"Cat's-paw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that," answered Jack, "I have no wish to quarrel with you, or any other man; but it strikes me I have been made a 'cat's-paw' of, and I tell you frankly I should like to know our object in coming ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... herself that, had he been possessed of the brains of a chipmunk, he would have pointed out to her the danger of her course; that he had not done so was proof that the craven had feared to compromise himself. He had made a cat's-paw of her, that's what he had done! He had taken advantage of a momentary lack of caution—the result of her impetuous mother love. Ah, what a blockhead the man was, not to have warned her of the diplomatic dangers she was risking! At that moment, placid Nellie McKaye ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... on their account was to degrade our Government. I explained to Schnitzel it was not becoming that the United States navy should be made the cat's-paw of a corrupt corporation. I asked his permission to repeat to the authorities at Washington certain of the ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... supposed. Perhaps Artois was one of those men who liked to have a clever woman at his beck and call. These literary fellows were often terribly exigent, eaten up with the sense of their own importance. But he, Maurice, was not going to allow himself to be made a cat's-paw of. He would make Artois understand that he was not going to permit his life to be interfered ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... splinted; the body of Brown fetched from the forepeak, where it lay stiff and cold, and committed to the waters of the lagoon; and the washing of the cabin rudely finished. All these were done ere mid-day; and it was past three when the first cat's-paw ruffled the lagoon, and the wind came in a dry squall, which presently sobered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the leading plotters—the traitors—were punished. But that was not till later, and the court's irreversible decree against me had been carried out. I, the unsuspecting messenger, the loyal, eager dupe, was made the cat's-paw. I was put on an old, condemned freighter, with food and supplies supposed to last me a lifetime, but with no power capsules and no means of steering the ship. I was set adrift in a derelict on a lonely orbit of exile around the ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl
... and down the room, with his hands onder his coat-tails, for ever so long, without a sayin' of a word. At last, sais he, with a beautiful smile that was jist skin deep, for it played on his face as a cat's-paw does on the calm waters, 'What was you a sayin.' ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... as a prod I could have made him jump through hoops. It wasn't necessary. As soon as I showed him the different blueprints and explained the possibilities he understood. If anything, he was more eager than I was to find out who was using his administration as a cat's-paw. By silent ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... to, may be made to yield about an easy chair in the same space of time; whilst luxuriant moustachios will give a pair of anti-rheumatic attrition gloves every six months. Mr. M. recommends, as the best mode of cultivation for barren soils, to plough with a cat's-paw, and manure ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Provisional Government was formed, and at the instigation of Riel, John Bruce, who was a mere cat's-paw, was declared President. Riel himself took the Secretaryship; and very promptly the ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... error,' said Lady Cumnor loftily to Lady Harriet. 'And, Clare, do you mean to say that you are not aware that your daughter has been engaged to Mr. Preston for some time— years, I believe,—and has at last chosen to break it off,—and has used the Gibson girl—I forget her name,—as a cat's-paw, and made both her and herself the town's talk—the butt for all the gossip of Hollingford? I remember when I was young there was a girl called Jilting Jessy. You'll have to watch over your young lady, or she will get some such name. I speak to you like a friend, Clare, when I tell you it's ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... come to my resolution. There is Brunow, who was the fatal cause of it all; and the Baroness Bonnar, who made her cat's-paw of him; and Ruffiano, whom the two betrayed between them; and then there are left the count, and Miss Rossano, and the faithful Hinge. Then there is the ghost of poor Constance Pleyel, who came like a wraith out of ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... gaming-table, inclined to appear sceptical as to the story that Levake had killed an unoffending brakeman. When Scott repeated Stanley's demand that Levake be arrested, the sheriff slammed down his cards and declared he would not be made a cat's-paw for any man; that the brakeman, according to accounts reaching him, had been killed in a fair fight and he would hear no more of it. Then, as if his game had been unreasonably interfered with and his peace of mind injured, he rose from the table ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... him when he realized how closely he was "shadowed." His footsteps dogged if he went abroad; his privacy was broken, without so much as a "by your leave," if he stayed at home; he was treated as a puppet, a