Joker

“ The joker goes for aces, flushes, and straights. It always counts as an ace, except to fill a straight; but if you've got a four-card straight and the joker, then the joker fills your hand. Here; I'll show you." Between deals he sorted out a ten, nine, eight, and seven, and the joker with them.
"There," he said; "with a hand like this you can call the joker either a jack or a six, just as you please. It is usual to call it a jack. But in anything except straights and straight flushes—if there is any such thing as a straight flush—the cuter card counts as an ace. ”

“ She touched Joker with her heel and the big horse sprang, at the hint, into a gallop. Quickly as he started, Rayleen, the grey mare (whose name, being interpreted, is Little Star) , being ever concentrated for instant effort, as is the manner of small and well-bred four-year-olds, was up to his shoulder in a couple of bounds, even in the flame of her youth and enthusiasm, she drove ahead of Joker's ordered strides, and led him for awhile. Larry's laugh of triumph, that the wind tossed back to her, was not needed to rouse Christian to emulation. ”

“ This was my first visit to the slope, you know and, although I'd often heard vaguely that young 'uns, playing draw for beans or tin tags, once in a while shoved the joker into the pack for the fun of the thing. I, of course, never dreamed that rational adult human beings in any quarter of the earth could have the nerve to inflict such a dismal outrage upon the noble game of draw as to slap the joker into a poker deck. But I found out different the very first game of draw that I sat into out in San Francisco. ”

“ The Joker is an additional card, sometimes included in the pack, and to which any value may be given by the player holding it. If for instance, a player hold king, queen, knave, and ten of hearts, and the joker, he may call the joker ace of hearts, and so claim a sequence flush. The joker is a higher card, moreover, than the actual card whose name it takes, i.e. a joker which is called the king of spades is better than the real king of spades.
TECHNICAL TERMS.
For convenience of reference we annex explanations of the few technical terms used in Poker. ”

“ Batty stopped him with a laugh. "A seasoned old poker player like you stooping to pick up the joker!" he teased. "You know well enough only one game goes on this ranch, and the joker's no good in that." Then he winked at the others.
"That's what you'll be after awhile, Jimmy, if you don't stand up for your rights better than you are doing. Matsu will be taking every trick in the game, and you'll count for nothing more than just the joker of the pack." ”

“ Some seek for jokers; I avoid. A joke must be, to be enjoy'd, Of wisdom's words, by wit employ'd. God never meant for men of sense, The wits that joke to give offence. Perchance of these I shall be able To show you one preserved in fable. A joker at a banker's table, Most amply spread to satisfy The height of epicurean wishes, Had nothing near but little fishes. So, taking several of the fry, He whisper'd to them very nigh, And seem'd to listen for reply. The guests much wonder'd what it meant, And stared upon him all intent. ”

“ Joker (rising from his stool and making a mock obeisance) . My gratitude, gentle Knaves, for your varied courtesies. (The Knaves bow and exeunt, R., in single file. Joker puts his stool back in its place, beside the throne.) Of two misfortunes, rather let me suffer that of being a fool than a knave. The one knows nothing of the evil he does; the other knows nothing of the evil he does not do. And methinks whether of evil or of good those Knaves know but little of what they now perform. They bear those explosive bombs to the banquet hall? Surely they err. ”

“ All his little lopped phrases are somersaults; we pant as we read. The tone is never for two minutes the same; laughter comes, then the beginning of emotion, then scandal, then wonder, then sensibility, then laughter again. The mischievous joker pulls and entangles the threads of all our feelings, and makes us go higher, thither, in a whimsical manner, like puppets. Amongst these various threads there are two which he pulls more willingly than the rest. Like all men who have nerves, he is subject to sensibility ”

“ In moving about the world I have always found that the society of the great commercial room set up for being jolly, but I could never exactly perceive where the jollity entered. Noise, sham gentility, the cackle of false laughter were there; but the strong, sincere cheerfulness of friendly men—never! Yet the tavern humourist, or even the club joker, is as nothing compared with the true professional wit. ”

“ They called to mind what the Parisian had told them of the Nut's character, and the rash deeds of which he was capable.
"Oh, the swine! if he's done that, he's robbed us," moaned Monsieur Toulouse.
The Joker rose to his feet and, losing all self-restraint, treated Captain d'Haumont with the familiarity with which he used to treat the Nut.
"Do you think we've come all this way for one hundred and fifty thousand francs?"
"Fifty thousand francs," corrected the Burglar, who knew how to calculate at least as well as the Joker. "Why, we must be dreaming." ”

“ I stowed it away with care in my own room. As a matter of principle—or lack of it, as you perfer—it is always well to have the joker up one's sleeve. That little box to me represented most emphatically the joker. ”

“ Are you a subject for the mad hospital?” said the wine-shop keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating the jest with a handful of mud, picked up for the purpose, and smeared over it. “Why do you write in the public streets? Is there—tell me thou—is there no other place to write such words in?”
In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps accidentally, perhaps not) upon the joker's heart. The joker rapped it with his own, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantastic dancing attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foot into his hand, and held out. ”

“ Joker, one of our clowns," continued the china lady, "who is always trying to stand upon his head. He has broken himself so often that he is mended in a hundred places, and doesn't look at all pretty. Here he comes now, so you can see for yourself."
Indeed, a jolly little clown came walking toward them, and Dorothy could see that in spite of his pretty clothes of red and yellow and green he was completely covered with cracks, running every which way and showing plainly that he had been mended in many places. ”

“ But the joker is, as our legislative friend over there would say," (he nodded down the table toward a young millionaire of altruistic principles, who had got elected to the state assembly) "the joker is that a man and a woman who aren't married, and who are moderately attracted to each other, can talk, or seem to talk, without meeting those conditions."
"Seem to talk?" she questioned.
"Seem to exchange ideas mutually. They think they do, but they don't. It's pure illusion, that's the answer."
"I'm not clever, really," said Rose, "and I don't know much, and I simply don't understand. ”

“ A loud and general burst of laughter greeted this practical joke, which did not add to the young man's good humour, and he, being of a fiery disposition, and so the very fittest subject for a practical joker, rose up in a rage and hurled the bone back at his aggressor, who, being prepared for it, ducked his head, and it passed harmlessly over him. ”

“ Scene.—Audience-chamber in the palace of the King of Hearts. The thrones of the King and Queen in the centre of the stage at back. Near the King's throne a small gilded three-legged stool. Entrances R. and L. Three arm-chairs R. A bench L. At the rising of the curtain the Joker is discovered seated on the King's throne, leaning on one elbow, his rattle hanging idly in the other hand. He is apparently meditating. He speaks slowly, with a pause between each sentence.
Joker. Peradventure it may seem improper for a fool to leave his lowly place and climb upon the throne. ”

“ Queen of Clubs (haughtily) . So graceful a speech, Sir Joker, were worthy of a knight rather than of a fool.
Joker. It is for the listener to detect when the fool speaks foolishly. For he himself is too great a fool to judge of the burden of his speech.
Queen of Diamonds (superciliously, to Queen of Clubs) . Methinks his words have a double edge.
Joker (to Queen of Diamonds) . You wrong me, good lady, for he that playeth with edged tools is most apt to cut himself.
[Enter, L., Knave of Spades, who announces,]
Knave of Spades. ”

“ Whatever they call it, it's not American draw poker by a darned sight. The kind of poker that I was raised on—the real thing, the article of draw that we play on this side of the Alleghanies—doesn't take any more account of the joker, for instance, than it does of the card case; but out in California they think a man's plumb blind crazy if he registers a kick over having the joker in the deck. I'd as lief play old maid or grab for corn-silk cigarettes as play draw poker with the joker mixed up in it ”

“ And then, somewhat blindly, and bare-throated, he passed through the streaming thoroughfares—caring little how long it took him to reach Piccadilly.
[2]
The joker is a fifty-third card, of any kind of device, which is added to the pack; the player to whom it is dealt can make it any card he chooses. For example, if the other four cards he holds are two queens and two sevens, he can make the joker card a third queen, and thus secure for himself a full hand.
CHAPTER XXIII. A MEMORABLE DAY.
"...But do you know, dear Maurice, that you propose marrying a beggar ”

“ And a man that is not insured, to die were the last of his follies.
22 Moreover, because the card of his exemption, it was lost, therefore, in either case, he was become of the fighters of En.
23 Yea, even though he were possessed of the joker, nevertheless, it availed him nothing; for it was a new game, and the joker was not in the pack.
24 ¶ And certain of the people did gather them victuals secretly and in great abundance, and they did put them on one side and they did hoard. ”

“ The most desirable image that might now be used would be a reproduction of the beautiful flying figure of Mercury, carrying the caduceus, by John of Bologna.
No French packs, and very few English ones, contain a Joker, since the games that call for its use are not favourites in those countries. However, the Joker, with all its inherited value, is [Pg 229] known in the Japanese and Korean packs of cards, where it seems to be of sporadic growth, and is apparently not connected with the ancient god, Mercury, the quondam ruler of the cards. ”

“ I have always said that the [178] best way to pay a practical joker back, is not to let him know his joke has been a success. We’ll get Artie and Jess and Ward and Fred and Margy to come and help, and, working together, we can make and finish two dozen flowers this evening. ”

“ Joker had but just fairly settled down to go when the end of the race was at hand. Had he been a shade less of a gentleman than he was, Christian, and the snaffle in which she was riding him, would hardly have stopped him, as did their joint efforts, on the gravel in front of the goal that Larry had given her.
Hunts come, and hunts go, and are forgotten. Horses, the best and dearest of them, fade, in some degree, from remembrance ”

“ In 1752 he was playing in Dublin, where he became intimate with a dissolute humorist, known as ‘Lord Chief Joker [Isaac] Sparks.’ With his co-operation he founded a jovial club called ‘Nassau Court,’ where mock trials and other buffooneries were enacted. ”

“ It gives your inferiors just but troublesome and improper claims of equality. A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit. Whoever is admitted or sought for in company upon any account than that of his merit and manners, is never respected there, but only made use of. ”

“ The Joker got the best bed, as good-humoured, good-natured chaps generally do, without seeming to try for it. The growler of the party got the floor and chaff bags, as selfish men mostly do—without seeming to try for it either. ”

“ Through studying the Joker and the value bestowed on him in the old as well as in the modern packs the similarity of the powers that he wields with those that were attributed to the Hermes of the Greeks may be recognised, and this representation of irresponsibility, of chance or of luck, is found in every part of the world where divining cards are used. It marks the difference between the Tarots and the French, German and Swiss packs that were invented for gambling only, and were never intended for fortune-telling. ”

“ This is the great festival of the Practical Joker, and all is well when his jokes are simple and amusing. To pin a piece of paper on someone's back, or to send the school Dunce into a bookseller's shop for a [35] "History of Adam's Grandfather," is quite good fun. But there are some jokes which are carefully prepared in order to give pain to the persons upon whom they are played; they are not amusing, but merely cruel. It is not a good joke, for instance, to balance a bowl of water upon the top of a door, so that the first person to enter the room gets drenched. ”

“ Jest, crack a joke, perpetrate a joke. Joker, n. Jester, wag, humorist. Jollification, n. [Colloquial.] Conviviality, revelry, festivity, carouse, carousal, SPREE, revel, compotation, potation, wassail, orgies, bacchanals, saturnalia, debauch, merry frolic, jolly time, drinking bout. Jollity, n. Merriment, gayety, mirth, fun, frolic, joviality, hilarity. Jolly, a. 1. Merry, joyous, joyful, gay, jovial, airy, mirthful, jocund, playful, frolicsome, sportive, gamesome, funny, facetious, jocular, waggish, sprightly, lively, jocund, wanton. 2. ”