"Poke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw Charliet's head poke around the corner of the kitchen door and called to him to carry Marcia to her room, and to get fires going and something to eat; for the queer part of it was that there seemed to be two of me, and one of them was thinking it was starving. ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... mother-in-law; but, oh, so much nicer! Once I let her come to Grosvenor Square and speak to the servants about going to church. The groom of the chambers said she was 'a dear old lady, and if she were his cousin he wouldn't mind her being a bit touched,' My maid said she had no idea poke-bonnets could be so sweet. It made her understand what the Queen looked like when she was young. And none of them have ever been to church since that I can make out. There was one very curious thing about Cousin Mary Leicester," added the Duchess, slowly—"she had ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to chance for, and by the time he at last, Winch's residence recognised, was duly elevated to his level and had pressed the electric button at his door, he felt himself acting indeed as under stimulus of a sharp poke ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... could not help thinking that many a touching story might be told by those silent but eloquent memorials. We were much amused with looking at a card put in one of the windows of these little comfortable state rooms, on which was written these words: "Anti-poke-your-nose-into-other-folks'-business Society. 5000 Pounds reward annually to any one who will really mind his own business; with the prospect of an increase of 100 Pounds, if he shall abstain from ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... excited neither anger nor resentment among the other boys, who yelled with delight at his discomfiture, but it made them more careful in approaching the cage, and though they continued to poke the prisoners with sticks they did not venture again to thrust a hand through the bars. At sunset the guards again came round, lifted the cage and carried it into a shed. A platter of dirty rice and a jug of water were put into the cage; two of the men lighted their long pipes and ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... Shore, with a case of smallpox in the forecastle. We were all agog over it, bitterly angered, every one of us; and by day we kept watch from the heads to warn her off, and by night we saw to our guns, that we might instantly deal with her, should she so much as poke her prow into the waters of our harbour. Once, being on the Watchman with my father's glass, I fancied I sighted her, far off shore, beating up to Wayfarer's Tickle in the dusk: but could not make sure, for there was a haze abroad, and her cut was not yet well known to us. ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... utricle, bladder; pericarp, udder. stomach, paunch, venter, ventricle, crop, craw, maw, gizzard, breadbasket; mouth. pocket, pouch, fob, sheath, scabbard, socket, bag, sac, sack, saccule, wallet, cardcase, scrip, poke, knit, knapsack, haversack, sachel, satchel, reticule, budget, net; ditty bag, ditty box; housewife, hussif; saddlebags; portfolio; quiver &c. (magazine) 636. chest, box, coffer, caddy, case, casket, pyx, pix, caisson, desk, bureau, reliquary; trunk, portmanteau, band-box, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... in the chest. Each was neatly lined with paper, but otherwise empty. As though possessed by a mania for searching, I took out each paper and carefully assured myself that nothing had slipped underneath. Val, roused by my action, began to poke into the drawers of the dressing-table; but his search was just as fruitless. There was nothing to be done but to settle as to the packing of the clothes and ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... clothes torn in shreds, and his face covered with blood, looked like the battered relic of a forty years' war. A red bandanna pinioned his arms to his sides, and a strong man at each elbow spurred his flagging footsteps by an occasional poke with a pine branch. Ally followed at a few paces, looking about as dilapidated as the culprit himself. To him evidently belonged the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... I see these horned beasts of yours?" asked the Sheriff. "I can't buy a pig in a poke, you know. I must see them first. And the land too, and the land too," he added, rubbing his hands, and jumping about ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... captivity," continued Mushymush, "she managed to stain her face with poke-berry juice, and mingling with the Indian maidens was enabled to pass for one of the tribe. Once undetected, she boldly ingratiated herself with the Boy Chief,—how honestly and devotedly he best can tell,—for ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... said, "that you are not here to poke fun at us. Tell me, if you please, what document it is to ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... suspense as the wind, soughing through across the open land behind the house, blew down the chimneys and set the window-frames jarring. At the commencement of one of the passages I was immeasurably startled to see a dark shape poke forward, and then spring hurriedly back, and was so frightened that I dared not advance to see what it was. Moment after moment sped by, and I still stood there, the cold sweat oozing out all over me, and my eyes fixed in hideous expectation ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... victorious Esperantists, at present in possession of the field, poke fun at these new-fangled schemes. A parody in Esperanto verse, entitled Lingvo de Molenaar, and sung to the tune of the American song Riding down from Bangor, narrates the fickleness of Pan-Roman and how it changed into Universal. It is said that a group of Continental Esperantists, at a convivial ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... and canal. 'Carrying coal to Newcastle' proved a successful speculation on September 25, 1765, when, on account of a strike among the pitmen, 'several pokes of coal were brought to this town by one of the common carriers, and sold on the Sandhill for 9d. a poke, by which he cleared 6d. a poke.' About the same time, wheat was selling in Darlington and Richmond for 4s. and 4s. 6d. per bushel, after having been nearly double that price only two or three weeks previously. In the number for June ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... out of earshot of the scolding vireos, but the little cock's vigorous, ringing song followed me to the head of the pond. Flying heavily over from the meadows with folded neck and dangling legs came a little green heron—the "poke." I spun round behind a big clump of elder to watch him; but he saw me, veered, gulped aloud, and pulled off with a rapid ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... at the rifts in flimsily plastered partitions that the Lord Provost pointed out to Mr. Traill. Rats were in those crumbling walls. If there had been a hole big enough to admit him, the plucky little dog would have gone in after them. Forbidden to enlarge one, Bobby could only poke his indignant muzzle into apertures, and brace himself as for a fray. And, at the very smell of him, there were such squeakings and scamperings in hidden runways as to be almost beyond a terrier's endurance. The Lord Provost watched him ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... musical," she continued: "they are well behaved and considerate enough in the day, but as soon as it is a nice, quiet, calm night, or a bit of a moon is in the sky, they make night hideous to everyone within ear-shot—'Mo-poke! mo-poke!' Oh! it gives ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... well-proved cloak with its capacious hood, but generally uses the instrument as a wand with which to point out joints of meat or bunches of greens in marketing or to arrest the attention of tradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market- basket, which is a sort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she never stirs abroad. Attended by these her trusty companions, therefore, her honest sunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough straw bonnet, Mrs. Bagnet ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the starling said to him, "Not so fast, not so fast, little Tsar Novishny, for thy dogs have gnawed their way through four doors!" As he was returning to the hut his sister said to him, "That water does not boil up quickly enough! Take the fire-shovel and poke the fire!" So he did so, and the faggots blazed up, but when she had gone away he sprinkled them with water again, so that they might burn more slowly. Then he went into the courtyard again, and the ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... live, my dear shark?... Let me see everything. Let me poke around everywhere. Everything of yours interests me. You will not say now that I do not love you. What a boast for Captain Ferragut! The ladies come to ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... seal-skin caps and fustian, who formed her cortege. The Bridge Way began to have a presentiment of something in the wind. Phib Cook left her evening wash-tub and appeared at her door in soap-suds, a bonnet-poke, and general dampness; three narrow-chested ribbon-weavers, in rusty black streaked with shreds of many-coloured silk, sauntered out with their hands in their pockets; and Molly Beale, a brawny old virago, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... POKE (Phytolacca Decandra), also called Skoke, Garget, or Pigeon-berry, is a valuable alterative. The root is the part used. Dose—Of decoction, one to three teaspoonfuls; of fluid extract, three to ten drops; of concentrated principle, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... what she ought to be all right, 'stead of a cook, though she does know how to cook wonderful things. But I'm glad she has got 'most enough money saved up to take her through Normal College. She can poke more real education into a fellow's head in a minute than Miss Phelps can ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... immodest sympathy for herself froze all sympathy for her. Why could she not preserve a well-bred silence upon her sufferings, as did the other old ladies I had met in Kings Port? Why did she drag them in, thrust them, poke them, shove them at you? Thus it was that for her insulting disregard of those whom her words might wound I detested Juno; and as she was a woman, and nearly old enough to be my grandmother, it was, of course, out of the question ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... Fred next, he told me he had felt the cunt of one of their servants. I told him partly what I had done, but kept to myself how I had failed to poke when I had the opportunity, fearing his jeers; and as I was obliged to name some woman, mentioned one of my godfather's servants. He went there to try his chances of groping her as well, but got his head slapped. We talked much about the smell of cunt, and ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... start off at a gait that you can't improve on, but move along strong and well in hand to the quarter. Let out a notch there, but take it calm enough up to the half not to break, and hard enough not to fall back into the ruck. At the three-quarters you ought to be going fast enough to poke your nose out of the other fellow's dust, and running like the Limited in the stretch. Keep your eyes to the front all the time, and you won't be so apt to shy at the little things by the side of the track. Head up, tail over the dashboard—that's the way the winners look in the ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... one who would enslave thee. Go thy way, O my Brother. And if my words lead thee to Juhannam, why, there will be a great surprise for thee. There thou wilt behold our Maker sitting on a flaming glacier waiting for the like of thee. And he will take thee into his arms and poke thee in the ribs, and together you will laugh and laugh, until that glacier become a garden and thou a flower therein. Go thy way, therefore; be not afraid. And no matter how many tears thou sheddest on this side, thou wilt surely ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... it isn't very cheerful. They must brighten it while we are at dinner; though as we shall go to the drawing-room afterwards we shan't need a huge fire here. There! It looks better after that poke. I threw some papers on it to start a flame just before I went up to dress.... Why dearie! What cold hands and what ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... just advise you not to mix yourself with people's affairs till you do know a little about 'em. What business is it o' yourn, eh, whether my children goes to Sunday-School? Sunday-School! what a poke it is!" ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... looked out at the window; and afterwards went round by way of the lawn, and looked in at the window; and after that, had a candle handed out to inspect the shutter with; and after that, a lantern to trace the footsteps with; and after that, a pitchfork to poke the bushes with. This done, amidst the breathless interest of all beholders, they came in again; and Mr. Giles and Brittles were put through a melodramatic representation of their share in the previous night's adventures: which they performed some six times over: contradicting ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... clachan— [village] Deil mak his king's-hood in a spleuchan! [second stomach, tobacco pouch] He's grown sae well acquaint wi' Buchan [(Author of Domestic Medicine)] An' ither chaps, The weans haud out their fingers laughin', [children] And pouk my hips. [poke] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... used to come to the village. But our house is from later, from the time of Henri Quatre. Poissac is not far from Tours. An ugly name, isn't it? But to me it is very beautiful. The house has orchards all round it, and yellow roses with flushed centers poke themselves in my window, and there is ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... subsides till it rests a third way down. You have heard that oil will still the surface of the sea; and the oily part of the pork answers the same purpose with the boiling syrup. Now it begins to granulate, swing it off. Here, drop some of it into this bucket of cold water, and then poke it out with that pine stick, while I run up on the side-hill yonder and get a pail of snow, which will cool it faster. Ha, ha, ha! you do look handsome; suppose Meeta could see you with your jaws stuck fast together with the candy, and your face ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... of yours," he replied, more calmly than ever. "My mother disposed of her fortune as she thought proper. I am certainly not going to poke my nose into her business. I willingly renounced all hope of inheritance. I am quite safe ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... "Oh, a poke is a pocket; or a hiding-place of any sort. Of course, this information sent father to digging around every fir tree and oak tree on the place. As you know, there are hundreds of both kinds of trees, so the directions can't ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... us fair arrangement make: A pig in poke you'd neither give nor take; Confront these halves in nature's birth-day suit; To neither, then, will you deceit impute. The project was most thoroughly approved; Like inclination both the ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... his bonnet more jauntily, and, setting out up river to Hampton, changed his scarlet clothes for a grey coat and puritan hose, and in the dark did his errand very well. He carried a large poke in which he put the larded capons and the round loaves that the cook sold to him. Later, following a reed path along the river, he came swiftly down to Isleworth with his bag on a cord and, in the darkness from beneath ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... was allowed to use her hand again she had decided that never, never, NEVER would she poke her finger into anything. It takes only a second to poke a finger in but it takes a good long time to get a badly hurt finger well, ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson
... 'for I managed to give the horse a sly poke with my knife; and if I know any thing of Sir John Tyrrell, he is much too impatient a spark to crawl along, a snail's pace, with any companion, especially with this heavy shower ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... any difference. He's drunk, and he thought father'd offer to make you an advance; but father just told him to come down here, that you were being married, and say he'd poke all your things out in the road without ...
— Different Girls • Various
... it flies it folds its long neck, and thus draws its head down between its shoulders, while some of the Stork and Crane cousins poke out ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... Jacobus towered over her and murmured placidly in his throat; I joined jocularly from a distance, throwing in a few words, for which under the cover of the night I received secretly a most vicious poke in the ribs from the old woman's elbow or perhaps her fist. I restrained a cry. And all the time the girl didn't even condescend to raise her head to look at any of us. All this may sound childish—and yet that stony, petulant sullenness ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons are responsible. Perhaps you'd like to poke your nose ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... more than is proper, nor venture to recklessly take one step more than I ought to, you know very well which of the women servants, in charge of the menage in our household, is