cat's-paw, a thing that must move only according to the will of another. A flash of light showed him the utter depth of his degradation; and the two basilisks that sat staring and motionless before him were the instruments that had accomplished his undoing. A wild yearning ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... it overruled the deposition of Mr. Stanton, and General Grant gracefully retired that the "War Secretary" might assume the duties of his office. This made President Johnson very angry. He had wanted to use General Grant as a cat's-paw for keeping Stanton out of the War Department, and had hoped at the same time to injure Grant in the estimation of the people. He raised a question of veracity with the General commanding, but Congress and the people ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... him keenly, with hesitating suspicions. "Ah! Duke Stephen's cat's-paw! I remember you—well!" But before the words were fairly out of her mouth, Agatha's voice had ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... her when she said you were making me a cat's-paw to do what you wouldn't do yourself. What kind of stuff are you made of, Thor? You go flaunting your money before a poor little girl who you know can't resist it, and then, when you get her willing to do God knows what, you push her ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... Seen in dispassionate perspective from outside the turmoil, there is not much to choose, in point of sane and self-respecting manhood, between the sluggish and shamefaced abettor of a sordid national crime, and a ranting patriot who glories in serving as cat's-paw to a syndicate of unscrupulous politicians bent on dominion for dominion's sake. But the question here is not as to the relative merits or the relative manhood contents of the two contrasted types of patriot. Doubtless both ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... shut up like a clam, and find out what I've got. You drove a young woman out here from Haskell night afore last, for Bill Lacy. Ain't abduction no crime? An' that's only one count. I've had an eye on you for more'n six months, an' Lacy's been makin' a damn cat's-paw out of you all that time. Well, Lacy is playin' his last hand right now, an' I've got the cards." The marshal paused, fully aware that he had struck home, then added quietly: "It allers struck me, Matt, that naturally you was a pretty decent fellow, but had drifted ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... Cynthia. I knew from the very first what she was about, what she meant to do. Directly she mentioned Dion Leith to me and asked me to invite him to the Embassy and be kind to him I understood. But I didn't know Dion Leith then. If I had thoroughly known him I should never have been a willing cat's-paw in a very ugly game. But once I had begun—I took them both for a yachting trip—I did not know how to get out of it all. On that yachting trip—I realized how that man was suffering and what he was. I have never before known a man capable of suffering so intensely as ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... language of the people and was not cognisant of their manner of conducting warfare. He also was of opinion that the Chinese Government ought to be able to deal with their own internal affairs, and put down any rebellions that might occur without making a cat's-paw of his son. One cannot blame the father, who only looked at the matter in a natural way, judging the circumstances from his own standpoint. It is impossible to consider the whole facts, and to read the letters concerning them, ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... way back from the sick mare, Dick paused once to listen to the restless stamp of Mountain Lad and his fellows in the stallion barn. In the quiet air, from somewhere up the hills, came the ringing of a single bell from some grazing animal. A cat's-paw of breeze fanned him with sudden balmy warmth. All the night was balmy with the faint and almost aromatic scent of ripening grain and drying grass. The stallion stamped again, and Dick, with a deep breath and realization that never had he more ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... free we must say we had no part in his arrest, that the American made the arrest on his own authority. What a convenient tool the young man is. Why, his coming really frightened us at first, and now—now we make a cat's-paw of him." The King laughed merrily. "We undervalue ourselves sometimes, ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... important—Mrs. Fisher addressed Mrs. Wilkins directly. She was sixty-five, and cared very little what sorts of women she happened to be with for a month, but if the women were to be mixed with men it was a different proposition altogether. She was not going to be made a cat's-paw of. She had not come out there to sanction by her presence what used in her day to be called fast behaviour. Nothing had been said at the interview in London about men; if there had been she would have declined, of course ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... replied to the lawyer's attack, pronouncing him to be "destitute of delicacy, decency, good manners, sound judgment, honesty, manhood, and humanity; a poltroon, a cat's-paw, the infamous tool of a party, a partisan, a political weathercock, ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... would be ill to-day, for she was the one I feared. There was a little medicine in that pink, Turkish stuff—not to hurt her much, but enough for my purpose. If I could, I would have got rid of the aunt, too; only she was needed as the cat's-paw. You would never have come without her. Contessa Corramini knows nothing of this, though she has a suspicion that something mysterious goes on. She was not on the 'Arethusa.' At this moment she is in Venice. Victorine was the one woman beside yourself and the ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to bring into play. Notwithstanding the polite tone which Mr Bellamy had cunningly adopted in placing his mission before him, even he, the ignorant and obtuse Brammel, could not fail to see that he had been made the tool, the cat's-paw in a business from which his partners shrank. Now, had the young man been as full of courage as he was of vulgar conceit, he might, I verily believe, have turned his hatred, and his knowledge of affairs, to very good account. Lacking the spirit of the smallest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... to see that you have been made a cat's-paw of, Janetta," she said. "Miss Adair was tired of school, and took the opportunity of making a to-do about you, so as to provoke the schoolmistress and get sent away. It does not matter to her, of course: she hasn't got her living to earn. And if you ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... were far too busy to attend to my affairs. They were in the midst of equipping an armament to land on Irish shores and strike at England with the cat's-paw of an Irish rebellion. The place was full of Irishmen, some of whom honestly enough looked to see their country redeemed by Dutch saviours; others, hungry hangers-on, seeking what profit to themselves they ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... thing to suggest; but any one who stoops, as I was letting myself do, to use a cat's-paw to work out his ends will surely soil his fingers. The sword is the clean weapon. I felt that even this Indian would look at me with disdain, but she did not. She thought a moment, then wagged ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... staring at me in amazement. The idea that I had discovered his attempt to make a cat's-paw of me was dawning upon him slowly, but knowing nothing of the transept, he could not account for my unexpected appearance. For once, at any rate, he had lost his nerve. I could see that he was ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... As the cat's-paw of her father I was being drawn into such subtle devilish schemes that I felt to draw back must only bring upon my head the vengeance, through fear, of a man who was so entirely unscrupulous and so elusive that the police could never ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... me—keep good lights in my upper story—know a thing or two more than most folk in this country. If folk will come to my house on dangerous errands, egad they shall not find Joe Crackenthorp a cat's-paw. I'll keep myself clear, you may depend on it, and let every man answer for his own actions—that's my way. Anything ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... marriage ceremony, wherein his name would figure with those of distinguished people, and the last thing he counted on was the murder of the scribe who had promised him columns of descriptive matter in the press. The pert musician was not the first, nor would he be the last, to find that the role of cat's-paw is apt to prove more exacting than was anticipated. To his chagrin, he saw himself changed suddenly from a trusted agent into a dupe, and his utter collapse on hearing of the murder fitted in exactly with the theory taking shape in the detective's mind—that ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... furious when angered. I am willing to pass over as a joke this attempt to stir my blood. That you are desirous of getting rid of your rival, I can very well comprehend, and that, because you might have some difficulty in supplanting the son, you endeavor to make a cat's-paw of the father, I can also understand—I am even delighted to find that you are master of such excellent qualifications in the way of roguery. Only, friend Worm, pray don't make me, too, the butt of your knavery. Understand ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... face," said Mrs. Undercliff, ignoring the interruption, "and yet something simple. I think him more likely to be a cat's-paw than a felon." Having delivered this with a certain modest dignity, she laid the profile on ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... he's smart; I tell you he's too damned smart for you!" responded Mr. Rivers, who had very little respect for Mr. Blaisdell's business ability, but found him a very convenient cat's-paw. ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... The elder Kampe has just resigned from the railway service; the supervisor-general (with infamous shrewdness) demands an official inquiry into the state of his accounts. Then all the world will say that Hans Kampe has been used as a cat's-paw by his father, who, knowing that an investigation is inevitable, wishes to throw dust in the eyes of the public and save his own reputation by attacking that of his superior. It is needless to say that he ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... was, no doubt, candidate for the borough of Percycross, and in that capacity a great man in Percycross,—he did not seem to himself to be so great as he had been when he made the journey down from London. There was a certain feeling that he was a cat's-paw, brought there for certain objects which were not his objects,—because they wanted money, and some one who would be fool enough to fight a losing battle! He did not reap all that meed of personal admiration for ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... generally unconscious and mostly unintentional. After a policy of bullying towards France for forty-four years, Germany has discovered during the course of the war that France is the cat's-paw of Russia ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... is not only the Slavs of the Austrian Empire that are threatened by German absorption; that absorption has rapidly extended to the Slav States of the Balkan Peninsula. On the south as well as on the north of the Danube, Austria has been used as the 'cat's-paw,' or, to use the more dignified expression of Emperor William, as the 'loyal Sekundant' of the Hohenzollern. The occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in defiance of the Treaty of Berlin, was the beginning of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... "He was a cat's-paw, Lilly. Never believe otherwise. My boy was caught and trapped in the filthy cesspool of politics. There are men in this city—men whom I named at the trial, all the good it did me, living and prospering for doing worse than my boy died for. You wouldn't know of my boy, ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... well," he said; "but the moment you made up your mind to sell it, it was your business to tell me. That, however, is not the point. You tried to use me as a cat's-paw to pull chestnuts out of the fire for ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... senator's group, it brought back for him the same tender indulgence as before. Meanwhile Ramsey and the cub pilot had caught up the cane's two parts and laid them in the hands of the actor, who quietly resheathed them while Basile mocked the twins. "So that's the way Hayles," jeered the lad, "stand by a cat's-paw ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... lying on the water in a state of compelled inaction, while his friends were being plundered, and perhaps murdered by a gang of miscreants before his eyes! How eagerly and repeatedly did he scan the horizon for the coming breeze! How did Hope raise her head at the slightest cat's-paw that ruffled the surface of the glassy waters! Three successive gales of wind are bad enough; but three gales blowing hard enough to blow the devil's horns off are infinitely preferable to one idle, stagnant, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... and ghostly sights that might move the heart of the veriest stockbroker if he would but force his mind to consider them. Look at that dark tremulous stream that seems to flow over the sullen sea. It is but a cat's-paw of wind, and yet it looks like a river flowing in silence from some fairy region. The boats start out of the haze and glide away into dimness after having shown their phantom shadows for a few seconds; ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the young knight bowed to the three, and then stood erect, as though on duty. "It shames my heart, brother—and thou, uncle—it shames my heart to be one privy to this thing which we are set upon to do. Here be we, the greatest Lords of England, making a cat's-paw of this lad—for he is only yet a boy—and of his blind father, for to achieve our ends against Alban's faction. It seemeth not over-honorable to ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... Dalziel and Milly for taking me, though I couldn't help seeing that it was not for my beaux yeux they had asked me to be their guest. I was a handle, or cat's-paw; but I preferred the part of usefulness to my hostesses to being carted about by them as an expensive luxury. Mrs. Dalziel really wanted me for Tony, who had never been denied anything short of the moon that he cried for. Milly wanted people ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the attack, it now appeared that Loquia had lost many men killed; others who were wounded dropped on the way, and died on the route through Belinian. This loss so enraged Loquia (who considered that he had been only used as a cat's-paw), that he was determined not to return home empty-handed. He therefore revenged himself upon his allies, and captured about 2,000 head of cattle from Belinian, with which he returned to his mountains ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... the fish went into the flurries, and came nigh capsizin' the boat with its tail as it lashed the water into foam. At last it gave in, and we had a four hours' pull after that, to tow the carcase to the ship, for there wasn't a cat's-paw of wind ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... farewell, to say farewell and make a confession. You were right, and I was wrong. It would have better if I had remained and played the country farmer on my estates. I was never shrewd enough to see until now that I have been made the cat's-paw of the very men whose ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the proud, obstinate fighting blood of the Guiscards got up in him. He would not be made a cat's-paw. If she exasperated him further he would forget about being a gentleman, and act as a savage man, and seize her in his arms and punish ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... the actual distance in order to keep to the lanes and alleys whose shelter he dared not leave; but he was spurred on now by a sort of grim, unholy joy. He knew now who had murdered the Magpie, and why; he knew now who was making a tool, a cat's-paw of the Gray Seal; he knew now who had so cynically elected him, if caught, as a substitute for the other to the electric chair. It was Virat! Frenchy Virat, the suave, sleek gambler, confidence man and crook! Well, the game was of Virat's choosing—and they would play it out ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... a clear deep blue in the zenith, merging by imperceptible gradations into a delicate warm grey at the horizon. The water was absolutely without a ripple, there was not so much as the faintest suggestion of a "cat's-paw" on all its glassy surface; and save for the long sluggish sweep and heave of the swell which, as it undulated past the ship, caught and reflected the varying tints of the sky, it would have been difficult to detect the presence of water at all at a distance of more than a few ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... failure to adopt their cause." And the Church in the whole course of its history has constantly yielded to this temptation, and has not seen until too late that in so doing it was making itself the tool or the cat's-paw of one interest or another whose sole interest in religion was the possibility of exploiting the influence of the Church. In the stupid hope of forwarding its spiritual interests the Church has entangled itself with the responsibilities of temporal power; ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... seven o'clock in the evening. The boat was well out in the bay, between three and four miles from land, when John noticed a fresh "cat's-paw" of wind, just touching the water here and there. There was scarcely a cloud in the sky, and nothing whatever to suggest a squall. But as he looked again, a suspicious wisp of white water lifted suddenly from the surface a few yards to windward. Like a flash he remembered that the boat ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... their censures, nor do I work for their praise. According to their and according to your rejoicing...I am either a knave or a fool—a knave if I joined with Brother Marshman; but if, as those gentlemen say, and as you seem to agree with them, I was only led as he pleased, and was a mere cat's-paw, then of course I am a fool. In either way your thoughts are not very high as it respects me. I do not wonder that Jonathan should express himself unguardedly; his family connection with Mr. Pearce sufficiently accounts for that. We have ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... to some unknown point beyond the Atlantic Ocean, there to lose her permanently, we should perhaps be doing our country a service, and would also be relieving this administration of one of its gravest concerns. Best of all, we should be using a fox for a cat's-paw, something which has ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... Hillquit advise Lenine and Trotzky to disguise their American propaganda by using the Industrial Unions of Russia as their cat's-paw? We ask this because Hillquit has long been "Councillor" in America to the Russian Soviet Republic,[L] while the above method of inflaming American labor unions has been the secret method of the Socialist Party's Rand School ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... mother went on with angry emphasis, "have still a character to lose or gain. As I have said, it doesn't now matter vitally to me whether Coryston is in the chair or not—I regard him as merely Glenwilliam's cat's-paw—but if you let this meeting at Martover pass, you will have weakened your position in this constituency, you will have disheartened your supporters, you will have played the coward—and you will have left your mother disgracefully ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wind than hear of it! But while he was speaking I watched his eye, and followed it up to the royal (the topmost sail), and there, sure enough, the corner of the sail was beginning to tremble in the coming breeze. "Don't you see the wind is coming? Look at the royal!" I exclaimed. "No, it is only a cat's-paw," he rejoined (a mere puff of wind). "Cat's-paw or not," I cried, "pray let down the mainsail, and let ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... abstract, were duped by a few wicked and designing men. There is a slight difference of opinion on this. We think he, being ardently attached to the hope of a second term, in the concrete, was duped by men who hate liberty every way. He is the cat's-paw. By much dragging of chestnuts from the fire for others to eat, his claws are burnt off to the gristle, and he is thrown aside as unfit for further use. As the fool said of King Lear, when his daughters had turned him out of doors, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... Tavistock got me to write the requisition to the Duke of Rutland to call another meeting of the committee, to reconsider the question of the selection of the artist. It is a gross job of Sir Frederic Trench's, and has been so from the beginning, the Duke being a mere cat's-paw of that impudent Irish pretender. The Duke of Wellington himself thinks it a great job, and would be very glad to see it defeated; but he said that 'his lips were sealed, he could take no part, the Duke of Rutland had been so personally kind to him, but that it was the ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Mondolfo," shouted one tall fellow, "and the Cardinal-legate makes a cat's-paw of him! He is to ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... without questioning their motives or deserts; I taking the ground that, while Christ "knew the heart of man," man could not know the heart of his brother-man,—-at least not always on first sight, though afterward he could make a tolerably shrewd guess as to whether he was being used as a cat's-paw for the encouragement of the shiftless. But he stuck firmly to his "resist not evil" doctrine; while I maintained that the very doctrine admitted that it was "evil" by making use of the word at all, hence a thing to be preached ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... June Holiday Home!'—'And that's no small sum, I'll warrant!' the man replied.—'Small!' she exclaimed; 'she's robbing them every day of her life! But she's in a terrible fix now, and I guess she knows it! I can't be thankful enough that for once she didn't make a cat's-paw of me! I said, 'When there's any flogging to be done, you will do it!' She was mad, and I half expected her to discharge me on the spot, but I know too much for her to dare to go too far. I've done piles of dirty work for Amelia Sniffen!'—'Better cut it out,' said the man.—'Can't, as long as I ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... olive before he answered the question. "He has allied himself with some of the noblest houses in France; that is to say, with the most heartless spendthrifts in Europe. Napoleon IV? They are laughing behind his back this very minute. They are making a cat's-paw of his really magnificent fight for their own ignoble ends, the Orleanist party. To wreak petty vengeance on France, for which none of them has any love; to embroil the government and the army that they may tell of it in the boudoirs. ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... became very close friends. One day Mr. Bennett and Mr. W.J. Bryan called at the parsonage. I happened to be out at the time, but dined with them that evening. Next morning a church member, who was a sort of cat's-paw for the rich men, called at the parsonage and informed me of the "disgust" of the leading members. "They won't stand for ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... agent of the English. True. But it does not better the case for his countryman that, being an accomplice in the crime, making himself the leader in the persecution against the helpless girl, he was willing to be all this in the spirit, and with the conscious vileness of a cat's-paw. Never from the foundations of the earth was there such a trial as this, if it were laid open in all its beauty of defence and all its hellishness of attack. Oh, child of France! shepherdess, peasant girl! trodden under foot by all around thee, how ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... it? You say that the crown matrimonial which I denied you is to be conferred on you by these lawless men? Believing that, you signed their pardon and recall from exile. Ha! You do not see, my lord, that you are no more than their tool, their cat's-paw. You do not see that they use you but for their ends, and that when they have done with you, they will serve you as they served poor Davie? No, you see none of that, which is why I call you a fool, that need a woman's wit to open wide ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the matter of marriage. Although he is, as we might think, the person most interested in the result, he is permitted no say in the affair whatever. In fact, it is not his affair at all, but his father's. His hand is simply made a cat's-paw of. The matter is entirely a business transaction, entered into by the parent and conducted through regular marriage brokers. In it he plays only the part of a marionette. His revenge for being thus bartered out ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... pole, which marked a rock, so as to prevent being carried back by the reflux. Some of the passengers turned in below; some stretched themselves on deck; some walked about, smoking cigars. I kept the deck all night. Once there was a little cat's-paw of a breeze, whereupon we untied ourselves from the pole; but it almost immediately died away, and we were compelled to make fast again. At about two o'clock, up rose the morning star, a round, red, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which we were resting, made me fear that my son had been mistaken. I shook my head, and a sigh escaped from several of our party, as they sank down again on their seats. Just then, however, I caught sight of a light cat's-paw skimming over the water in the distance, and Peter, springing at the same moment into the rigging and pointing westward, exclaimed, "Here it comes, father, no mistake about it now." I followed him up the rigging, and saw in the far west a wide-extending ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... baiting the other man's evident misery soon palled. He was a little annoyed himself that Joan should have seen fit to drag him in as such a cat's-paw, for a very few minutes of their threesome had shown him what his part was intended to be. It meant in addition that the girl had fooled him, and that he had wasted his background of red roses. It was all very annoying and a very stupid way of spending the afternoon, for no one could ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... bracing climate of Japan, we felt the heat considerably. We had done so even when there was a breeze; it now fell calm. I scarcely before knew what a real calm at sea was. The ocean was literally as smooth as a sheet of glass—not the slightest swell was perceptible—not the faintest cat's-paw played over the water. Some chips thrown overboard floated exactly where they had fallen; and hour after hour, as I looked over the side, there they were. Even a light vane of feathers fastened in the mizzen-rigging hung down. The smoke ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... of most Americans, when a hard and fast alliance with Great Britain is suggested to them, usually formulates itself in the statement that they have no wish to be made into a cat's-paw for pulling England's chestnuts out of the fire. America has no desire to be drawn into England's quarrels. Until less than ten years ago, there was justification for the point of view; for while England seemed ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... belong to the Allies, and they won't get a cent of it." He was getting more angry as he proceeded in his harangue. "Moreover," he continued, "our weak administration can't use me to help it out of the hole it has foolishly stumbled into, or make America the cat's-paw to pull British chestnuts out of the fire. You ought to be ashamed, Miss Burrows, to lend yourself to such unpatriotic methods of bulldozing ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... persuaded, as in the following case of a Sinhalese wittol, by a gang of thieves to join them in a plundering expedition, they have little reason to be pleased with him, for he does not make a good "cat's-paw." The Sinhalese noodle joined some thieves, took readily to their ways, and was always eager to accompany them on their marauding excursions. One night they took him with them, and boring a large hole in the wall ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... announced his intention of journeying to New York, and ordered Philemon to be his travelling companion that he might have the advantage of his knowledge of the holders of the elder Hennion's bonds. The would-be son-in-law at first objected to being made a cat's-paw, but the squire was obstinate, and after a night upon it, Phil acceded. No other difficulty was found in the attainment of Mr. Meredith's purpose, the money-lenders in New York being only too glad, in the growing insecurity and general suspension of ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... well-known 'Sanctificatio ex loco, opere, tactu vel conditione.' I will admit that this power is but vague, slight, tenuous, and dissipatory, still there it is: though of course its poor effect is to that of the Benedictio major what a cat's-paw in the Solent is to a ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... to come forward with them so soon after his victim's death! This claimant doesn't know how or where or when they were obtained—he doesn't suspect that murder's in it. Now, then—where did he get them? Who's at the back of him? Who—to be plain—who's making a cat's-paw of him? Find that out, and we shall know who ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... along its landward edge, until it stopped short at a distance of about two miles from the shore, blowing fresh right up to a certain well-defined point, between which and the land all was gleaming, glassy swell, unruffled by even so much as a cat's-paw. But the boundary line which divided breeze from calm was not stationary by any means, on the contrary, it was creeping nearer rapidly. When Bascomb came up on the poop he merely glanced at it for a moment and then called to the seamen to trim the ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... but that Palmerston could not. This was the diplomatic tradition, especially held by the Russian diplomats. Possibly it was sound, but it helped in no way the education of a private secretary. The cat's-paw theory offered no safer clue, than the frank, old-fashioned, honest theory of villainy. Neither the one nor the other ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... that haunted Clarence in the Clotho.) Also, when on shore at Malta with the young man whose name I will not record—his evil genius—he was beguiled or bullied into a wine-shop, and while not himself was made the cat's-paw of some insolent practical joke on the lieutenant; and when called to account, was so bewildered and excited as ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ceremony of marriage over a runaway couple. I knew you wouldn't come of your own free will; therefore, I took the trouble to ascertain about those little expectations of yours from Mrs. Holywell, and used that good lady, whose health, I trust, is no worse than usual, as a cat's-paw. You must pardon the deception, dear sir, and you must perform the marriage ceremony without inconvenient scruples, or hesitation, or questions. Be thankful, for the sake of morality, we see the propriety of getting married at all. You are listening to ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... "fixed in her best;" Wife—sulky, or storming, or preaching, or prating; She—merrily singing, or laughing, or chatting: Then the innocent freedom her friendship allows To the happy half-way between mother and spouse. In short, if the Devil e'er needs a cat's-paw, He can't find one more sure than ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton |
