United States or Marshall Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


A quarrel happened between two shoeblacks, who were playing at what in England is called pitch-farthing, or heads and tails, and in Ireland, head or harp. One of the combatants threw a small paving stone at his opponent, who drew out the knife with which he used to scrape shoes, and plunged it up to the hilt in his companion's breast.

It was thus she read the magpie, from three o'clock till six that afternoon. When a man and a woman do any thing wrong, it is amusing to hear the judgments of other men and women thereupon. The men all blame the man, and the women all the woman. That is judgment, is it not? But in some cases our pitch-farthing judgments must be either heads or tails; so Mr. Raby, who had cried heads, when a Mrs.

Even of pastimes and sports she saw almost none. For 'Thanase there was, first of all, his fiddle; then la chasse, the chase; the papegaie, or, as he called it, pad-go the shooting-match; la galloche, pitch-farthing; the cock-fight; the five-arpent pony-race; and too often, also, chin-chin, twenty-five-cent poker, and the gossip and glass of the roadside "store." But for Madame 'Thanase there was only a seat against the wall at the Saturday-night dance, and mass

Nothing would have pleased them better than to break the sacred windows time had spared, and defile the graves of their forefathers with pitch-farthing and other arts; but it was three miles off, and there was a lion in the way: they must pass in sight of Squire Raby's house; and, whenever they had tried it, he and his groom had followed them on swift horses that could jump as well as gallop, had caught them in the churchyard, and lashed them heartily; and the same night notice to quit had been given to their parents, who were all Mr.

But I would remind you that Jerry's mind and character were quite mature. I had schooled them myself and I know. If Jerry had fallen in love with Marcia Van Wyck who proposed to play at her game of "pitch-farthing" with so fine a soul as Jerry's, the thing was serious, serious for both of them.

There, where wisdom and prudence were most needed, he had speculated like an idiot. He saw it, and said to himself, "I have acted like a boy playing at pitch-farthing, not like a man who knew the value of his heart." And so he passed a miserable time, bemoaning the treasure that was now quite inaccessible instead of nearly, and the treasure of his own heart he had thrown away.

Here and there were groups of "patriots" seated on the curbstones, playing pitch-farthing, known in France by the name of "bouchon." Their guns were resting quietly against the wall behind them, with, in many instances, a loaf of bread stuck on the bayonet. The sky was gray, the wind piercingly cold. The swarming life of Paris was hushed. There was no movement, and scarcely any sound.