staging, clad in pajamas and indenting the plaster with rosettes and sunken half-rounds, using a croquet ball and a butter stamp alternately, the whole being subsequently finished by a coat of dull gold paint. He and Clover had themselves hung the walls with its pale orange-brown paper; a herder with a turn for carpentry had laid the new floor of narrow redwood boards. ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... down again to the lawn (a movement which leaves the villa behind us on our right) we find evidence of literary interests on the part of the tenants in the fact that there is no tennis net nor set of croquet hoops, but, on our left, a little iron garden table with books on it, mostly yellow-backed, and a chair beside it. A chair on the right has also a couple of open books upon it. There are no newspapers, a circumstance which, with the absence of games, might lead an intelligent spectator to the most ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... Dwight Herbert, "that reconciles me to rain is that I'm let off croquet." He rolled his r's, a favourite device of his to induce humour. He called it "croquette." He had never been more irrepressible. The advent of his brother was partly accountable, the need to show himself a fine family man and host in a prosperous little home—simple ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... comprehend these things; they just were. He was fairly to the point of deciding to go back and look at the Flobert Rifle, in the shop window, when a group of children ran out from the wide office doors to the croquet court at ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... (for my only brother was ten years older than myself), of course I played no games, except croquet. I was brought up in a sporting home, my father being an enthusiastic fox-hunter and a good all-round sportsman. I abhorred shooting, and was badly bored by coursing and fishing. Indeed, I believe I can say with literal ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... very well-read man. He disliked anything that was "not quite nice," and detested a strong light, whether it were thrown upon life or landscape; in bright sunshine he always carried a white umbrella lined with green. The game he played best was croquet, and here he was really first class; but he was also skilled in every known form of Patience, and played each evening unless he happened ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... colder weather as it requires no special strength and adds to the vigor of the heart, lungs and other vital organs; besides this, the brisk, cold air of the winter months is a tonic of great value. Snowshoeing, yachting, rope-skipping, canoeing, archery, croquet, coasting and various similar pastimes are all ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... sew, and instructed them in morals and religion. When I went to Banting some years afterwards, I found a set of modest young women who were much pleased with gifts of needles, thread, and thimbles; they also enjoyed a game of croquet after the lessons were done, and it was wonderful to see what smart taps of the mallet were fearlessly given under their bare feet; for of course the Dyaks ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... ever yet invented which held the female mind in thrall save by indirect means. Where would croquet have been, so far as the Ladies were concerned, without its Curates, or lawn-tennis without its 'Greek gods' ... If men played for nothing, they would find it dull ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... upon the iron plates of a new 20,000 barrel tank. Along the caon are scattered the houses of the employes of the company, most of whom have recently come from Pennsylvania. Near one of the houses was a graded and leveled croquet ground, with a little oil tank on a post, for lighting it at night. Farther up we came to a cluster of producing wells, with others at a little distance on the sides of the mountains, or even at the top, hundreds ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... away back under the heavy roof of earth and roots, a snug round structure of green moss, little bigger than a croquet ball. The hole occupied by the roots when the tree stood erect was now filled with water, and before it waved a small forest of ferns. It was an ideal situation for a nest; pleasant to look at, and safe—if anything could be safe—from the small fur-clad gentry who claimed ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... called formally to welcome him to a share of their annual profits, and collectively gave him a dinner; the "best families" invited him to tea or luncheon, croquet or "German," and thus, having accomplished his professional and social debut, Ulpian Grey, M.D., henceforth claimed and exercised the privilege of selecting his associates, and employing ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... larger number renders the game tedious. The best number is four. If two only piay, each player may take two balls, and when as many as eight play, there should be two sides or sets. Each player takes a mallet, ball, and croquet clip of the same colour or number, the clip being used to indicate the hoop at which, in his turn, he aims. The division into sides, choice of balls, mallets, &c., is determined by the ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... debaters took their places on either side of the library table, while Patty, being judge, was escorted with much ceremony to a seat at the head. An old parlour-croquet mallet was found for her, with which she rapped on the table after the manner of a grave ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... a stout man in a rocking chair, reading the newspaper. At the side of the house two little girls with pig-tails were playing croquet. Some one in the parlour was executing "After the Ball is Over" ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... gardens and pleasure grounds were the pride of Nelly Northover's heart. Three quarters of an acre extended here behind the inn, and she had erected swings for the children and laid a croquet lawn for those who enjoyed that pastime. Lawn tennis she would not permit, out of respect for her herbaceous border which surrounded the place of entertainment. At one corner was a large summer-house in which her famous teas were generally taken. The charge was one shilling, ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... veritable furnace in midsummer; and the stock of the emigrants, worn out by the long journey from the States, would succumb by the score in crossing. Though much of the trail is totally unfit for cycling, there are occasional alkali flats that are smooth and hard enough to play croquet on; and this afternoon, while riding with careless ease across one of these places, I am struck with the novelty of the situation. I am in the midst of the dreariest, deadest-looking country imaginable. Whirlwinds of sand, looking at a distance like huge columns of smoke, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... serious poets do, with every intention of organising a good rhyme for bid—or perhaps for shed—but he found this was more difficult than he expected. And then, no doubt, somebody drove all his cattle on to his croquet-lawn, or somebody else's croquet-lawn, and he abandoned the struggle. I shouldn't complain of that; what I do complain of is the deceitfulness of the whole thing. If a man can't find a better rhyme than shed for a simple word ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... croquet, if your ball was about to be sent flying, the safeguard was to draw an imaginary X with your mallet, saying, "Criss cross." It made your enemy's foot slip, and many a girl would get "mad" and not play, if you ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... met and resolved like the person whose case is recorded in fable That now that the steed had been stolen (or at least suffered from exposure to the air) it was high time to close the door of the stable; And that never again no more should their cricket-fields, football grounds, croquet lawns, bunkers, Be profaned by the feet of Cossacks, Chasseurs, Bashi-Bazouks, or Junkers; And I don't think they talked very big about Nations in Arms, or inscribed on their banners any particularly inspiring motto, But they learnt to shoot and to drill, not more or less but quite well—in ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... to her under the quaint trellised arch, "I always feel like a croquet ball going through the hoop," ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... played most games badly, and was shrewd enough to recognise the fact, but he had developed a marvellously accurate judgement in estimating the play and chances of other people, whether in a golf match, billiard handicap, or croquet tournament. By dint of parading his opinion of such and such a player's superiority with a sufficient degree of youthful assertiveness he usually succeeded in provoking a wager at liberal odds, and he looked to his week- end winnings to carry ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... the aisle exclaiming; 'Your Honour, I protest against this grossly irregular proceeding!' The judge pounds on his desk with his little croquet mallet and Myron Bughalter tells Snyder, out of the corner of his mouth, to shut up. But he won't shut up for some minutes. This is the first case he'd had and he's probably looked forward to a grand speech to the jury that would make 'em all blubber and acquit Pete without leaving ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... croquet It's really refreshing to see. She wins in the cheerfullest way, Or loses (but rarely!) with glee. She chooses the ball that is blue, And dashes straight into the fray. I want to be present—don't you?— When Charlotte ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... mantelpiece, he would build a fountain for the garden. He could make bookshelves out of kitchen tables, and crossbows out of crinolines. He could dam you a stream so that all the water would flow over the croquet lawn. He knew how to make red paint and oxygen gas, together with many other suchlike commodities handy to have about a house. Among other things he learned how to make fireworks, and after a few explosions of an unimportant character, came to make them very well indeed. The boy who can ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... folks enjoyed themselves thoroughly, not only in tramping and riding around and in fishing, but also in other sports around the ranch home. With so much level ground available, a tennis court had been laid out, and also a croquet ground, and the boys and girls enjoyed these games immensely. The lads also pitched quoits, a sport which at times had been ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... and Lady Sophia's first, began and ended. Lady Sophia was piquant and witty, with a snub nose and a playful disposition. She was a first-rate horsewoman, an exquisite waltzer, good at croquet, archery, billiards, and all games requiring accuracy of eye and aim, and Lady Sophia brought down her bird in a single season. She went home to Heron's Nest a duchess in embryo. The Duke of Dovedale, a bulky, middle-aged nobleman, with a passion for fieldsports and high ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... profusion of English greenhouse flowers in Minton's loveliest vases added to the illusion. The Avon winds through the grounds, which are very pretty, and are laid out in the English fashion; but in spite of the lawn with its croquet-hoops and sticks, and the beds of flowers in all their late summer beauty, there is a certain absence of the stiffness and trimness of English pleasure-grounds, which shows that you have escaped from the region of conventionalities. There are thick clumps of plantations, ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... told me that he had sent up to Paris for a game of croquet, having heard from Prince Metternich that we all loved so much to play it, adding that he would like to see the game himself. "We are going to have a mock battle this afternoon," said he. "All these generals and officers who are here have ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... grape-arbor with her horns and ate four young peach trees and a dwarf pear tree down to the roots. The next day they gave her as much hay as she would eat, and it seemed likely that her appetite was appeased. But an hour or two afterward she swallowed six croquet-balls that were lying upon the grass, and ate half a table-cloth and a pair of drawers from the clothes-line. That evening her milk seemed thin, and the judge attributed it to ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... the off side. That's right. Now let it down slowly. Not so hard on the nigh side there. Ease off there, Bill. Push, Patsy. What do you think this is—a game of croquet? There you go. Right. Now let's see if you woodenheads know enough to keep ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... I had one of those salutary turns that have marked epochs in my life, and as a result I left that house and resolutely abstained from drink.... I was now in a small up-country town. I commenced to play croquet and to ride out. Sometimes I was invited to dinner by a young man at the bank, whose house was kept by his sister. She had a small figure, a pretty but rather narrow face, and well-bred manners; but there was a look in her asymmetrical eyes, in the shape of her thin hands, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a most startling manner, rattling strings of beads and bits of tinsel, mounting over all some pert little hat with a red or green feather standing saucily upright in front, she may look exceedingly pretty and piquante; and, if she came there for a game of croquet or a tableau-party, would be all in very good taste; but as she comes to confess that she is a miserable sinner, that she has done the things she ought not to have done and left undone the things she ought to have done,—as she takes upon her lips ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... apartment-house, but she had never heard of chaperonage, or those other indelicacies that go along with the high civilization of a metropolis. I have no doubt she was the best scholar in the arithmetic class in the village high school, and ten to one she was the champion at croquet. She took life with a zest unknown to us New Yorkers, and let the starchiest people in the house know that she was glad to see them when they returned after an absence by going across the dining-room to shake hands with them and to ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... Play Indoor Games Chess Bridge Billiards and Croquet Outdoor Games Lawn Tennis Golf Some Important Rules about Golf Football Automobile Etiquette Automobile Parties Riding Bathing Sports ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... Road, an' he'd be deliverin' ye a lecture on th' sin iv thinkin' ye're able to overcome th' pride iv th' flesh, as Father Kelly says. Two weeks ago I looked with contimpt on Hinnissy f'r an' because he'd not even promise to fast an' obstain fr'm croquet durin' Lent. To-night you see me mixin' me toddy without th' shadow iv remorse about me. I'm proud iv it. An' why not? I was histin' in me first wan whin th' soggarth come down fr'm a sick call, an' looked in at ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... the Celestial Observer, proceeds to describe our billiard matches, our tennis tournaments, our croquet parties. Maybe it never occurs to him that a large section of our race surrounded by Eternity, would devote its entire span of life to sheer killing of time. A middle-aged friend of mine, a cultured gentleman, a M.A. of Cambridge, assured me the other day that, ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... Balli-callie Bandy Baseball Basket Ball Bean Bag Best College Athletic Records Blind Man's Buff Boulder On Bull in the Ring Call Ball Cane Rush Canoe Tilting Cat, or Cattie Counting-out Rhymes Court Tennis Cricket Croquet Curling Dixie's Land Duck on the Rock Equestrian Polo Fat Feather Race Foot-and-a-half Football Garden Hockey Golf Golf-Croquet Hab-Enihan Haley Over Hand Ball Hand Polo Hand Tennis Hat Ball Hide and Seek High Kick Hockey Hop Over Hop Scotch Hunkety Hunt the Sheep Intercollegiate ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... think we shall have to settle it for them. Things weren't like this when we were young. Why, Jamie, your mother and I got married six weeks after I was introduced to her at a croquet party." ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... was darker even than it had been before, and Bagley kept very close to me as we went along. I had a small lantern in my hand, which gave us a partial guidance. We had come to the corner where the path turns. On one side was the bowling-green, which the girls had taken possession of for their croquet-ground,—a wonderful enclosure surrounded by high hedges of holly, three hundred years old and more; on the other, the ruins. Both were black as night; but before we got so far, there was a little opening in which we could just discern the ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... who dances, however properly and modestly? Is she ready to expel or suspend every minister who shall roll a ten-pin ball, or while away an hour with chess or backgammon? Is she ready to lay violent hands upon every member who fingers a card or handles a cue, or strikes a croquet ball? If so, I tremble for the results of the experiment. She will pause before she undertakes this course. Or will she openly confess to undue stringency in the past, and write a new motto upon her banners—"More abundant life?" Here what seems a formidable ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... to eat some more of the mushroom from her right hand and bring herself down to nine inches. Outside the house she saw the Fish-footmen and the Frog-footmen with invitations from the Queen to the Duchess, asking her to play croquet. The Duchess lived in the house, and a terrible noise was going on inside, and when the door was opened a plate came crashing out. But Alice got in at last, and found a strange state of things. The Duchess and her cook ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... story of Pyramus and Thisbe set forth in brilliant colours, but in what wondrous manner no one quite knew. For it was true that Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had walked with kings, danced with dukes, and played croquet with counts, and it was therefore inevitable that she should be regarded as the Empress of Woodbridge. She would have been considered so quite apart from the fact that she had great possessions—in addition to the Court fan and the dog collar—possessions ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... great thing here once more is that they are taking their little play and their little stage with a heavenly seriousness, all of them. You expect somebody to produce a set of flamingos at any moment and start a game of croquet ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... visitor who insisted on being taken over the small domain was trying to the temper of its proprietor, uneasily conscious already that the lawn was only half big enough for the croquet-hoops ostentatiously set forth thereon; that the furniture in the dining-room was much too big for it, and that in the drawing-room absolutely unsuited to its purpose. He wished to forget these defects, which the other thought it his ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... were asked in to tea-drinkings, and to croquet, now and then, especially at the Haddens', whom they knew best; but they were not on "in and out" terms, from morning to night, as these others were among themselves; for one thing, the little daily duties of their life would not ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... to make chocolate, hanging it upon a croquet hoop which she had found in the garden—Philippe's hoop. But Philippe was so powerless, he couldn't even stop his croquet hoop from being heated red-hot in the flames as a kettle-holder ... One must be sensible. He would ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... would probably dodge the subject, replying—for instance—"How funny! Why, it must have taken twelve yards to make a skirt like that!" For these were the days of crinolines; of hair in cabbage-nets, packed round rubber-inflations; of what may be called proto-croquet, with hoops so large that no one ever failed to get through, except you and me; the days when Ah che la morte was the last new tune, and Landseer and Mulready the last words in Art. They were the days when there had been but one Great Exhibition—think of it!—and the British Fleet could still ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... inquired. "You know that Lucy has chased everyone out of the house. And now that Rod has finished setting out the lawn sports, what is there left to do? By the way, did Sam mend that croquet mallet, the one ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... you've been having such a good time you did not notice that you were getting near the edge. That's how I felt; but after a week I wanted to be working at something. I thought maybe the Lord had left my hands quite free so I could help some one else.... You have played croquet, haven't you? You know how the first person who gets out has the privilege of coming back a 'rover,' and giving a hand to any one. That's what I felt; I was a 'rover,' and you'd be surprised at all I have ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... from the sheet of note-paper which he held in his hand, and gazed through the open French-windows before which he was standing. It was a very pleasant and very peaceful prospect. There was his croquet lawn, smooth-shaven, the hoops neatly arranged, the chalk-mark firm and distinct upon the boundary. Beyond, the tennis court, the flower gardens, and, to the left, the walled fruit garden. A little farther away was the paddock and orchard, ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... worth from $60 to $200. Then there are travelling-dresses in black silk, in pongee, velour, in pique, which range in price from $75 to $175. Then there are evening robes in Swiss muslin, robes in linen for the garden and croquet-playing, dresses for horse-races and for yacht-races, robes de nuit and robes de chambre, dresses for breakfast and for dinner, dresses for receptions and for parties, dresses for watering-places, and dresses for all possible occasions. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... then we may suppose that he is not happy. His length and accuracy are mechanical; they are not the result, as so often in our case, of some suddenly applied maxim or some suddenly discovered innovation. The only thing which can vary in his game is his putting, and putting is not golf but croquet. ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... informal dances at the different cottages along the beach, and on moonlight sailing parties on Mr. Payne's beautiful yacht, and then, during the entire summer, from the time we first got there, I have been captain of one side of a croquet team, Mr. Payne having been captain of the other. The croquet part was, of course, the result of Major Borden's patient and exacting teaching at ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... to a cave some miles away Was next in order. So, one sunny day, Four prancing steeds conveyed a laughing load Of merry pleasure-seekers o'er the road. A basket picnic, music and croquet Were in the programme. Skies were blue and clear, And cool winds whispered of the Autumn near. The merry-makers filled the time with pleasure: Some floated to the music's rhythmic measure, Some played, some promenaded on ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... machinery, cartridges, chimney-caps, stamps, tools, lathes, files, wire-cloth, scales, steel wire, paper boxes, music stands, mouldings, carriages, sleighs, shuttles, doors, sashes, blinds, furniture, asbestos covering, blotters, crayons, drain-pipe, glue, lamp-black, machine brushes, matches, croquet sets. ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... girl, whose voice was as sweet as her face was pretty. 'We wanted her to come for croquet. Yet I was half afraid to come and ask her whilst Mr. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... you take it so hard? It's all in the game—and you've lost. You're a poor sort of sport, Crenshaw. You'd be better at ping-pong or croquet. This matter of—letters, and cabs, is far beyond your calibre; it's not ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... Tom exclaimed: "Oh, I'm tired trudging after the thing. Come on, Frank, let's go back home, and I'll beat you a game of croquet." ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... not going to let the winter beat them. In consequence, the shop windows are again dressed in their best, the kiosks announce comedies, revues, operas; in the gardens of the Luxembourg the beds are brilliant with autumn flowers, and the old gentlemen have resumed their games of croquet, the Champs-Elysees swarms with baby-carriages, and at the aperitif hour on the sidewalks there are no empty chairs. At many of the restaurants it is impossible to ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... Wellington, Wolseley, and the rest of them; and yet the chances are, if you meet him twenty years hence, he will be a captain on the recruiting service, with no forces to marshal but six growing children. Then there is the sentimental sub, the perfect ladies' man, who plays croquet and the flute, pleads guilty to having cultivated the Nine, and affects a simpering pooh-pooh when he is impeached with having inspired that wicked but so witty bit of scandal in the local paper. By singularity of pairing, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... until Leech drew a picture of two ladies walking out, with footmen carrying their headgear behind them; the "spoon-shaped bonnet" of 1860—"the latest Parisian folly," which the street-boys mistake for "a dustman's 'at;" the archery of 1862, the pork-pie hat, the croquet, the tennis, the golf—every sport, every habit and custom, every change of dress, down to the minutest detail—all is recorded with faithfulness and humour, first by Leech's pencil, and then, in chief measure, by Mr. ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... the unreality of the imprinted image. How sorely I tormented the artless maiden at the time with my naive and inexorably insistent questioning! And how glad she was when at last I abandoned the Christ question and began to talk of tennis and croquet! ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... have lost the languor they once cultivated, and walk the street with stout step, and swing the croquet mallet with a force that sends the ball through two arches, cracking the opposing ball with great emphasis. Our daughters are not ashamed to culture flower beds, and while they plant the rose in the ground a corresponding rose blooms in their ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... on the piazza doing nothing. Herbert had proposed croquet, but George pronounced it too warm. He also declined ball for a ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... off this minute!" She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. "But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... must teach you! Fancy living without lawn-tennis!' said Blanche. 'I always wonder what people did without it. Only'—with an effort at antiquarianism—'I believe they had croquet.' ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are going to be very energetic," said Angela. "We want to play lawn tennis, for one thing. One never gets a chance nowadays, and we both hate croquet." ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... would air his entire wardrobe, appearing before them one day in full Breton costume of white cloth, embroidered in gay silks, buckled shoes, and hat adorned with streaming ribbons and flowers. Quite Arcadian was Gaston in this attire; and very effective on the croquet ground, where sundry English families disported themselves on certain afternoons. Another time he would get himself up like a Parisian dandy bound for a ride in the Bois de Boulogne; and, mounting with much difficulty a rampant horse, he would caracole about the Place St. Louis, to ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... go off to his work, and we would disperse, in winter to the different school-rooms, in summer to the croquet-lawn or somewhere about the garden. My mother would settle down in the drawing-room to make some garment for the babies, or to copy out something she had not finished overnight; and till three or four in the afternoon silence would ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... FURNISHED, cosily FURNISHED COUNTRY HOUSE, offering rest, recuperation, recreation, and the acme of comfort; 10 bedrooms, 2 bath, 4 reception; stabling, garage, billiards, tennis, croquet, miniature rifle range, small golf course, fringed pool, gardens, walks, telephone, radiators, gas; near town and rail; rent L3 3s. weekly, including gardener's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... the late Second King, who greatly delighted in equestrian exercises and feats, was Croquet on Horseback,—a sport in which he distinguished himself by his brilliant skill and style, as he did in racing and hunting. This unique equestrian game is played exclusively by princes and noblemen. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... with a chosen few, while her daughter is left to play tennis with that Finnish girl's idea of all manly beauty, "a lieutenant," or knocks a very big ball with a very small mallet through an ancient croquet hoop, that must have come out of the ark—that is to say, if croquet hoops ever went ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... a little more and the stream might have played, like a fire-hose, on the Toll House roof. In front the ground drops as sharply as it rises behind. There is just room for the road and a sort of promontory of croquet ground, and then you can lean over the edge and look deep below you through the wood. I said croquet GROUND, not GREEN; for the surface was of brown, beaten earth. The toll-bar itself was the only other note of originality: ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... certain intervals, or divided into portions which are cut yearly in succession. At four or five years old the ash makes good walking-sticks, crates to pack glass and china in, hoops, basket handles, fences, and hurdles. Croquet-mallets are also made of ash. At twelve or fourteen it is strong enough for hop-poles. There are many old superstitions in connection with the ash, and there is a midland counties saying that if there are no keys on the ash, within a ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... half; sit in the grounds and hear the music of the band; ride to the lake; see who comes by the evening train; dress for tea; get tea; dress for the hop; attend the hop; chat awhile in the parlors, and listen to a song from some guest; go to bed. Varied by croquet, ladies' bowling alley, Indian camp, the mineral springs, grand balls twice a week, concerts, etc., ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... whom General Bailey had given us letters which secured us a cordial reception. The European settlement at Canton is very pretty, with its broad, well-shaded avenues, exquisite flower-garden, and lawn-tennis and croquet grounds. Its club-house is a gem, comprising a small theatre, billiard-room and bowling- alley—everything complete. The colonel took us for a stroll about the settlement, and pressed us to join a party he was just about taking ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... great excitement about Turtle Lodge. Lizzie kept flying out with rugs, and then forgetting they hadn't been brushed and flying in again. The cat was playing croquet with the balls and spools of an open work-basket, and Max had discovered an old straw hat which tasted very good to him. Only Mrs. Reece kept her head and stayed indoors, moving about quietly from room to room, ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... balls were gone from the dust covered billiard table, but the six American soldiers billeted in the cellar beneath had overcome this discrepancy. They enjoyed after dinner billiards just the same with three large wooden balls from a croquet court in the garden. A croquet ball is a romping substitute when it hits the ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... place to play. There were trees for hide-and-seek, flat spots for croquet, and little hills and hollows for everything else. The village children used this for a sort of park, and the river seemed to look on and laugh to see them so gay. It was a very sober, steady river above and below, but right here it went leaping and tumbling over some rocks, making ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... the maid came out with cookies and lady-fingers and make-believe tea, and another napkin to take the place of the one Edith had put over the dolls, and they had tea. Then the two little girls and Edith's nurse had a nice game of croquet, and they had a lovely tea-party after all, and Edith forgot all about waiting so long for ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... I recorded the passage of the fifth or sixth bridge. "It's like a game of croquet. Go ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... pamphlet of some thirty pages, giving the complete rules of this year, for Lawn Tennis, Base Ball, Croquet, Racquet, Cricket, Quoits, La Crosse, Polo, Curling, Foot Ball, etc., etc. There are also diagrams of a Lawn Tennis Court and Base Ball diamond. This pamphlet will be found especially valuable ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... said, going up to her. 'We are waiting for you to complete our eight hand croquet, and I claim ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... a country house, 'Breakfast at eight o'clock sharp, you won't mind it being a little cold if you're late, and then we are going for a motor drive at 9.30.' Still, I think, perhaps, one ought to take a little exercise. I feel almost equal to a game of croquet this afternoon—later on—when I'm stronger. Is ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... rabbits were out feeding, and she amused herself by throwing stones at them with her left hand. She had the use of both hands, and would not have noticed if her knife had been put where her fork should have been at table; but she threw stones, bowled, batted, played croquet, and also tennis in after years, with her left hand by preference, and she always held out her left hand to ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... other hand, Dr. Scroggie Park, of Kilspindie, strongly advocates the abolition of the hole altogether and the substitution of a bell, as in the old form of croquet. But, as he wisely adds, variety, not cast-iron uniformity should be our aim. The principle of self-determination should in his opinion be conceded to all properly constituted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... who declines upon croquet, Or halma, or spillikins (horrible sport!), Or any amusement that's female and pokey, And flatly objects to behave as he ought! I know him of old. He is lazy and fat, Instead of this Thing, fit for punishment drastic, Give, Fortune, a son who is nimble and ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... There's the manager of the line—called Vinrace—a nice big Englishman, doesn't say much—you know the sort. As for the rest—they might have come trailing out of an old number of Punch. They're like people playing croquet in the 'sixties. How long they've all been shut up in this ship I don't know—years and years I should say—but one feels as though one had boarded a little separate world, and they'd never been on shore, or done ordinary things in their lives. It's what I've always said about literary people—they're ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... very good to look at, indeed. Taken in conjunction with the fact that one had no business whatever on hand, it gave one a sense of delightful freedom to look out on the green lawn and the gay gardens, on the brook and the tennis and croquet courts, and on the purple-hazed, wooded hills beyond; it was good to fill one's lungs with country air and to realize for a little while what a delightful world this is; to see young people wandering about out there by twos and by threes, and to meet with so many other people of affairs ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... all our uses of land, we must not forget a little corner for the hammock and the croquet hoops for the wife and the children. In the Province of Quebec, where the land is held in great tracts under the Seigniors, I have seen croquet grounds no bigger than a bed quilt in front of ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... of Babel having been for some time discontinued, and most of our local legislatures having adjourned, the nearest approach to a confusion of tongues is perhaps now to be found in an ordinary game of croquet. Out of eight youths and maidens caught for that performance at a picnic, four have usually learned the rules from four different manuals, and can agree on nothing; while the rest have never learned any rules at all, and cannot even distinctly agree to disagree. With tolerably firm wills and moderately ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... her unopened letter. She was to meet Tommy presently on the croquet lawn of the Dovecot, when Ailie was to play Mr. James (the champion), and she decided that she must wait till then. She would know what sort of letter it was the moment she saw his face. And then! ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... than ever. It is not only cricket and football, of course; only the other day there was a shilling sweepstake on the St. Leger in our office and, from what I hear of the form of Westmorland in the County Croquet Championship during the past season—but I have no time to discuss ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... subaltern had disguised himself, and enlisted in the Pioneers in order to go up with them to the front, took a lively interest in him, and made quite a pet of him. Two other regiments were at the station at the time and, consequently, there was a good deal of gaiety in the way of lawn tennis and croquet parties, small dinners and dances and, after mess, billiards and whist. Lisle soon became an expert in the former games, but he never touched either a billiard cue or a card, though he was an interested spectator ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... phbe-bird, with her sweet April call and mossy nest under the bridge or woodshed, or under the shelving rocks; or the brown thrasher—mocking thrush—calling half furtively, half archly from the treetop back in the bushy pastures: "Croquet, croquet, hit it, hit it, come to me, come to me, tight it, tight it, you're out, you're out," with many musical interludes; or the chewink, rustling the leaves and peering under the bushes at you; or the pretty little oven-bird, walking round and round ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... so kind, and makes one feel perfectly at home. A number of people were assembled upon the croquet lawn and in the great tent playing bridge when we arrived, and as no one seems to introduce any one it has taken me two whole days to find out people's names. Some of them, indeed, I have not grasped yet! It does seem a strange custom. Either it is because every one in this set is supposed ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... Flanagan to dress up in an old gown of the Henniker's, which was found in the boot-room, and enact that favourite character's part, which he did to the life. We also made out our own "reports" for home, and played a most spirited game of croquet in the hall, with potatoes for balls and brooms for mallets, besides treating our prisoners to a ravishing concert by an orchestra of one dinner-bell, two dish-covers, two combs and ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the hammock, keeping their dresses clean and wondering if there would be ice-cream. Within doors Maudie worried out the "Java March" on the piano, to a dozen or more patient little listeners. On the lawn several little girls played croquet. There were no boys at the party. Wilford was going to have the boys—that is, the Conservative boys the next day. Mrs. Ducker did not believe in co-education. Boys are so rough, except Wilford. He had been so carefully brought up, he was not rough ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... said. "I think suburbs are horrible; they are neither one thing nor the other. We had a lawn and shade trees, and a croquet ground, and a tennis court, but we bought our milk and eggs and most of our vegetables. There isn't any real country in all that, you know. I was never in a haymow in my life. All I know about that sort of thing ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... '"Substitute some athletic pursuit involving less danger to the general public: something more conducive to the preserving of law and order,"' he quoted, bitterly, with a clever imitation of the fussy little Doctor's pompous manner. 'Fancy giving up hare-and-hounds for some "pursuit" like croquet, or ping-pong,' and Crowther's ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... crave for freedom, they cannot endure To be cramped up at Tennis in courts that are poky, And they're all of them certainly, perfectly sure That they'll never again touch "that horrible Croquet," Where it's quite on the cards that they play with Papa, And where all that goes ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... am writing of took place in an almost pre-historic era in the history of British India. Some folk may remember the years before lawn-tennis was born when we all played croquet. There were seasons before that, if you will believe me, when even croquet had not been invented, and archery—which was revived in England in 1844—was as great a pest as lawn- tennis is now. People talked learnedly about "holding" ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... out-of-the-world village in the West of England I made the acquaintance of the curate, a boyish young fellow not long from Oxford, who was devoted to sport and a great killer. He was not satisfied with cricket and football in their seasons and golf and lawn tennis—he would even descend to croquet when there was nothing else— and boxing and fencing, and angling in the neighbouring streams, but he had to shoot something every day as well. And it was noticed by the villagers that the shooting fury was always strongest ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson |
