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More "Ticklish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made to perplex the simple-minded spectator. To say that all the characters in the Sagas escape from the limitations of mere typical humours might be to say too much; but it is obvious that simple types are little in favour, and that the Icelandic authors had all of them some conception of the ticklish and dangerous variability of human dispositions, and knew that hardly any one was to be trusted to come up to his looks, for good or evil. Popular imagination has everywhere got at something of this sort in its views of ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... for nothing, upon recommendations, etc. Disney tells me he will again speak to Fielding, and clear up this matter; then I will write to Bernage. A pox on him for promising money till I had it promised to me; and then making it such a ticklish point, that one cannot expostulate with the colonel upon it: but let him do as I say, and there is an end. I engaged the Secretary of State in it; and am sure it was meant a kindness to me, and that ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... th' chimney before th' gale started. When we were taking down the rope and tackle and th' shears, th' water began to come boiling up th' blow hole and sinking down again. There was a big rush of wind, first up and then down sucking you in like. It was a ticklish time, and just as we were going to lower th' shears, th' Port Albert man made a kind of slip, and was sucked in with the wind, and went head first into the boiling water and out of sight. I took hold of the slack of a rope, thinking I'd throw it to him; he might get hold of ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... his voyage out of Ireland to convert the Hebrideans. And, indeed, I think he had some claim to be called saint; for, with the boats of that past age, to make so rough a passage, and land on such a ticklish coast, was surely not far short of the miraculous. It was to him, or to some of his monkish underlings who had a cell there, that the islet owes its holy and beautiful name, the House ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and set the fore-sail. The sail merely flapped occasionally, and hung idly; and again the iceberg came grinding against us. There were no means of getting off, save to let down the boat, and tow the schooner out into the wind,—rather a ticklish job among ice, and in so dim a light. "The Curlew" lay broadside against the berg, but did not seem to chafe or batter much: on the contrary, we were borne along by the ice with far less motion than if out in ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... legs set into depressions in the ledge and the upper ends slanting outward but kept from falling over the edge by a rope tied to one of the fixed rungs set in the fissure. With this derrick we hoisted up the boards in a few hauls. The job was a very ticklish one, but Bill used the greatest care to prevent accident. The derrick, rope and tackle were carefully tested before used, and as soon as the load was attached to the lower pulley block the two who did the loading were instructed ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber's hole, cook; but no, no, cook, you don't get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It's a ticklish business, but must be done, or else it's no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart, when I'm giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there? —that's ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... enlisting as a trooper of Colonial Police, but the step had been forced upon him by circumstances. Then he had deserted, and had since been successful as a white-slave dealer at Port Elizabeth, and as a gold-miner in the Transvaal, and he had done better and better still at that ticklish trade of gun-running for Oom Paul. Though, get caught—only once get caught—and the Imperial Government authorities, under whose noses you had been playing the game with impunity for years, made it as hot as Hell for you. Bough, however, did not mean ever to get caught. There was ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... that, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda, as the gentleman was making rather ticklish efforts to reach a superb fuchsia that hung high. "You are endangering ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... "ticklish subject, you know. They're sure to have HALSBURY up, and there unquestionably was a degree of monotony about his appointments to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... you in every possible way. I don't care what the world thinks of me, but never a tongue shall wag against you again, or there will be a heavy score to settle with me. Van and I have been good friends, but he's on ticklish ground now. He'll find he can't play fast and loose with two such women as you and Jennie Burton. Curse it all! it isn't like him to do it either. But the world is ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde, Desirable, distinguished, celebrated For several winters in the grand, grand Monde: I'd rather not say what might be related Of her exploits, for this were ticklish ground; Besides there might be falsehood in what's stated: Her late performance had been a dead ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... combination almost unknown in England), is French. Everybody remembers the ingenious argument in Peter Simple that the French were quite as brave as the English, indeed more so, but that they were extraordinarily ticklish. Jeffrey, we have seen, was very far from being a coward, but he was very ticklish indeed. His private letters throw the most curious light possible on the secret, as far as he was concerned, of the earlier Whig opposition to the war, and of the later Whig advocacy of reform. ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... he touched the point of flame to the piled jute and paper in front of him. It caught in an instant. Still holding the lighted match, he repeated this ticklish process time after time, tossing handfuls of the blazing stuff down onto the floor ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... woods on the right side of a clear field where a portion of the afternoon battle had raged, and lay down by the side of the road, conscious that we were in a ticklish place. There was occasional firing over us into the field, and once in a while a bullet dropped near us. But this soon ceased and the battlefield, as a whole, was quiet, and I began to hope that the battle was over. But our colonel was of another mind. He had reported for orders to Gen. Robinson ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... is settled, and we are safe for the present. But you can see the ticklish ground we stand on. These men will not rest satisfied with the immense concessions we have made them; they will demand more and more as the consciousness of their power increases. They know we are afraid of them. In time they will assume ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... me as though this is going to be a rather ticklish affair," Droom resumed after the boy had closed the outer door behind him. Bansemer's mind was on Mrs. Cable's note; a queer smile hung on ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... purpose are without parallel. His muzzle projects dog-monkey fashion, and is adorned with a regular set of sharp-pointed alligator teeth, which he presents to full view as constantly as his very ticklish risible faculties become excited. The tobacconist's "jolly nigger," stuck in the corner house of —— street, as it stands in mute but full grin, tempting the patronage of accidental passengers, is his perfect counterpart. This wonderful man ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Titmouse!" whispered Gammon to his companion, who, having been very restless for some time, had at length become quite silent—his head resting on his hand, his elbow on the table—his eyes languidly half open, and his face exceedingly pale. Gammon saw that he was, in truth, in an exceedingly ticklish condition. ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... defending that part before fighting their way up to the second row. There they did the same, and here must have been the way up to the top part, which they tried to make stronger still. You see, it's rather a ticklish bit up the side there, and plenty of room all round for those who defended the place to use spears and stones to beat down those who came against them. Just look, it wouldn't only be driving them back, but knocking them off into a hole or trap where ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... who sincerely love peace, and therefore all men of property. But will this satisfy Pat, who, with all his virtues, is certainly not the most sensible person in the world? Perhaps not; and if not, it is but fighting them at last. I smoked away, and thought of ticklish politics and bad novels. Skene supped ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... a difficulty in selecting words. A ticklish business, this. One that might well have disconcerted a diplomat. Freddie was no diplomat, and the fact enabled him to find a way in the present crisis. Equipped by nature with an amiable tactlessness and a happy gift of blundering, he charged straight at the main point, and landed ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... by my collar, but if yuh choke me down I'll murder yuh in cold blood," he warned Irish before he started. "And don't yuh dig your heels in my ribs neither, or I'm liable to bust every bone yuh got to your name. I'm ticklish, by cripes!" ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... advance. She didn't try to trap me into an acquaintance, but sent me word that she wanted advice. There's a woman who knows what she wants, and goes for it with a clear head. But what can I do for her? She'll be wanting to give a tea or a ball before she has acquaintances enough. It's awfully ticklish making such people understand that they must go slow and take what they ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... pebbles and boulders, and beyond them the glacier. Once a giant, it is nothing but a baby now, but the ice is still blue and clear, and the crevasses many and deep. And that day it had to be crossed, which was a ticklish task. A misstep or slip might land us at once fairly into the heart of the glacier, there to be preserved in cold storage for the wonderment of future generations. But glaciers were Muir's special pets, his intimate ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... an arm, for knowledge is power, and the ignorant man is but an infant, and to give him knowledge is like putting a loaded blunderbuss into the hands of a child. What can an ignorant man do with knowledge? He is as likely to use it wrong end uppermost as in any other manner. Learning is a ticklish thing; it was said by Festus to have maddened even the wise and experienced Paul and what may we not expect it to do with your downright ignoramus? What ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... playing. Battalion Hessen-Cassel, followed by all our Packages, Hospital convalescents, King's Artillery, and whatever is the King's or ours, marches first. Next comes, as rear-guard to all this, Battalion Grollmann;—along with which is Wolfersdorf himself, knowing Grollmann for a ticklish article (Saxons mainly); followed on the heel by Battalion Hofmann, and lastly by Battalion Salmuth, trusty ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... as for me to give out particulars about this special directors' meetin' that was goin' on. Speakin' by and large, though, when you clean up better'n thirty per cent. on a semi-annual, you got to do some dividend-jugglin', ain't you? And with them quiz committees so thick, it's apt to be ticklish work. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... when they had gone back to the library for their coffee, "I am afraid this Commission is going to be ticklish business." ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... with us, and sleeping in the same room with her. I recollect both going into the bed room together, it was next to mine. It was evening, we had sweet wine, cake, and snap-dragon, and played at something, at which all sat in a circle on the floor. I was very ticklish, it nearly sent me into fits, we tickled each other on the floor. There was much fun, and noise, the governess tickled me, and I tickled her. She said as I was taken to bed, or rather went, as I then ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... pretty ticklish," Charley admitted, "but just the craft for our purpose. She's so light she will float on a good heavy dew, and then she's so easy to take to pieces and pack away. But we'd better stop our chattering, for we are getting near ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... despaired of your coming to-night," said he; "for on this ticklish frontier it is always safer to terminate one's journey by sunset. The rogues pass so easily from one side of the water to the other, that it is difficult to clear the country ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... ticklish situation. Some would have lost their heads. Ryder was alarmed, but all the more able to defend her plans. Her first move, as usual ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... forded the Holston, crossing it twice within a few miles. This upper branch of the Tennessee is a noble stream, broad, with a rocky bed and a swift current. Fording it is ticklish business except at comparatively low water, and as it is subject to sudden rises, there must be times when it seriously interrupts travel. This whole region, full of swift streams, is without a bridge, and, as a consequence, getting over rivers and brooks and the dangers of ferries occupy a prominent ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Craig's prophecy, the dark-blue cloud dispersed itself without having produced the threatened consequences. "The weather"—as he observed the next morning—"the weather, you see, 's a ticklish thing, an' a fool 'ull hit on't sometimes when a wise man misses; that's why the almanecks get so much credit. It's one o' them chancy things as ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... lips and lean against the desk. "I didn't kill Ganeth-Klae," he continued, "though I suppose in a court of law I would be judged responsible for his death. The manufacture of Indurate required some ticklish work. As you know, we produced our halves of the formula separately. Physical contact with my half over a long period of time would prove fatal, I knew, and I simply ...
— The Long Voyage • Carl Richard Jacobi
... end on the ground, failed to reach the top of the parapet by four or five feet. It was a ticklish business to drop down on the upper round, but one by one they accomplished it, and, descending to the ground, were speedily seized and relieved of everything on ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... untrue as it appears; For Friedland was rather mysteriously born, And is 'specially troubled with ticklish ears; He can never suffer the mew of a cat; And when the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... wheel, what hidden spring, could put into motion so wonderful an engine? It was afterwards discovered that the movement of this whole machine had been directed by an absent female, who was removed into an enemy's country. What should an unhappy prince do in such ticklish circumstances as these? He tried in vain the poet's never- failing receipt of corpora ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... to have the utmost confidence in Clare Kendall and her frank way of handling a ticklish yet most important subject without fear or prudishness. There was a refreshing newness about her method. It was neither the holier-than-thou attitude of many religionists, nor the smug monopoly of all knowledge of the social worker, nor the brutal wantonness of the man or woman of the world ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... you it was not easy to shake off responsibilities, once you had taken them up. These people have come to rely on me for a great number of things. We found them ignorant of much that white people enjoy. And we have, one might say, changed the current of their lives considerably. Now it is a very ticklish business, to change the lives of other people. And whether the changes we have made will be, in the end, for good or for bad, ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... that young savage into the water was a difficult and ticklish job; but they finally succeeded, after Donald had first removed the gag from his mouth. He took the Indian's knife, and, as the latter slid into the water, Bullen held him by the scalp-lock, while Donald severed ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... because it is impossible to be ever quite alone. Not so very long ago in Merrie England if a person muttered to himself it was enough on which to establish a charge of wizardry; but it is also said that real witches and wizards, though subject to the most ticklish tests, never perspired—a default which hastened conviction. Therein is my hope of salvation. If it be my fate some day ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... told to me I reckon them cavalrymen went up in the air. Fine, fiery lot of young bloods, I thought, achin' for a scrap. But the officer in charge, bein' in a ticklish place, still held ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... seen; every one of our shipmates had been engulfed by the hungry sea. We paddled back, and getting hold of such spars and planks as we could find, placed them crosswise under our raft to prevent it from upsetting, though it was even thus a ticklish affair. Ben had taken his seat forward, I sat astride at the other end, Boxall and Halliday occupied the middle. How far we were off the coast of Africa we could not exactly tell, but we judged that we should have fifteen or twenty leagues ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... back. The last few days I have been thinking a great deal about monogamy. I am surely the last person to doubt the high moral value of the marriage vow, but there is something to be said on the other side. It is indeed a very ticklish theme to discuss. ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... into war; but merely to extract, with the minimum of violence, something like justice from Austria on this Bavarian matter. For which end, he may justly consider slow pressure preferable to the cutting method. His problem is most ticklish, not ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... got rid of the rest of his men on this trip, excepting the gunner and carpenter, and these lingered with him as a kind of body-guard pending the ticklish business of releasing the imprisoned pirates and forsaking them to their own devices. The jolly-boat was laden to the gunwales and Jack Cockrell held back, ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... good earnest, were those compelled to resort who ventured upon the ticklish experiment of presenting heroic entertainments for king's palaces, where 'hanging was the word' in case of a fright; but, with a genius like this behind the scenes, so fertile in invention, so various in gifts, who could aggravate ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... o' course, to prevent farmers an' landowners takin' their advantage; you want laws to build new cottages; but mainly 'tes a case of hands together; can't be no other—the land's so ticklish. If 'tesn't hands together, 'tes nothing. I 'ad a master once that was never content so long's we wasn't content. That farm was better worked ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... managed this ticklish affair was really admirable: before we neared, I observed the Norfolk ship was laid head to wind, and just enough way kept on to steer her; our ship held on her course, gradually lessening her speed, until, as she approached the Columbus, it barely sufficed to lay and keep her alongside, when they ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... It was ticklish work, as the dusk deepened, getting from one wreck to another; and at last—after nearly going down into the weed between two of them, because of a rotten belaying-pin that I caught at breaking in my hand—I had to resign myself to giving over until morning ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... would send both it and its rider to a sudden death. With the ordinary mountain pony, for the horses are practically only that, it is not necessary to guide it—in fact it might be dangerous. The Montenegrin rides with a loose rein over the most ticklish ground, only tightening his grip on descending a very steep hill to help his ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... thing concerning the generalitie of matters, but rather to wrest and turne the judgement of the events many times against reason, to our advantage, and to omit whatsoever they supposed to be doubtful or ticklish in their masters life: they have made a business of it: witnesse the recoylings of the Lords of Momorancy and Byron, which therein are forgotten; and which is more, you shall not so much as find the name of the Ladie ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... thanking our orator, we reproached him for having kept to himself the best part of his speech,— the conclusion. He thereupon protested that the best part of a speech was persuasion, and that he who did not aim at persuasion should make no speech; for, as to conviction, that was a ticklish business. As, however, they gave him no peace, he began a Capuchinade on the spot, more comical than ever, perhaps, for the very reason that he took it into his head to speak on the most serious subjects. For with texts out of the Bible, which had nothing to do with the business; with similes which ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... fact, the necessaries. He had attended to my camping outfits before, and possessed a genius for knowing what to include. Only when this was under way, and the mate had thrice assured Gates of his ability to navigate the Whim on her ticklish course down the coast, did the old captain feel satisfied to join us ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... my dear girl. Do give me credit for some sense. This is a very ticklish business, and the whole of our future—yours, of course, quite as much as mine—will depend on what I do during the next few days. Do try to realise that. If I make a mistake now, we may repent it for ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... the little man. "Now my job begins; and I guess it's as ticklish as yours. You may need the skill, but I ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... upset both his own and their equilibrium. Owing to this habit he was conscious that he did not read well, and was always uncommonly pleased if anybody else would relieve him of the task; this, however, was a ticklish thing to do, especially in the case of MSS. copy, for every word read falsely or every hesitating glance upon a word to make sure what it was went like a knife to his heart, and this effect he could not conceal. As a singer he was a ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... was the word. On moved the wagon. Obed and I went to the horses' heads. It was ticklish work with all our care. Downward we slid. Often we could scarcely keep our own footing. I was very glad, I know, when we reached the bottom of the first descent. We had several more, however, to accomplish. Others, seeing our success, came following with ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... occurrence in the field of personal adventure in Central Asia has happened for many a year than my entrance into Furrah on a bicycle. Only those who know Afghanistan and the Afghans can fully realize the ticklish character of this ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... is very vigilant. All troops are guided to their positions, and the man on this ticklish job is nearly always a sergeant. He has an eagle eye, and a feline sense of hearing. He ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... there was a chilling silence: everybody felt she was getting on ticklish ground now. She knew that well enough herself. But she had a good rudder to steer by, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... was bad enough," Duane went on. "It was a ticklish place for me. You see, he was half drunk, and I was afraid his gun might go ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... folks voted. Quality folks didn' have nothin' to do wid such truck. If dey had a-wanted to de Yankees wouldn' a-let 'em. My old marster didn' vote an' if anybody knowed what was what he did. Sense didn' count in dem days. It was pow'ful ticklish times an' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... and the face unsnarled itself, into the amiable lines of the normal. The voice was agreeable and smooth, which surprised the man the more. "You took me out of a ticklish situation tonight. I don't want any mere policemen to spoil my little game. Please oil up your forgettery ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... He made no error. I blushed for shame and drew back as quickly as possible: "How can he," I said to myself, "use Latin words to deceive poor women?" Then he cried: "Are you ticklish?"—Yes, sir. "Ah, you are ticklish. The big Veronica is ticklish! Who would have believed it?" And he laughed, but I saw clearly that his laugh was put on, and that something else preoccupied him. ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... ELF. Life is rather ticklish, as you know, and the boy is young! He has not as yet, through proper training, had time to learn all the arts by which one gains one's wishes. Now, I ask nothing more of life, for I know what it gives; therefore he shall have my wish-ring. ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... summer mornin', we couldn't get to her place from Green Island till late afternoon, even with a fair, steady breeze, and you had to strike the time just right so as to fetch up 'long o' the tide and land near the flood. 'Twas ticklish business, an' we didn't visit back an' forth as much as mother desired. You have to go 'way down the co'st to Cold Spring Light an' round that long point,—up here's what ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... off power. In the old days not for ten thousand dollars would he have tried so ticklish a descent, but now his mettle was of sterner stuff and his skill with the machine developed to a point where man and biplane seemed almost ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Rome is intensely interesting. The streets are mostly narrow and crooked, and we are always turning corners, driving across small triangular open places and in lanes where it is ticklish work to pass a vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Yet no boulevards, no great streets in the world, can rival in beauty the streets of Rome. They are skirted by old grey palaces built thousands of years ago rather than centuries, decorated ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... plot, a tender point, a loose moral, with such unconscious archness, and careless raillery, as if he gained new self-possession and adroitness from the perplexity and confusion into which he throws scrupulous imaginations, and knew how to seize on all the ticklish parts of his subject, from their involuntarily shrinking under his grasp. Some of his imitations of Boileau's servile addresses to Louis XIV. which he has applied with a happy mixture of wit and patriotic enthusiasm to King ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... I awaited the answer to this question, not without a certain degree of nervous anxiety. I was beginning to comprehend the counsel of my Nashville friend on the ticklish point ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... overtake me, I mount and speed away, followed by wild yells from a dozen Koordish throats, and chased by a dozen of their dogs. Upon sober second thought, when well away from the vicinity, I conclude this to have been a rather ticklish incident; had they attacked me in the absence of anything else to defend myself with, I should have been compelled to shoot them; the nearest Persian village is about ten miles distant; the absence of anything like continuously ridable road would have ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... career—and that of journalism is a ticklish one—he had been greatly helped by Juve, whose knowledge and advice had been invaluable to him. Fandor had been involved—particularly during the last few years—in the most sensational crimes, in the most mysterious affairs, and, whether by chance or voluntarily, he had played ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... had been very warm—Lavalliere suspecting the lady's games, told her that Maille loved her dearly, that she had in him a man of honour, a gentleman who doted on her, and was ticklish on the score of ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... going to tell you about," says Br'er Possum. "I weren't no more skeered 'n you is now, and I was going to give Mr. Dog a sample of my jaw," says he, "but I'm the most ticklish chap that ever you set eyes on, and no sooner did Mr. Dog put his nose down among my ribs than I got to laughing, and I laugh till I hadn't no more use of my limbs," says he; "and it's a mercy for Mr. Dog that I was ticklish, 'cause a little ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... so." Here was the chief British supply depot and Nairne had just been sent thither to aid in repelling a menace from the American fleet. He had brought his force from Ten Mile Creek, in boats, on the open lake, and the journey, lasting all day, was ticklish enough. All the time the American fleet was in pursuit and it reached the narrow gateway to Burlington Bay only an hour and a half after Captain Nairne entered. The enemy intended to storm the heights, and landed ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... frapegi, bategi. Thunder tondri. Thunderstorm fulmotondro. Thunderstruck fulmofrapa. Thursday jxauxdo. [Error in book: jauxdo] Thus tiel, tiamaniere. Thwart malhelpi. Thy cia, via. Thyme timiano. Tibia tibio. Tick bateti, frapeti. Ticket bileto. Tickle tikli. Ticklish tiklosentema. Tidal marmova. Tide, incoming alfluo. Tide, receding forfluo. Tidings sciigo. Tidiness malnegligxeco. Tidy malnegligxa. Tie ligi. Tie together (unite) kunligi. Tie (cravat) kravato. Tier (row) vico. Tier (string, etc.) ligilo. Tiger tigro. Tight prema, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... about his neck, when the duke's scullions insisted upon shaving him; this sea-wit, turning to the boy, with a waggish leer, "I suppose (said he) you don't understand the figure of amplification so well as Monsieur your father." At that instant, one of the nieces, who knew her uncle to be very ticklish, touched him under the short ribs, on which the little man attempted to spring up, but lost the centre of gravity. He overturned his own plate in the lap of the person that sat next to him, and falling obliquely upon his own chair, both tumbled down upon ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... nor join in any general conversation; and so marked was his silence and embarrassed his manner that the assembled party came to the charitable conclusion that something had gone wrong in the adjustment of his liquor; and knowing it was ticklish work to meddle with a man who with a glass beyond had fallen a drop short, they made no opposition to Eve's speedy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... expressed great confidence in the future exertion of that talent which had been blessed with such a prosperous beginning. Our hero finding him thus obstinately deaf to the voice of his own interest, resolved to govern himself in his next endeavours of friendship, by his experience of this ticklish punctilio; and, in the meantime, gave a handsome benefaction to the hospital, out of these first fruits of the success in play, and reserved two hundred pounds for a set of diamond ear-rings and solitaire, which he intended for a ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... a very ticklish affair on to-night—an affair of so much risk that I hardly like to ask you to take part in it as a start. But if you care to," he went on thoughtfully, "I am quite willing to take you with me, although I quite meant going alone. But you ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... right hand he held the royal standard fastened to a long cane which ended in a silver knob. A sword was by his side, which, as he only could have worn it on such occasions, and as the 'horses of the saint' were not unlikely as ticklish as most horses of the prairies of Entre Rios and Corrientes are wont to be, must have embarrassed him considerably. Behind him came the Corregidor, arrayed in yellow satin, with a silk waistcoat and gold buttons, breeches of yellow velvet, and a hat equal in magnificence to that worn by his bold ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... Dairy. H.H. Hobday. A ticklish village amour: a young fellow importuning a buxom dairy-maid, and apparently on the verge of conquest; in the distant door-way stands a mar-loving, wrinkled old woman, whose crabbed face ought not to be trusted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... It's nearly twenty years ago, and I dare say you have forgotten it all; but I remember it as though I'd divorced you yesterday. Good Lord, what a lot of worry I had over it! I was a sharp fellow, tricky and cunning, a desperate character. . . . Sometimes I was burning to tackle some ticklish business, especially if the fee were a good one, as, for instance, in your case. What did you pay me then? Five or six thousand! That was worth taking trouble for, wasn't it? You went off to Petersburg and ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... worse for it," Tom Spade told him later; "he had a drop too much, to be sure, but his legs were as steady as mine, an' he slept it off in an hour. He's a ticklish chap, Mr. Christopher," the storekeeper added after a moment, "an' I'd keep my hands from meddlin' with him, if I was you. That thing shan't happen agin at my place, an' it wouldn't have happened then ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... to this ticklish excursion into his sacred emotions, he jumped to his feet and went out to meet the man who was riding slowly toward them, the two others in his train. Burroughs went with him, and a brief ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... from his seat, placed his hand lovingly on a trace which hung limply on the wall. "Don't I run the coach to Beaver Town?—and I guess a coach is a more ticklish thing to run than a gold-escort. Lord bless your soul, isn't every coach supposed to arrive before dark? But they don't. 'The road was slippy with frost—I had to come along easy,' the driver'll say. ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... after so many delays and untoward accidents, Fortune has interposed (for there has been great luck, too, in the affair), and peace is again established. With you, I am not at all clear that Choiseul was in earnest to make it. If he was, it was entirely owing to his own ticklish situation. Other people think, that this very situation had made him desperate; and that he was on the point of striking a hardy stroke indeed; and meditated sending a strong army into Holland, to oblige the Dutch to lend twelve ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... here he came up the ladder! I retreated down the slope of the roof,—it was a ticklish job, but again my rubber- soled shoes stood me in good stead—and crawled around to the other side of the broad chimney, and hid ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... of a job to talk about, But a ticklish thing to see, And suth'in to do, if I say it, too, For that second mate ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... are highly enraged at Dikaiopolis for concluding a peace with the Lacedaemonians, and determine to stone him. He undertakes to speak in defence of the Lacedaemonians, standing the while behind a block, as he is to lose his head if he does not succeed in convincing them. In this ticklish predicament, he calls on Euripides, to lend him the tattered garments in which that poet's heroes were in the habit of exciting commiseration. We must suppose the house of the tragic poet to occupy the middle of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... enough to be trusted with the manipulation of that delicate and most precious organ. I want an aurist who knows all about the ear and what can be done for its disorders. The maladies of the larynx are very ticklish things to handle, and nobody should be trusted to go behind the epiglottis who has not the tactus eruditus. And so of certain other particular classes of complaints. A great city must have a limited number of experts, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... opposite his wife in The Sunday Picture.... Eve! Eve! A few short weeks ago, and you made a mock of women who let themselves get into The Daily Picture. And now you are there yourself! (But so, and often, was the siren Lady Massulam! A ticklish thing, criticism of life!) ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... General Assembly has met again and the action taken by an overwhelming majority of the Assembly fills us with gratitude to God. The ticklish part of the report on co-operation was that, of course, on colored evangelization. Here the report first stated what had been the policy of the Southern Church for a separate Negro denomination, and then gave ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... Ba'tiste, contorted with merriment, pointed vaguely in the direction of the bed, "M'sieu l' Nobody, heem is ticklish!" ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... from the stern-sheets of the boat bearing him shoreward, slewed himself half-about for a look back at his vessel, the Hannah Hoo barquentine. This was a ticklish operation, because he wore a tall silk hat and had allowed his hair to grow during the passage home—St. Michael's to Liverpool with a cargo of oranges, and from Liverpool around to Troy in charge ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... old man, and report to me everything that happens. Find out more about Kedsty, if you can. I shall advise you how to act. It is rather ticklish, you know—for you! And"—he smiled at Mercer—"I'm unusually hungry this morning. Add another egg, will you, Mercer? Three instead of two, and a couple of extra slices of toast. And don't let any one know that my appetite is improving. It may be best for both of us—especially ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... minutes time way was made at the ticklish rope bridge for a file of sixteen coffins, each borne by two of the Sergeant's unwilling conscripts, while the Sergeant closed ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... deal more than he would tell. It was believed, in fact, that he had a great deal of influence. The President had been known to send for him on delicate personal business with regard to appointments, and there were certain ticklish diplomatic transactions that he was known to have managed most cleverly. His friends could see his hand in state papers. This he disclaimed, but he never denied that he knew the inside of whatever was going on in Washington. Even those who ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... especially since the arrest of that painter, that bubble's burst and gone for ever. But why are they such fools? I gave Zametov a bit of a thrashing at the time—that's between ourselves, brother; please don't let out a hint that you know of it; I've noticed he is a ticklish subject; it was at Luise Ivanovna's. But to-day, to-day it's all cleared up. That Ilya Petrovitch is at the bottom of it! He took advantage of your fainting at the police station, but he is ashamed of it himself ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... several years before this appropriation of the church rates could be abolished. The year 1830, with a brand new squire and parson, was too ticklish a time for ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... here; it's a pretty ticklish thing to interfere with them fellers. It'll cost you plaguy sight more'n that, and blood, too, like enough. If you'll take my advice, you won't stir ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... the missionary's words seemed to be passing away, for at this point the language and looks of some of the company made David Laidlaw feel that he was indeed in a ticklish position. The threats and noise were becoming louder and more furious, and he was beginning to think of the hopeless resource of using his fists, when a loud exclamation, followed by a dead silence, drew every ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... said this last person, "that there is danger in numbers. Of course, that's your affair, Kauffman, and none of my business, but if I'm to help you pull it off, I'd rather there wouldn't be too many of us. It's a ticklish thing, ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... Warren, talking of many things belonging to us particularly, and I hope to get something considerably by him before the year be over. He gives me good advice of circumspection in my place, which I am now in great mind to improve; for I think our office stands on very ticklish terms, the Parliament likely to sit shortly and likely to be asked more money, and we able to give a very bad account of the expence of what we have done with what they did give before. Besides, the turning out the prize officers may be an example for the King's giving us up to ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... the Duke of Wellington, to look after business. It would not do for either of us to be gadding, while Ireland, and Turkey, and Portugal want watching. The times are getting ticklish. The stocks are rising most dreadfully, as the barometer falls; and the Squirearchy are beginning to dread that the patridges will be drowned. That will be a sad drawback from the delights of a two-shilling quartern-loaf. For ourselves, we have plenty of work cut out for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... my conversation with the old Dutchman," Derville continued, "I sent in my thesis, and became first a licentiate in law, and afterwards an advocate. The old miser's opinion of me went up considerably. He consulted me (gratuitously) on all the ticklish bits of business which he undertook when he had made quite sure how he stood, business which would have seemed unsafe to any ordinary practitioner. This man, over whom no one appeared to have the slightest influence, listened to my advice with something like respect. It is ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... This "ticklish" person is not better equipped than his neighbor, but more poorly equipped. True adjustment to the environment requires the faculty of putting out from consciousness all stimuli that do not require conscious attention. The nervous person is lacking ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... hitherto been that in bad weather the airship cannot land. A non-rigid airship in a nasty wind can land and deflate itself at once by ripping the panel in the envelope, at no greater price than the loss of its gas, and probably some damage to its car. To land in a rigid ship is at best a ticklish business; indeed, the rigid airship is in exactly the same case as a large sea-going vessel; its chief dangers are from the land, which it cannot touch with impunity. Its troubles have been greatly ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... have another dose of it before you're entirely finished!" he responded. "When the case comes on in London. That's the ticklish part of the business. We'll meet there again, I expect, as Mr. Lake and I will be bound to give our evidence—which is a thankless task at the best of times.... Hello! Dollops, got the golf-clubs and walking-sticks? That's a good lad. Now we'll be off to old London again—eh, Lake? Good-bye, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they: "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,— Shall the "Formidable" here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter—where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, And with flow at full beside? Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide. Reach the mooring? Rather say, While rock stands or water runs, Not a ship will leave ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... our runners completely into the air, and the wrench was so great that it was a miracle how the sled escaped fracture. All the joints, it is true, began to work apart, and the ash shafts bent in the most ticklish way; but the rough little conveyance which had already done us such hard service held out gallantly to the end. We reached Mo Myskie on the second night after leaving Sundsvall, and I was greeted with "Salaam aleikoom, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... avoid, if possible, all marine disturbers of the peace. We wished especially to keep away from infuriated swordfish, which I feared might be darting about, and be apt to give us a blind thrust. Knowing that they sometimes pierce stout ships through with their formidable weapons, I began to feel ticklish about the ribs myself, I confess, and the little watch below, too, got uneasy and sleepless; for one of these swords, they knew well, would reach through and through our little boat, from keel to deck. Large ships have occasionally been sent into ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... same seat, and each rowed an oar. Then the oiler took both oars; then the correspondent took both oars; then the oiler; then the correspondent. They rowed and they rowed. The very ticklish part of the business was when the time came for the reclining one in the stern to take his turn at the oars. By the very last star of truth, it is easier to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to change seats in the dingey. First the man in the stern slid his hand along ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... Paul, the mason? Not now! No sir! I knows him! He's a ticklish customer where his ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... line fastened to it. The boat approaches the fish bow foremost, but is made sharp at both ends that it may "back off," if necessary; the whale being often dangerous to approach, and ordinarily starting, when struck, in a way to render his immediate neighbourhood somewhat ticklish. The fish usually goes down when harpooned, and the line must be permitted to "run-out," or he would drag the boat after him. But a whale must breathe as well as a man, and the faster he runs the sooner he must come up for a fresh stock ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... Arras turned out to be a ticklish business. The Germans were verra wasteful o' their shells that day, considering how much siller they cost! They were pounding away, and more shells, by a good many, were falling in Arras than had been the case when we arrived at noon. So I got a chance to see ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... No, child," he chuckled. "But the woods don't breed many runts, that's a fact. There's some bigger than I. Long Sam Dorgan is near seven feet he isn't quite sure, for he's so ticklish that you can't ever measure him," and Uncle Henry's chuckle burst into a full-fledged laugh. "He's just as graceful as a length of shingle lathing, too. And freckles and liver spots on his hands and face, well, he certain sure is ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... Where are you going to try to go? Years ago Russian officers from Sitka went up the glacier from here and none ever returned. It's a mighty dangerous glacier, all full of damn deep holes and cracks. You've no idea what ticklish deceiving ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... the trickles of sweat from his brow and with a vast sigh shifted his bulk. The job of speeding into an atmospheric pressure was always ticklish, and it was with some relief that he reported "Into th' atmosphere, suh," according to routine. He waited for the usual acknowledgment, and when it did not come repeated his observation in a louder voice. Two full minutes of silence passed. ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... well. But George Martell was not quite his own master, he was only part of a "concern" and was bound to do his best for his partners. It happened, just about the time the P. and O. steamer was due at Bombay, that the most ticklish period of the indigo-planters' year was upon Martell. The juice had begun to flow from the vats. He had no assistant and he did not dare to leave the work, so he telegraphed to Bombay to explain this to Mrs. Freeze, and added that he ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... beauty. A defect is ten times worse in a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn't know it when she was on show. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn't mind. Curiosity like a nun or a negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is delicate. Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I have such a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all right. All kinds of crazy longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla convent that nun told me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the end I suppose. Sister? How many women ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... were now executing under trying circumstances, and all of them knew their duty. If any one trembled as the mast swayed over when the ship rolled, he was afraid to mention the fact, or to exhibit any signs of alarm. Perhaps most of them would have been willing to acknowledge that it was rather "ticklish" business to lay out on a topsail yard at midnight in a gale of wind; and if their anxious mothers could have seen the boys at that moment, some of them might have fainted, and all wished ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... scouting around to see what he can discover; but keep your eyes and ears open, it has been mighty ticklish around here to-night." ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... girl that no man could propose to with any confidence whatever. She would be just as likely to accept him as not, and having accepted him, she would be just as likely to expect him to marry her as not. He felt that he was in a very ticklish situation. He saw that Kitty was the sort of girl that would take any air of rude indifference he might assume to be a challenge, and any comely polite attention to be serious love making. He saw that the only safe thing for ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... you intend to do, do it. Why do you wish to sow further strife? You don't know how ticklish a thing it ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... signed order, is there or ever was there any weapon of war. Nay here, in this Seine Boat, safe under tarpaulings (had not the nose of Patriotism been of the finest), are 'five thousand-weight of gunpowder;' not coming in, but surreptitiously going out! What meanest thou, Flesselles? 'Tis a ticklish game, that of 'amusing' us. Cat plays with captive mouse: but mouse with enraged ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... garden. The Vizier was now in a state of some apprehension. He was exercised in his mind as to the effect which the embracing of a new religion by the King might have on the formidable Church party. It would be certain to cause displeasure among the priesthood; and in those days it was a ticklish business to offend the priesthood, even for a monarch. And, if Merolchazzar had a fault, it was a tendency to be a little tactless in his dealings with that powerful body. Only a few mornings back the High Priest of Hec had taken the Vizier aside to complain about the quality ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... clouds. During certain storms I have picked them off my clothes, three or four at a time. Rather a ticklish operation, sir." ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... to the liberty of England, he who affirms that no woman may be exalted above any realm to make the liberty of the same thrall to any stranger nation, "or they that approve whatsoever pleaseth Princes for the time." Leaving thus the ticklish argument which he cannot withdraw, but finds it impolitic to bring forward, he turns to the Queen's individual behaviour in her position as being the thing most important at the present moment, now that she has ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... is like so many others on the coast, merely a "tickle" with three ticklish entrances full of sunken rocks and treacherous currents. The small islands that make the harbor are simply bare ledges, very rough and irregular in outline. The fishing village, also, like all others, consists of little earthen-covered hovels, stuck down wherever ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... here," the lawyer's son decided at last. "Whew! I wouldn't dare even to stumble over a tramp taking a nap here. This is ticklish business, or it would be if I were caught here. Now, ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... the religion, freedom, and trade of the Scottish nation."[140] The Scotch Estates, therefore, had absolutely regarded the possible separation of the two kingdoms as a contingency which might become not undesirable; and, though it was too ticklish an argument to bring forward, it may very possibly have occurred to Pitt that a similar vote of the Irish Parliament was not impossible. The claim which Grattan, following Fox, had set up on behalf of the Prince of Wales, was one of an indefeasible right to the Regency; ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... solve the question before we leave here," declared Tom. "We can't have folks following us up in a ticklish place like this. Besides, Harry, I'm willing to wager that your vision—-whatever it was—-has some real connection with the mystery that we're going out yonder to investigate. So we'll solve the puzzle that's right here before we go forward to look ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... and Mickey are in their saddles still. I don't want to have my fences burned as soon as they're put up. It's a ticklish thing to think that a spark of fire any where about the place might ruin me, and to know at the same time that every man about the run and every swagsman that passes along have matches in their pocket. There isn't a pipe lighted on Gangoil this time of the ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... Mr. Balfour discussed shipping problems for the most part with Mr. Polk, under whose jurisdiction these matters fell. As one of these conferences was approaching its end Mr. Balfour slightly coughed, uttered an "er," and gave other indications that he was about to touch upon a ticklish question. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... were still fussing with the machine he despatched me on the rather ticklish errand of gathering together all those who had been at the Novella at the time and might possibly prove important ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... with some solicitude. Also, for some reason which I could not divine, he seemed to be growing nervous; and, indeed, the whole party was evincing signs of confusion, and exchanging glances with one another. Probably they were thinking that it would be a ticklish—even an embarrassing—business to accompany the Grandmother to the Casino, where, very likely, she would perpetrate further eccentricities, and in public too! Yet on their own initiative they had ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "It's a ticklish job," he whispered. "There's the tinklers, mind, that's campin' in the Dean. If they're still in their camp we can get by easy enough, but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud after rabbits.... Then we maun ford the water, for ye'll no' cross it lower down where it's deep.... Our road ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... He ain't like a married man with me about money yet, an' it's liable to seize him any day. He might say that he couldn't afford the trip, or that we couldn't, which would amount to the same thing. I rather liked him bein' a little ticklish about goin' around with me for a while. It's one thing to do a thing an' another to ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... Jack, breaking it, "it would be ticklish work for any of us to get over that fence by climbing the tree. The fence is a good ten feet high, and the strands of barbed wire curve forward at the top. That limb, besides, is twelve feet or more from the ground, and not very strong, ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... to a standstill, for I was afraid to let her go even at a slow walk when mademoiselle had no arm to hold on by, and her head bobbing at every step of Fatima's into the ticklish part of my back. And by chance we had stopped where the Rue Bonhomme climbs down the bluff to the river, and our boats lay moored at its foot. Suddenly an answer to her question flashed into my head. It seemed to me a perfect solution of all difficulties, but in the nature of the case ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... Turk—the gentleman who pulled you down on to the bed so unceremoniously, Mr. Talbot—was waiting there for the packet. But he had to hide in the Park all the night, until the gates were opened in the morning. It was a ticklish business right through. I did not know at what hour the police might discover the extent of the crime. The diamonds did not reach me until seven o'clock. And then I had some difficulty in persuading the Turks to give them ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... every reason to be grateful. If I understand Colonel REAY rightly he doesn't wish bouquets to be thrown at the Specials, but he would not, I think, discourage me from saying that they performed dangerous and ticklish work with unfailing resource and tact. All of us know that they desire no other reward for their services than the satisfaction of having done their duty; but our gratitude demands to be heard; and I for one take this occasion to trumpet forth the "All clear" signal with feelings ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... he said, preparing to rise, "we must be moving. We have rather a ticklish task before us, though I have no fear whatever as to its sequel, provided you leave most of the talking to me. In any case there must be no violence, remember. The only thing I regret is that the lad will most likely be asleep, so that we shall ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... over the rail from shelter and slowly to pay the lines out as the slight windage of the Elsinore's hull, spars, and rigging drifted her through the water. When a bird was hooked they hauled in the line, still from shelter, till it was alongside. This was the ticklish moment. The hook, merely a hollow and acute-angled triangle of sheet-copper floating on a piece of board at the end of the line, held the bird by pinching its curved beak into the acute angle. The moment ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... sleep did not come. Oh, no! Nothing new came at all except that particularly wretched, itching type of insomnia which seems to rip away from one's body the whole kind, protecting skin and expose all the raw, ticklish fretwork of nerves to the mercy of a gritty blanket or a wrinkled sheet. Pain came too, in its most brutally high night-tide; and sweat, like the smother of furs in summer; and thirst like the scrape of hot sand-paper; and chill like the clammy horror of raw fish. Then, just as the mawkish cold, ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... philosophical, only a little madder. After all, Love's sectaries are a reason unto themselves. We have gone retrograde to the noble heresy, since the days when Sidney proselyted our nation to this mixed health and disease: the kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis, in the ticklish state of youth; the nourisher and the destroyer of hopeful wits; the mother of twin births, wisdom and folly, valor and weakness; the servitude above freedom; the gentle mind's religion; the ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... conduct does not do him great honour, but it is a very probable one. In the first place, if La Rochefoucauld knew how to glide so cleverly over all the ticklish points in which he could not appear to advantage, he did not, strictly speaking, tell lies; he retires rather than attacks, unless hurried away by passion, and he was never in a passion with Conde. And, further, the conduct which he attributes to Conde springs ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... everything was ready to shoot the picture. One of the foremen of Benbow Camp—the best ax wielder of the crew—ran out on the boom to a point near the middle of the frothing stream and began cutting the key-log. It was a ticklish piece of work; but these timbermen were ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... fellow was much fatigued, having walked throughout the night, but as the weather was particularly favourable for our crossing the river, we could not allow him to rest. After he had taken some refreshment we proceeded to the river. The canoe being put into the water was found extremely ticklish, but it was managed with much dexterity by St. Germain, Adam, and Peltier, who ferried over one passenger at a time, causing him to lie flat in its bottom, by no means a pleasant position, owing to its leakiness, but ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... enraged at Dikaiopolis for concluding a peace with the Lacedaemonians, and determine to stone him. He undertakes to speak in defence of the Lacedaemonians, standing the while behind a block, as he is to lose his head if he does not succeed in convincing them. In this ticklish predicament, he calls on Euripides, to lend him the tattered garments in which that poet's heroes were in the habit of exciting commiseration. We must suppose the house of the tragic poet to occupy the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the ticklish part of the business. If Ned's judgment failed him here the ship was as good as lost. He took one more glance at the breakers ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... Cor. "You are as fat as a pincushion, as you must yourself admit, and whenever I needed a pin I could call you to me." Then she laughed at his frightened look and asked: "By the way, are you ticklish?" ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... have Gustave's word, we are safe. He is too proud to own that he gave it unwillingly. Besides, so long as we win what matter the means we use? Is your conscience so ticklish, Baron?' ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... felt the rod of power, in order to avoid a second exertion of which, he now found it convenient to skulk about in the country, for he had received intimation of a warrant from the secretary of state, who wanted to be better acquainted with his person. Notwithstanding the ticklish nature of his situation, it was become so habitual to him to think and speak in a certain manner, that even before strangers whose principles and connexions he could not possibly know, he hardly ever opened his mouth, without ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... have stayed in this fight this year for yourself, Thelismer. There was no need of all this uproar in ticklish times. A proposition like this makes the general campaign all the harder." He kept casting apprehensive glances ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... coloured faintly. " I would rather not, dear Alfred: the introduction could not be for her eternal good. Julia's soul is in a very ticklish state; she wavers as yet between this world and the other world; and it won't do; it won't do; there is no middle path. You would very likely turn the scale, and then I should have fought against ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... motif, always a ticklish business to handle, and in this particular case—well, no, I won't be such a spoil-sport as to go into that, for the chief pleasure of this kind of an entertainment is the succession of pleasant unexpected shocks which are deftly administered to the audience ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... to see Miss Crown as soon as possible, Webster," he said. "Do you suppose she will go up in the air if I mention the fact that I know she was with Thane yesterday up in that old house? It's a rather ticklish thing to spring ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... the inquiry, Were not dangerous places railed off? Yes, Stebbing explained that it was the rule of the firm to have the rocks regularly inspected once a month, and once a fortnight in winter and spring, when the danger is greater. If they were ticklish, the place was marked at the moment with big stones, reported, and railed off. An old foreman-sort of fellow swore to having detected the danger, and put stones. He had reported it. To whom? To Mr. Frank. Yes, he thought it was Mr. Frank, just before he went away. It ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... replied that officer. 'This is rather a ticklish business for a man to be embarked in; and to find that all is to go pleasantly is a great relief to me. The carriage is at hand; shall I have the ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it, Mr. Armadale!" cried young Pedgift, greeting his patron gayly. "We can all go on the water together; I've got the biggest boat on the Broads. The little skiffs," he added, in a lower tone, as he led the way to the quay steps, "besides being ticklish and easily upset, won't hold more than two, with the boatman; and the major told me he should feel it his duty to go with his daughter, if we all separated in different boats. I thought that would hardly do, sir," pursued Pedgift Junior, with a respectfully sly emphasis on the words. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... very long ago in Merrie England if a person muttered to himself it was enough on which to establish a charge of wizardry; but it is also said that real witches and wizards, though subject to the most ticklish tests, never perspired—a default which hastened conviction. Therein is my hope of salvation. If it be my fate some ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... "A ticklish thing to do, by Jove, to take the matter in your own hands in that fashion. But all's well that ends well, and devilish glad will our fellows be to learn that you will be so soon among us again, especially as your troop and mine have ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... me, but I seized upon Cameron's notion. "I accept the arrangement provided you do not hold me responsible for any ill effects," I said. "It's ticklish business. There are many who hold the ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... and Terry keenly alert to their work. "Quick work." Platoons march. The camp at Agua Dulce. On a ticklish mission. On the trail of the hidden rifles. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... Having spoken—told his whole story, as he says—he is rather glad than otherwise to be relieved from the common curiosity of strangers. He's a rare bird, Gryce. If he stops to think, he must see that he stands in a more or less ticklish position. But he does not betray by look or action any doubt of our entire belief in the truth of all his statements. His only trouble seems to be that he has lost, by these inhuman means, the girl ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... millions, forgotten, five fathoms deep below. The only safe ballast upon it is gold dust; and if stress of weather come on you, it will swallow you without remorse. Trevenna had none of this ballast; he had come out to sea in as ticklish a cockle-shell as might be; he might go down any moment, and he carried no commission, being a sort of nameless, unchartered rover: ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... sometimes laughed at them immoderately. In this way he killed two birds with one stone, satisfying at once his poetical aspirations and his desire to be of service; but now he had a third special and very ticklish object in view. Bringing his verses on the scene, the captain thought to exculpate himself on one point about which, for some reason, he always felt himself most apprehensive, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... out now," said Casey, "is how to get up there an' AT 'am. An' how we kin do it without him seein' us. Goin' t' be kinda ticklish—but it ain't the first ticklish job ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... airship cannot land. A non-rigid airship in a nasty wind can land and deflate itself at once by ripping the panel in the envelope, at no greater price than the loss of its gas, and probably some damage to its car. To land in a rigid ship is at best a ticklish business; indeed, the rigid airship is in exactly the same case as a large sea-going vessel; its chief dangers are from the land, which it cannot touch with impunity. Its troubles have been greatly diminished, since the war, by the development of the mooring-mast, which ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... Al grinned sardonically. "I just wanted you to know how things is building up. The Quirt's kinda overreached itself. I didn't want you comin' back on me for trying to keep their feet outa the trough. I want you to know things is pretty damn ticklish right now, and it's going to ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... It was a ticklish job explaining about Kovacs, but when she understood that he just wanted to do a friend a favor, and she'd still have Paul all to herself, she calmed down. They made their ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... low. I did not seem exactly afraid, but I was all tense and hard, and my heart drummed in my ears. There was something ticklish about this scouting. Then I ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... Sonny's done day befo' yesterday, why, sir, you'll be ready to b'lieve anything. It's so much better now, you can't judge of its looks day befo' yesterday. We never had even so much ez considered it necessary thet little children should be christened to have 'em saved, but when things got on the ticklish edge, like they was then, why, we felt thet the safest side is the wise side, an', of co'se, we want Sonny to have the best of everything. So, we was mighty thankful when we see the rector comin'. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... reporter deliberately leading away from the topic about which he has come for an interview, then circling round to the hazardous subject when the person interviewed is off his guard. Probably the most ticklish situation in all reporting is here. To make a person tell what he knows without knowing that he is telling is the pinnacle of the art of interviewing. As Mr. Richard Harding Davis has so exactly ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... none the worse for it," Tom Spade told him later; "he had a drop too much, to be sure, but his legs were as steady as mine, an' he slept it off in an hour. He's a ticklish chap, Mr. Christopher," the storekeeper added after a moment, "an' I'd keep my hands from meddlin' with him, if I was you. That thing shan't happen agin at my place, an' it wouldn't have happened then if I'd been around at the beginnin'. You may tamper with yo' own salvation as much ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... extract, with the minimum of violence, something like justice from Austria on this Bavarian matter. For which end, he may justly consider slow pressure preferable to the cutting method. His problem is most ticklish, not allowed ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a ticklish moment, young un, I can tell ye, for we knew that it were scarce possible to get off without the alarm being raised. Ef the wigwam had stood close to the edge of the forest it would have been compar'tively easy, for once among the trees we might have hoped to have ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... a King use a string and Bell, so that after you have passed, you need not doubt the end, as being a thing not so ticklish, or requiring so much Art as the King does, to be toucht finely and gently at a distance, without throwing it down: This alone is to be preferred for ingenious Persons, the other for ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... he should demand higher wages, for notwithstanding the difficult work he was now engaged in, he received no more than the six shillings a week with which he started. But it was a ticklish matter to ask for a rise. The manager had a sardonic way ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... that my enquiries would either be useless, or precipitate the burning of other records. I hope your excursion will do you good. Thank you for your account of Spedding: I had written however to himself, and from himself ascertained that he was out of the worst. But Spedding's life is a very ticklish one. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... out of supposition, my lord," answered Mowbray, who felt the question ticklish—"for, with submission, the allegation is easily made, and is totally incapable of proof—I should say, no one had a right to think for me in such a particular, or to suppose that I played for a higher ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... creature in the basement of one's house is rather ticklish business; not so perilous as a stick of dynamite, yet fraught with unpleasant possibilities. They cleared away the exhibit and left the door open, hoping their uninvited guest would take his departure. But he did not. A few nights later he began another collection, finding a lot of new ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... with no fresh-turned furrow of moist earth, but only a shallow little dry ditch with the grass almost meeting over its top in places, is ticklish business at best. Kent went slowly, stamping out incipient blazes that seemed likely to turn unruly, and not trusting Val any more than he was compelled to do. She was a woman, and Kent's experience with women of her particular type had not been ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... is rather ticklish, as you know, and the boy is young! He has not as yet, through proper training, had time to learn all the arts by which one gains one's wishes. Now, I ask nothing more of life, for I know what it gives; therefore he shall have my wish-ring. ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... over. He's the kind of Englishman that can keep cool when things are ticklish, and look as if he was in a parlour all the time. Americans keep cool, but look cheeky. O, I know that. We square our shoulders and turn out our toes, and push our hands into our pockets, and act as if we owned the world. Hello—by Jingo!" Then, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stand still, and we would shoot the bear; but he cried out earnestly, "O pray! O pray! no shoot, me shoot by and then;" he would have said by and by. However, to shorten the story, Friday danced so much, and the bear stood so ticklish, that we had laughing enough indeed, but still could not imagine what the fellow would do; for first we thought he depended upon shaking the bear off; and we found the bear was too cunning for that too; for he would ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... not belie him, for his good conduct and honesty of purpose are without parallel. His muzzle projects dog-monkey fashion, and is adorned with a regular set of sharp-pointed alligator teeth, which he presents to full view as constantly as his very ticklish risible faculties become excited. The tobacconist's "jolly nigger," stuck in the corner house of —— street, as it stands in mute but full grin, tempting the patronage of accidental passengers, is his perfect counterpart. This wonderful man says he knows nothing of his genealogy, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... ally against her, but to offer her and her cause what help I can. Of course, I shall fail in that effort, and you will win; but the little comedy will have brought me the girl's gratitude, which is worth all the world at this ticklish stage of the game. Will you aid me to play ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... old raven said that the fire should be roused. All the birds agreed that the raven had spoken well, but none dared do the deed. The raven was made judge, and decided that the spider should undertake the ticklish task, and that the eagle should carry her ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... it. Head-hunters were mere daily episodes in Grits's existence, but water... He muttered something in cockney that sounded like a prayer.... The wind was rapidly driving us toward the middle of the pond, and something cold and ticklish was seeping through the seats of our trousers. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... more hesitation in it than usual, as he approached the ticklish topic, for he was not perfectly clear how so exalted a potentate might take it. He had doubts whether reference to any individual capital, or fortune, might not seem a wretchedly retail affair to so wholesale ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Contrary to expectation, the tumour lay deep, extending between the large nerve bundles and blood vessels in the inner portion of the brachial plexus. It had to be removed with a scalpel, a very ticklish operation because of the proximity to the thin-walled great vein, which at the least incision sucks in air and produces instant death. But everything went well. The large hollow wound was stuffed with antiseptic gauze, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... with a sort of pity, since it was plainer than a pike-staff that Monsieur de Puysange had bundled this penniless young fellow out of Tiverton, with scant courtesy and a scantier explanation. Still, the wording of this sympathy was a ticklish business. I waved my hand upward. "The match, then, is broken off, between you and the ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... am sure I should make one of his Midland speeches to admiration.... I really find nothing new to say. Of course, there is the old story of Afghanistan, but the latter is already discounted, and it is rather a ticklish question. I never felt it so difficult to mix a prescription good for the present feeling of the constituencies.... Depend upon it, if we are to win (as we shall), it will not be on some startling ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... wiping his brow. "I'm sure she wouldn't go to sell you. But I'll look in when I come back, sir." When he got outside he drew a long breath. "By the Lord Harry, but it's a ticklish game to play," he said to himself, with a lively recollection of the dreaded Frere's vehemence; "and there's only one woman in the world I'd be fool enough to play ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... to ourselves, and look at those gentlemen who have in the last six years filled the office of Minister for Ireland, we find that no fewer than three (George Otto Trevelyan, John Morley, and Arthur Balfour) were authors of books before they engaged in the very ticklish business of the government of men. And one of these three Ministers for Ireland embarked upon his literary career—which promised ample distinction—under the editorial auspices of another of the three. We possess in one branch ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... ain't half done yet," they explained to visitors. They fell out of the way of always expecting her to be the one to run on errands, even for the children. "Don't bother your Aunt Mehetabel," Sophia would call. "Can't you see she's got to a ticklish place ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... pragmatist could have told him the particular go of it. I believe that our contemporary pragmatists, especially Messrs. Schiller and Dewey, have given the only tenable account of this subject. It is a very ticklish subject, sending subtle rootlets into all kinds of crannies, and hard to treat in the sketchy way that alone befits a public lecture. But the Schiller-Dewey view of truth has been so ferociously attacked by rationalistic philosophers, and so abominably misunderstood, that here, if anywhere, is ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... Spring and Hudson streets. Mortier used it as a country place until 1797 when the New York Legislature, upon the initiative of Burr, developed a consuming curiosity as to how Trinity Church was expending its income. This was a very ticklish question with the pious vestrymen of Trinity, as it was generally suspected that they were commingling business and piety in a way that might, if known, cause them some trouble. The law, at that time, restricted the annual income of Trinity Church from its property to $12,000 a year. ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... when the minister was explaining the splendors of the other world, and declaring that there all who in this world had loved each other would be reunited, the girl put this question to him—"Would those meet who had loved each other, or only those whom the minister had united?" This was a ticklish question; but the reverend gentleman answered, from his own puritanical point of view, that only those could possibly love each other who were united by the church, and that it was of course impossible for those who were thus united not ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... degree, the former looking upon the latter as an inferior race, less brave and hardy, but at the same time, suspecting them of a disposition to take airs upon themselves under the idea of superior refinement. This made them techy and ticklish company for a stranger on his first coming among them; ruffling up and putting themselves upon their mettle on the slightest occasion, so that he had in a manner to quarrel and fight his ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... lads realized that it was a ticklish moment. Even Myra, if startled, might give the scream that would ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... altered or changed any thing concerning the generalitie of matters, but rather to wrest and turne the judgement of the events many times against reason, to our advantage, and to omit whatsoever they supposed to be doubtful or ticklish in their masters life: they have made a business of it: witnesse the recoylings of the Lords of Momorancy and Byron, which therein are forgotten; and which is more, you shall not so much as find the name of the Ladie of Estampes mentioned at all. A ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... not to be deterred by any amount of bribery and corruption, from bringing you under the yoke of a "rare and radiant,"—whenever I discover one competent to undertake the ticklish business of governing you. I hope she will be "radiant,"—uncommonly "rare" she ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... bit ticklish, yet required doing. A trip to the foremast put in my possession quite a section of line sliced from off the rope's end previously left dangling from the upper yard. Incidentally as I passed back and forth I revisited Father Cassati, still resting ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... idea is too absurd and especially since the arrest of that painter, that bubble's burst and gone for ever. But why are they such fools? I gave Zametov a bit of a thrashing at the time—that's between ourselves, brother; please don't let out a hint that you know of it; I've noticed he is a ticklish subject; it was at Luise Ivanovna's. But to-day, to-day it's all cleared up. That Ilya Petrovitch is at the bottom of it! He took advantage of your fainting at the police station, but he is ashamed of it ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... playing the charming father-in-law and the indulgent grandpapa, the Baron took his son into the garden, and laid before him a variety of observations full of good sense as to the attitude to be taken up by the Chamber on a certain ticklish question which had that morning come under discussion. The young lawyer was struck with admiration for the depth of his father's insight, touched by his cordiality, and especially by the deferential tone which seemed to place the two men on a ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... know all facts; the cards are not all on the table. If we knew what President Wilson knows, we might judge, but we don't. For all we know Great Britain and the other Allies may want America to keep out. The Japanese question may be a very ticklish one. We don't know and therefore we can't judge; ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... bed as cautiously as he could, and made his way to the door. It was a ticklish task, in the dark, to accomplish without noise, but he succeeded in doing it. Outside it was very dark, with a velvety sort of blackness. The boy was glad of this, for it afforded him protection from the men he felt sure ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... my friend," and the face unsnarled itself, into the amiable lines of the normal. The voice was agreeable and smooth, which surprised the man the more. "You took me out of a ticklish situation tonight. I don't want any mere policemen to spoil my little game. Please oil up your forgettery with these, ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber's hole, cook; but no, no, cook, you don't get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It's a ticklish business, but must be done, or else it's no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart, when I'm giving my orders, cook. What! ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Howell asked. "I agree that, like Yvonne, she has been of great use to us in many ways. Beauty and wit are always assets in our rather ticklish branch of commerce. Where is ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... gossip; a wife. Kin', kind. King's-hood, the 2d stomach in a ruminant (equivocal for the scrotum). Kintra, country. Kirk, church. Kirn, a churn. Kirn, harvest home. Kirsen, to christen. Kist, chest, counter. Kitchen, to relish. Kittle, difficult, ticklish, delicate, fickle. Kittle, to tickle. Kittlin, kitten. Kiutlin, cuddling. Knaggie, knobby. Knappin-hammers, hammers for breaking stones. Knowe, knoll. Knurl, knurlin, dwarf. Kye, cows. Kytes, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... my physique I should mention that all my reflexes are very brisk, though I am only slightly ticklish in the ordinary sense of the term. I sweat easily and am very shy, not only with women, but with any strangers. I have, however, trained myself not to show this. About averagely passionate, I should say, and extremely critical where women are concerned, the latter quality often keeping me chaste ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... ship was only one day ahead. But she was getting near to Panama; so every nerve was strained anew. Presently Jack Drake, the Captain's page, yelled out Sail-ho! and scrambled down the mainmast to get the golden chain that Drake had promised to the first lookout who saw the chase. It was ticklish work, so near to Panama; and local winds might ruin all. So Drake, in order not to frighten her, trailed a dozen big empty wine jars over the stern to moderate his pace. At eight o'clock the jars were cut adrift and ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... at once where you are; but it was a ticklish job. The skipper was nothing to me one way or another, any more than you are at this moment, Mr. Schomberg. You may light your cigar or blow your brains out this minute, and I don't care a hang which you do, both or neither. To ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the bed, blankets, and pillows in the bottom of the trap, backed it against the log, to have a step, and got Job in. It was a ticklish job, but they had to manage it: Job, maddened by pain and heat, only kept from fainting by whisky, groaning and raving and yelling to them to ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... not? What would'st thou say? Speak, fret me not With ticklish fears. Is she not by my side, For work ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... enormous crowds that would almost constantly surround me out of curiosity at both rider and wheel, and the moral certainty of a foreigner unwittingly doing something to offend the Chinamen's peculiar and deep-rooted notions of propriety. This, it is easily seen, would be a peculiarly ticklish thing to do when surrounded by surging masses of dangling pig-tails and cerulean blouses, the wearers of which are from the start predisposed to make things as unpleasant as possible. My own experience ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... "That was rather ticklish work, being choked as I was, Mas'r Harry," said Tom, with his pale face flushing up, and his eyes brightening with the recollection; "but above all things, I couldn't help feeling then that, if I did get a prick with a knife, I deserved it ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... does not love,—and certainly the more so when there is another whom she does love. In my endeavour to teach this lesson I subjected the young wife to the terrible danger of overtures from the man to whom her heart had been given. I was walking no doubt on ticklish ground, leaving for a while a doubt on the question whether the lover might or might not succeed. Then there came to me a letter from a distinguished dignitary of our Church, a man whom all men honoured, treating me with severity for what I was doing. It had ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... presume you will be going almost immediately to London—at least all our Scotch members are requested to be at their posts, the meaning of which I cannot pretend to guess. The finances are the only ticklish matter, but there is, after all, plenty of money in the country, now that our fever-fit is a little over. In Britain, when there is the least damp upon the spirits of the public, they are exactly like people ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the rest of his men on this trip, excepting the gunner and carpenter, and these lingered with him as a kind of body-guard pending the ticklish business of releasing the imprisoned pirates and forsaking them to their own devices. The jolly-boat was laden to the gunwales and Jack Cockrell held ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... very vigilant. All troops are guided to their positions, and the man on this ticklish job is nearly always a sergeant. He has an eagle eye, and a feline sense of hearing. He will note your ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... Norton. Reaching back of him, he pointed out the way to detach the gyroscope and put a sort of brake on it that stopped its revolutions almost instantly. "It's a ticklish job to change in the air," he shouted. "It can be done, but it's safer to ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... "This looks like ticklish business," George Melville told himself, "and Don, though usually self-contained, is hot enough of temper, at a time like this, to make matters pretty ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... recollections they evoke, were I not impatient to get back to du Maurier and to Malines. Once on the experiences of those days, I have much to relate—pros and cons, if you please, for that subtle magnetic fluid, which, without physical contact, one human being can transmit to another, is a ticklish one to handle. I cannot pack my pen, though, and take train of thought to the Belgian city without mentioning my friend Allonge, the well-known French artist, then a fellow-student of mine at the Ecole ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... I know, and tears almost standin' in my eyes, I told him the feelin's I felt for the Powers, how mad I'd been at 'em in the past, and how them feelin's had turned into pity, for I knowed just what a ticklish place they wuz in and how necessary it wuz for 'em to keep a cool head and a wise, religious heart, and then, sez I, "I d'no as that will save you. You Powers have got so hard a job to tackle that it don't seem to me you'll ever git out of it with hull skins if you don't use all the caution a elephant ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... 'overwandering ivy and vine,' and 'festoons,' and 'gnarled boughs,' and 'tree tops,' and 'berries,' and 'flowers,' and all the inanimate beauties of the scene. It would be unjust to the ingenuus pudor of the author not to observe the art with which he has veiled this ticklish interview behind such luxuriant trellis-work, and it is obvious that it is for our special sakes he has entered into these local details, because if there was one thing which 'mother Ida' knew better than another, it must have been her ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... only a century ago, when an elegant gentleman, very ticklish about his honor, had for—friend—a beautiful and rich lady, it was considered perfectly proper to live at her expense and even to squander her whole fortune. This game was considered delightful. This only goes to show that the principles ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... miles from here for ten years, so far as a promise is concerned, yet remember that a promise and a fancy are two different things. We may do what's right for the fear o' God, and not love Him either. Marmion, let the marriage bells be rung early—a maiden's heart is a ticklish thing. . ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... missionary's words seemed to be passing away, for at this point the language and looks of some of the company made David Laidlaw feel that he was indeed in a ticklish position. The threats and noise were becoming louder and more furious, and he was beginning to think of the hopeless resource of using his fists, when a loud exclamation, followed by a dead silence, drew ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... didn't try to trap me into an acquaintance, but sent me word that she wanted advice. There's a woman who knows what she wants, and goes for it with a clear head. But what can I do for her? She'll be wanting to give a tea or a ball before she has acquaintances enough. It's awfully ticklish making such people understand that they must go slow and take what they can get ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... more at Pommier, with the exception of A Company, who went on to Bienvillers. The rest of the Battalion joined them there on July 7th, except Transport and Quarter-Master's Stores, which moved to La Cauchie. Our most important work there was the somewhat ticklish procedure on two nights of carrying up to the Monchy trenches, about two miles North of Foncquevillers, cylinders of gas to loose off on a suitable occasion. These were drawn at Hannescamp, and for carrying were fastened ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... with Sir W. Warren, talking of many things belonging to us particularly, and I hope to get something considerably by him before the year be over. He gives me good advice of circumspection in my place, which I am now in great mind to improve; for I think our office stands on very ticklish terms, the Parliament likely to sit shortly and likely to be asked more money, and we able to give a very bad account of the expence of what we have done with what they did give before. Besides, the turning out the prize officers may be an example ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... to a fight. In the thick of it, when Stewart was drivin' Pat an' his crowd off the place, one of them de-pooties lost his head an' went fer his gun. Nels throwed his gun an' crippled the feller's arm. Monty jumped then an' throwed two forty-fives, an' fer a second or so it looked ticklish. But the bandit-hunters crawled, an' ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... end of bootiful wimin, and a heap of good clothes. There was a good deal of hair present that belonged on the heds of peple who didn't cum with it—but this is a ticklish subjeck for me. I larfed at my wife's waterfall, which indoosed that superior woman to take it off and heave it at me rather vilently; and as there was about a half bushil of it, it knockt me over, and give me pains in my body which I hain't got ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... the name of the pretty black-eyed woman seated at his left hand; and the consciousness of so great a curiosity gratified, may have augmented his unaccustomed embarrassment. Certain it is, Sam Rice had driven six horses, on a ticklish mountain road, for four years, without missing a trip; and had more than once encountered the "road-agents," without ever yet delivering them an express box; had had old and young ladies, plain and beautiful ones, to sit beside him, hundreds ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... miles to Liverpool from New York, and rather more from Toronto; a ticklish journey, with no chance of landing till he gets ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... and the brother of a Noble Lord, the Chancellor hesitated long, and went through the forms, as usual: but who ever doubted, where all this indecision would end? No man in his senses, for a single instant! We shall not press this point, which is rather a ticklish one. Some persons thought that from entertaining a fellow-feeling on the subject, the Chancellor would have been ready to favour the Poet-Laureat's application to the Court of Chancery for an injunction against Wat Tyler. His Lordship's ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... author hope a gentler fate, Who dares most impudently not translate? It had been civil, in these ticklish times, To fetch his fools and knaves from foreign climes; 20 Spaniards and French abuse to the world's end, But spare old England, lest you hurt a friend. If any fool is by our satire bit, Let him hiss loud, to show you all he's hit. Poets make characters, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... Secret Service—Intelligence Department. I had the whole thing cut and dried—to get at the ramifications of German espionage in socialistic and so-called intellectual circles in neutral and other countries. It would have been ticklish work, for I should have been carrying my life in my hands. I could have done it well. I started out by being a sort of 'intellectual' myself. All along I wanted to put my brains at the service of my country. I took some time to hit upon the real way. I hit upon it. I learned lots of things from ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... is power, and the ignorant man is but an infant, and to give him knowledge is like putting a loaded blunderbuss into the hands of a child. What can an ignorant man do with knowledge? He is as likely to use it wrong end uppermost as in any other manner. Learning is a ticklish thing; it was said by Festus to have maddened even the wise and experienced Paul and what may we not expect it to do with your downright ignoramus? ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... the sea began to break. This made it necessary to keep still more away, to prevent filling at times, or to haul close up, which might have done equally well. But the captain preferred the latter course, on account of the current. We had ticklish work of it, in the jolly-boat, more than once that day, and were compelled to carry a whole sail in order to keep up with the launch, which beat us, now the wind had increased. Marble was a terrible fellow to carry on everything, ship or boat, and we kept our station admirably, the two boats ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... Malay proa," replied he. "They're generally ticklish craft to deal with; though, I don't suppose this beggar means any harm to us in such a waterway as this, where we meet other vessels every hour ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... l5),—and how was that crowd to get across, when fords were impassable and ferry-boats were wanting, to say nothing of the watchful eyes that were upon them from the other bank? To cross a stream in the face of the enemy is a ticklish operation, even for modern armies; what must it have been, then, for Joshua and his horde? Not a hint is given him as to the means by which the crossing is to be made possible. He has Jehovah's command to do it, and Jehovah's ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... "Kittle [ticklish, delicate] ground, Sissot, for man to take on him to account for the doings of woman. I might win a clap to mine ears, as like ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... eating and drinking with Pao-ch'ai, Hsiang-yuen and the other girls, P'ing Erh turned her head round. "Don't rub me like that!" she laughed, "It makes me feel quite ticklish." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... laws, o' course, to prevent farmers an' landowners takin' their advantage; you want laws to build new cottages; but mainly 'tes a case of hands together; can't be no other—the land's so ticklish. If 'tesn't hands together, 'tes nothing. I 'ad a master once that was never content so long's we wasn't content. That farm was better worked than any in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... dignified gathering. On the contrary, Young America was there and quite often the impression which one gathered was that a dozen or so Big Brothers had been turned loose at once. A great many wild speeches were made and all sorts of ticklish questions were brought up. Chairman Clark broke two gavels and three times overturned his table. Everyone there was young. Peace was young. Few knew exactly, like Bishop Brent, just what was wanted. The whole project was new. Dozens of delegates wanted to speak; it was their first ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... of this, and began to jump upon ticklish points of ice; and as these began to crack and show signs of breaking away, the boys would run, with wild whoops, back to shore, the very danger seeming to add to their enjoyment. Then, with poles and "prys," they would work upon the cracking mass until it floated clear and went whirling ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... little brick, Peg," Seaton returned instantly. "Both you girls are all to the good—the right kind to have along in ticklish places." ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... "She is pretty ticklish," Charley admitted, "but just the craft for our purpose. She's so light she will float on a good heavy dew, and then she's so easy to take to pieces and pack away. But we'd better stop our chattering, for we are getting near ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... planned, an eleven-feet-six wheel-base was not considered. To wheedle Pong to the mouth of the Calle del Puerto had been a ticklish business, and I had berthed her deliberately with an eye to our departure for the city gate, rather than to the convenience of such other vehicles as might appear. Besides, for my brother-in-law to have essayed manoeuvres in such surroundings ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... Chancellor would prevent his entering the house. She alighted without his help, and behind her he ascended the high steps of Miss Birdseye's residence. He had grown very curious, and among the things he wanted to know was why in the world this ticklish spinster ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... moderate and indifferent men which of the parties do most harm to the liberty of England, he who affirms that no woman may be exalted above any realm to make the liberty of the same thrall to any stranger nation, "or they that approve whatsoever pleaseth Princes for the time." Leaving thus the ticklish argument which he cannot withdraw, but finds it impolitic to bring forward, he turns to the Queen's individual behaviour in her position as being the thing most important at the present moment, now that she has effectively attained ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... start—thar's too much natur in 'em. You kin skeer it out of a woman, an' you kin beat it out of a dog, an' thar're times when you kin even spank it out of a baby, but if you oust it from a man thar ain't nothin' but skin an' bones left behind. An' natur's a ticklish thing to handle without gloves, bless yo' soul, suh. It's like a hive of bees: you give it a little poke to start it, an' the first thing you know it's swarmin' all over both yo' hands. It's a skeery thing, suh, an' Bill Fletcher's ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... stopped short and shook its head, and they saw it try to turn it, as if to touch a tender or ticklish place ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... "'Tis a ticklish business," said I after a minute, "to carry the King's letter. Not one in four of his messengers comes through, they say. But since it keeps you from ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... are right to allow —— to settle the claim; but I do not see why you should repay him out of your legacy—at least, not yet.[68] If you feel about it (as you are ticklish on such points) pay him the interest now, and the principal when you are strong in cash; or pay him by instalments; or pay him as I do my creditors—that is, not till ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... of our friends the Turks, but it had been chiefly of the vagabonds near the coast. Into all sorts of queer creeks and corners had we found our way in boat expeditions, that most capital mode of adventure; though rather ticklish for those who are not pretty strong in numbers. So had we dug into the sinuosities of Greece, of which both eastern and western borders were familiar to us; and it is not a little that I would take for my Horace, which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
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