easy to manage! If ever I make the slightest mistake, they laugh at me and poke fun at me; and if I incline a little one way, they show their displeasure by innuendoes; they sit by and look on, they use every means to do harm, they stir up trouble, they stand by on safe ground and look on ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... in one hand a large book, he drew his sword with the other. "In the sight of God," he cried, "you are as guilty as if you stabbed your slaves to the heart, as I do this book!" suiting the action to the word, and piercing a small bladder filled with the juice of poke-weed (playtolacca decandra), which he had concealed between the covers, and sprinkling as with fresh blood those who sat near him. John Woolman makes no mention of this circumstance in his Journal, although he was probably present, and it must have made a deep impression on his sensitive spirit. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... "Melvin's a poke. The invitation included him, too, but he sets himself up stiff as stiff and said he had no time to waste visiting. He'd got to learn the business soon as he could, for his mother—Oh! a lot of bosh about his mother, and her trusting him. Even ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... put in, almost with alacrity, for she had herself seen the announcement of Harry Oswald's election in the 'Times' a few days before. 'No occasion to trouble yourself, I'm sure; I daresay you may be right, and at any rate it's no business of mine, thank heaven. I never want to poke my nose into anybody else's business. Well, talking of Oxford, Mrs. Oswald, there's a very nice young man down here at present; I wonder if you know where he's lodging? I want to ask him to dinner. He's a young Mr. Le Breton—one of the Cheshire Le ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... him! Kill him! He's got my Brownie!" He's in a frenzy, and I don't blame him. It does make you mad to see your pet get hurt. I run for a broom to try to poke Cat out, but it isn't any use. Meanwhile, Ben finds Redskin safe in the box, and he scoops him back into ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... Sarsaparilla one oz., Fluid Extract Yellow Dock one oz., Fluid Extract Poke Root, one-half oz., Iodide of Potash one-half oz., Syrup Orange Peel one oz., Alcohol four ozs., Syrup enough to ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... part either," he observed. "While those bills were in the dark at the bottom of that crack they must have sprouted. They went in there nothin' but tens and twenties. These you just gave me are fives and twos and all sorts. You'd better poke astern of those boards again, Jed. The roots must be down there yet; all you've scratched ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that some day I would myself sail those adventurous seas in a vessel of my own, that I would poke the nose of my craft up steaming tropic rivers, that I would drop anchor off towns whose names could not be found on ordinary maps, and that I would go ashore in white linen and pipe-clayed shoes and a sun-hat to take tiffin ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... impunity. I remember the brutal reception given to the Saperda and Hylotoma grubs when I place them on a comb. Forthwith grabbed, bruised and riddled with stings, the poor wretches perish. It is quite a different matter with the offspring of the Volucella. They come and go as they please, poke about in the cells, elbow the inhabitants and remain unmolested. Let us give some instances of this clemency, which is very ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... spirit of our treatment. People were always walking about with their faces to us. One never saw anything in profile. One got an impression of a world that was insanely focused on ourselves. And when I began to poke my little questions into the Lord Chancellor and the archbishop and all the rest of them, about what I should see if people turned round, the general effect I produced was that I wasn't by any means displaying the Royal Tact they ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... come the crashing sounds of our rapidly disintegrating stock of crockery, and, if we dared to poke our noses inside this chamber of horrors, we should see a pale-faced officer's steward seated on a bench with his head held in his hands. A joint of cold beef, a loaf of bread, an empty pickle jar, and cups, saucers, and plates are ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... good landlady, "then thou must pickle in thine ain poke-nook, and buckle thy girdle thine ain gate. But take my advice, and hide thy gold in thy stays, and keep a piece or two and some silver, in case thou be'st spoke withal; for there's as wud lads haunt within a day's walk from hence, as on the braes ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... nervous and uncertain on the way down; Auntie Nan talked incessantly from under her poke-bonnet, thinking to keep up Philip's courage. But when they came to the big gate and looked up at the turrets through the trees, her memory went back with deep tenderness to the days when the house had been her home, and she began to cry in silence. Philip himself was ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... snail—where's the creely-crawly snail I'm after huntin' out of its houle?'—lettin' on to be lookin' for somethin' creepin' in the grass. And a while after it come slinkin' back, when it thought nobody was mindin', to poke the bit out of the wall where I was gatherin' dandelions under the bank. So while it was fumblin' about, missin' the right crevice, sez I, poppin' up, thinkin' to shame it, 'Maybe the crawly snail's after aitin' it on you,' sez I. 'Och, yis; I seen it,' sez ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... realized the fact. She had repelled, though without rudeness or discourtesy, the garrulous efforts of the motherly knitter to be sociable. She had promptly inspired the small, candy-crusted explorer with such awe that he had refrained from further visits after his first confiding attempt to poke a sticky finger through the baby's velvety cheek. She had spared little scorn in her rejection of the bourgeois advances of the commercial traveller with the languishing eyes of Israel: he confided to his comrades, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... in Tengu-land are very curious. A pair of young tengus will fence with their noses as if they were foils. Their faces are well protected by masks, for if one tengu should "poke his nose" into the other's eye he might put it out, and a blind tengu could not walk about, because he would be ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... follows. You know those odious little "saas-plates" that figure so largely at boarding-houses, and especially at taverns, into which a strenuous attendant female trowels little dabs, sombre of tint and heterogeneous of composition, which it makes you feel homesick to look at, and into which you poke the elastic coppery tea-spoon with the air of a cat dipping her foot into a wash-tub,— (not that I mean to say anything against them, for, when they are of tinted porcelain or starry many-faceted crystal, and hold clean bright berries, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Atkinson's expense; this by an insinuation of the neck out between his own bars and in between those of Atkinson, adjoining. But he doesn't understand the laws of space. Having once fetched his neck around the partition into Atkinson's larder by chancing to poke his head through the end bars, he straightway assumes that what is possible between some bars is possible between all; and wheresoever he may now be standing when prompted by companionable peckishness, straight he plunges among the nearest bars, being mightily astonished at his inability to ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... that time, Otto Mekstrom's toes on both feet were getting solid and his other hand was beginning to show signs of the same. On one side of the creepline the flesh was soft and normal, but on the other it was all you could do to poke a sharp needle into the skin. Poor Otto ended up a basket case, just in time to have the damned stuff start all over again at the stumps of his arms and legs. He died when hardening reached ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... doggies gaed to the mill, This way and that way, and this way and that way; They took a lick out o' this wife's poke, And a lick they took out o' that wife's poke, And a loup in the lade, and a dip in the dam, And hame they ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... hold of me, I did all I could to get a peep within the room. I had been bringing the meals, that were not enough to keep a kitten alive, to the crack she would open to take them in. Believe me, that the very first time I tried to poke my head around where I could see, that practice stopped, and my mistress, in a dull and heavy voice, told me to leave everything on the floor and go away. It seemed that she had grown suspicious. It seemed that she had something ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... I couldn't wrinkle my forehead and poke out my chin, and grimace at the judges, do you suppose I should ever have been—Class Pug. ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... read it? There 'twas laid out on the table when I came down to poke up the fire and set the kettle on. There wasn't no name on it, so 'twan't till I'd read it clear through that I knew 'twas for Miss Martha. It said: 'Have gone to Boston to see—er—what's-his-name and Somebody-else and—' Never mind, Bancroft's all I ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... presence. When distant, or supposed to be distant, we can call him hard or tender names, nay, even poke our poor fun at him. Mr. Punch, on one occasion, when he wished to ridicule the useful-information leanings of a certain periodical publication, quoted from its pages the sentence, "Man is mortal," and people were found to grin broadly over the exquisite stroke of humour. Certainly ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... "Trip about, slip about, whip about Hoop. Wheel like a top at its quickest spin, Then, dear hoop, we shall surely win. First to the greenhouse and then to the wall Circle and circle, And let the wind push you, Poke you, Brush you, And not let you fall. Whirring you round like a wreath of mist. ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... from her by a partition half glass, half wood, she saw the top of Slosson's bald head as he stood up to shut his old-fashioned roll-top desk. He was leaving. She looked out of the window. Ella Monahan, in hat and suit, passed and came back to poke her ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... Doctor Sanford, and you don't f'rever have to be telling him you're sorry you did what you did, and he hasn't all time got one eye on you either, like God, and got to follow you 'round. And Santa Claus don't all time say, Shet your eyes and open your mouth,' like Doctor Sanford, 'and poke out your tongue.'" ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... should see that all the guests have opportunities of seeing the wedding presents; but it is not judicious for visitors at a big function to poke about among the gifts unless accompanied by one of the family or, perhaps, a bridesmaid, because it is generally deemed wise to have a detective present on such an occasion, and he might misinterpret this friendly interest to the discomfort of the prying ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... either," said Mr. Foxley, slowly rising into a sitting posture again. He had another poke at the yellow leaf. "Call me Dacre, my child, will you?" Milly no longer watched him with those loving, anxious, eyes. She was trembling from head to foot and had she spoken, she must have wept. Mr. ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... supply of firewood, agreeing to carry the water himself, which he did, filling the kettle which held about ten gallons. He put on so many small airs while the boys were bringing in the firewood and arranging it beneath the kettle that they began to dub him "Health Officer," "Doctor," and poke fun at him in several ways. Finally Dick came up and inspected the whole arrangement as if he had never seen it before, ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... Astracan breeds worms in such as drink it. [1390] Axius, or as now called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si polui ducas, L. Aubanus Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the Alps, and [1393]Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, to proceed from the same cause, "and that the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... it's all the difference between hell-fire and content, and—for God's sake buy the bairn a pair of boots!" As he spoke he slipped, by a motion studiously concealed from the company, some silver into the beggar's poke. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... would poke hole in hornets nest had best be prepared with long legs." Ishie grinned. "You don't think anybody would really appreciate our doing that, do you Mike? Outside of the people themselves, that is, that aren't directly concerned with man's welfare? We haven't done this in the proper ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... after a battle are always plentiful, but at H.Q. one has an opportunity of sifting these, in fact I could always get the exact truth by asking members of the Staff, but I feel as a non-combatant that I have no right to openly poke my nose into purely military matters. Rumour said we had taken 700 prisoners yesterday; another rumour puts the number at 2000. I heard at dinner that eighty had come in. Mention was laughingly made of "the lost regiment". I could not imagine at the time that we had lost ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... rich in the possession of two little fists full of sweet things; "they're tied up in that bandana—not the blue one! That blue one got some o' his mammy's things I gwine look over; maybe might be something make him shirts or aprons, an' if there is a clean dress in that poke I—I like to have it put on 'im 'fore she sees him—Madame Caron, an', an' Mist'ess, o' course! I like her to ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... your part, he will bend to your hand in every articulation. Without these, however unintentionally on your part, you will be perpetually subjecting him to the severest torture, to defend himself against which he will resist your hand, poke his nose, and stiffen his neck, and every other part of his body. The horse can endure no greater torture than that resulting from an uneven hand. This is known to every hack-cabman. Every hack-cabman has hourly experience that a job ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... him—trying to, because the old man, who hated to see anybody or anything but himself have his way, had chained a heavy block to him to keep him from doing what nature had intended him to do—roam the woods and poke his long nose in ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... to be confronted with the well concocted story that his wife, having just become the mother of a sturdy son, must on no account be disturbed. On this point apparently a compromise is effected, the search to be executed on tip-toe, for the shepherds do somewhat poke and pry about, yet under so sharp a fire of abuse as to render them nervous of pressing their investigations too closely. Thus they pass the cradle by, and all would have gone well with Mak but for that same warm-heartedness ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... buy a fly catcher." So off he went and pretty soon he came back with a great big fly catching box, and after he had set it down, they stood and watched the flies go in until it was so full that not another one could even poke in ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... lie that night in hiding behind the Governor's stable. After this, by fair words and good payment, he borrowed a ragged gown and a jerkin from an aged woman, and then, with a staff in his hand and a poke on his back, he hobbled off as evening came on towards the Governor's stable. The stable boys were just watering the horses for the night, and it was quite as much as they could ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... heard something about you which isn't to your credit," answered Vedie, assuming an air of deep concern. "You are doing wrong, monsieur. I'm only a poor servant-woman, and you may say I have no right to poke my nose into your affairs; but I do say you may search through all the women in the world, like that king in holy Scripture, and you won't find the equal of Madame. You ought to kiss the ground she steps on. Goodness! if you make her ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... learned Correspondent who writes against Master's Gowns, and Poke Sleeves, with a Word in Defence of large Scarves. Answer. I resolve not to raise Animosities amongst ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... through, you varmint—what do you mean?" roared Peterson. "Ain't it enough you pull a gun on me and try to poke out my eye, and twist off my arm, without sticking me with that bread-slicer you ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... up painting? Oh, no! I daub a little in oils, slop a little in watercolors, sketch now and then, and poke about the studios when the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... sometimes the shortest way home, hey, Ed?" and Frank gave him a playful poke that nearly sent ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... frolicked like a couple of boys. The Shawanoe delighted to tease the noble creature, who delighted to have him do so. One habit of the youth was to pretend he was offended with the stallion. He would turn his back upon him and repel his advances toward a reconciliation. Whirlwind would poke his nose first over one shoulder and then the other, rubbing it against the cheek of Deerfoot. If the latter sulked too long, Whirlwind would show his impatience by flirting his head against that of the youth, whirling ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... feeling of restraint was cast aside, the most insolent and often the rudest badgering was indulged in, or, if for any reason this was not allowed, the company began to rally certain individuals, or, as we might say, began to poke fun at them. One of the choicest victims of this favorite occupation of the whole round table was my papa. It had long been known that when it was a question of conversation he had three hobbies, viz., personal ranks and decorations in the Prussian State, the population ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... and at Christchurch, Oxford, afterwards as a young man. He was a Captain in the Genadier Guards, and he was aide-de-camp to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. It seemed quite impossible that an Irish dispensary doctor could be trying to poke fun at him. He supposed that Dr. ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... I've heard, and a plenty of frigates, too. The Frenchy must have suspicioned where I was bound, for he has followed us up sharp, and as we came by South Head I seen him jest a bilin' along 'bout ten mile astarn, and now he'll poke into every hole of the bay till he finds us. Anyhow, there won't be no chance to trade long as he's round, for you folks don't dare say your soul's your own when there's a Frenchy ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... grew merrier as I approached, and I am quite sure I was hotter than I had been all day. "Confound the fellow! can't he turn into an innyard—anywhere out of the main street?" thought I, giving my driver a poke. He knew perfectly well where he was about to take me, and no significant gestures of mine hastened him forward in the very least. Presently, without any warning, we did turn into a side opening, but so suddenly that the whole vehicle had a wrench, and the two hind ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... some old papers, They do make a good deal of smoke: That's right, Dolly, open the window; They'll blaze if you give them a poke. I've got a lot more in the closet; Just look at the dust! What a mess! Why, read it, of course, if you want to, It's ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... Poetry poezio, poeziajxo. Poetry, a piece of versajxo. Poignant dolorega. Point punkto. Point (cards) poento. Point (tip of) pinto. Point (to sharpen) pintigi. Point out montri, signali. Points (railway) relforko. Poise balanci, ekvilibri. Poison veneno. Poisonous venena. Poke the fire inciti la fajron. Poker fajrincitilo. Polar polusa. Pole (wooden) stango. Pole (shaft of car) timono. Pole (geography) poluso. Polecat putoro. Polemic disputo, polemiko. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... In awful conclave sat, Their noses into this to poke To poke them into that - In awful conclave sat they, And swore a solemn oath, That snuff should make no Briton sneeze, That smokers all to smoke should cease, They ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... arm, and nuzzles round among muscles as those horrid old women poke their fingers into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls at the Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or other. Victuality, (organ at epigastrium,) ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... You won't see my trail for smoke when I get a gait on for God's country, my wad in my poke and the sunshine in my eyes. Say! How'd a good juicy tenderloin strike you just now, green onions, fried potatoes, and fixin's on the side? S'help me, that's the first proposition I'll hump myself up against. Then a general whoop-la! for a week—Seattle ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... at him, slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him at Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze it ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... do not intend to make you buy a father in a poke. Monsieur le marquis is desirous of laying before you all title-deeds and documents of every kind of which he is the present holder. Moreover, as he has been so long absent from this country, he intends to prove his identity by several of his contemporaries who are still living. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... loose-minded trollop of history, I dare say Monsieur de Puysange will hold to his bargain with indifferent content. Look you, niece, he, also, is buying—though the saying is somewhat rustic—a pig in a poke." ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... pillory wherein to exercise patience; what is it but the Church's stocks for the wayward feet of women. Marry you! To marry is to commit two souls to the prison of one body; to put two pigs into one poke; two legs into one boot, two arms into one sleeve, two heads into one hat, two necks into one noose, two corpses into one coffin, and this into a wet grave, for marriage is a perennial spring of tears. Marry! Why should I bind myself with a vow that I must break, not being by ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... by command to a book, would beg hard to be allowed to take it into the sun; and at night would open his window and poke his black head out to wash in ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... had for once to acknowledge her botany to be at fault, and, though Bess did not triumph, Francie gave Kitty a poke ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... distrustful flock, we birds of prey. Come along! Why sit there sulking, like a spoiled child? You've made an ass of yourself, following me to Paris; sadly though you bungled that job in London, I gave you credit for more wit than to poke your head into the lion's mouth here. But—admitting that—why not be graceful about it? Here am I, amiably treating you like an equal: you might at least show gratitude enough to accept my invitation to ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... by taking out a light of glass from the back window, and building a rest that bore directly on the carcass, so that we could poke our guns through the opening, settle them on the rest, and blaze away into the gloom. We brought our bed up to the window, so that we could shoot without getting out of it, while snugly wrapped up in our blankets. ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... Skerryvore, and it's not far from where we suffered ship-wreck. Well, it seems the man cried so sore, if he could just see his little bairn before he died! that at last the king of the Good People took peety upon him, and sent one flying that brought back the bairn in a poke* and laid it down beside the man where he lay sleeping. So when the man woke, there was a poke beside him and something into the inside of it that moved. Well, it seems he was one of these gentry that think aye ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... began to poke about in the hedge with her bulging umbrella. At last, after much reaching and pulling, she obtained a small piece of the sweet-smelling honeysuckle, stuck it in her large, old-fashioned bonnet, where it nodded like a plume, and pursued ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes
... at the Dolly Pit. For convenience' sake, he took lodgings at a small farmer's in the village, finding his own victuals, and paying so much a week for lodging and attendance. In the locality this was called "picklin in his awn poke neuk." It not unfrequently happens that the young workman about the collieries, when selecting a lodging, contrives to pitch his tent where the daughter of the house ultimately becomes his wife. This is often the real attraction that draws the youth from ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... light fuel upon the top of the piles was burned up, and there remained great glowing heaps of embers, and logs of wood still flaming. These the boys began to poke about with long poles that Jonas had cut for them, to make them burn brighter, and to see the sparks go up. Presently they heard their father ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... the pigge open the poke. Whyle the grasse growyth the hors stervyth. Sone it sherpyth that thorne wyll be. It ys a sotyll mouse that slepyth in the cattys ear. Nede makyth the old wyffe to trotte. A byrde yn honde ys better than three yn the wode And hevyn fell we shall have meny ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... almost at once, "It's—so much nearer Christmas than it was half an hour ago! Are you sure everything will keep? All those big packages that came yesterday? That humpy one especially? Don't you think you ought to peep? Or poke? Just the teeniest, tiniest little peep or poke? It would be a shame if anything spoiled! A—turkey—or ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... a small town that was but little more than a memory now—telling how, because he would not volunteer, a hapless youth had been waylaid by a dozen high-spirited girls and overpowered, and dressed in a woman's shawl and a woman's poke bonnet, so that he left town with his shame between two suns; how, since the Yankees had come, sundry faithless females were friendly—actually friendly, this being underscored—with the more personable of the young Yankee ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... prosperity, in the house. And there was an abundance of Throttle-Ha'penny coal. It was dirty ashy stuff. The lower bars of the grate were constantly blanked in with white powdery ash, which it was fatal to try to poke away. For if you poked and poked, you raised white cumulus clouds of ash, and you were left at last with a few darkening and sulphurous embers. But even so, by continuous application, you could keep ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... twenty years an' w'ich I never seen a mug ever do. Las' thing of 'is I see, 'e was tellin' 'ow a mug gets out o' the spike, wi' a crust in 'is pockit. An' w'en 'e sees a nice ole gentleman comin' along the street 'e chucks the crust into the drain, an' borrows the old gent's stick to poke it out. An' then the ole ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... mere thought could slay the highest thing in the world. The only thing that ever made his heart laugh was the idea of fineness finding place in himself. A dream of himself in a heroic light sometimes made him poke himself in the ribs, and mock the farce of human vanity. He was like a man in a world that lacked mirrors, a man who sees his dark deformed shadow on the sands, and ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... poke the fire. "About that card," said he. "I've often wondered just how many poor chaps it's been responsible for putting ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... to get ready!" muttered Miss Terry, giving the fire a vicious poke. She was alone in the house, on Christmas Eve, and not a man, woman, or child in the world cared. Well, it was what she wanted. It was of her own doing. ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... which lies in books, and which we wish them to assimilate, has been wrought out of human experience, and not brought down miraculously from some remote storehouse of wisdom that is accessible only to the elect. We poke a good deal of fun at book learning nowadays, and there is a pedantic type of book learning that certainly deserves all the ridicule that can be heaped upon it. But it is not wise to carry satire and ridicule too far in any direction, and especially ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley |
