"Ferret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lots of the girls in the afternoon," said Eric. "I do hope that big ferret isn't making his way out. He is a stunner, sir; why, he killed—Ermie, keep your legs away—he has teeth like razors, sir, and once he catches on, he never lets go. He'll suck you to death as likely ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... to ferret into this yere myst'ry, we finds thar's a sharp come up from Dallas who claims that Cimmaron's got to pay him what Glidden owes. This yere Dallas party puts said indebtednesses ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the torrent, I do not believe it. They are not likely to have gone off without our people knowing something about it. They are either in hiding somewhere near Roaring Water,—and if so, I shall soon ferret them out,—or else they have gone away to take squaws from among the Indians, and ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... try and ferret out something for ourselves before we tell the police. They always have a clue directly they hear about the finding of the body. And besides, we might as well let Alice be in anything there is going. And besides, we ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... calm; he had been kept in solitary confinement and had suffered all the hardships of prison life with the resignation of a martyr. In spite, however, of all precautions, the clever Marcasse, who could work his way anywhere like a ferret, had managed to convey to him a letter from Arthur, to which Edmee had added a few words. Authorized by this letter to say everything, he made a statement similar to that made by Patience, and owned that Edmee's first words ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... popular songs were made. As Mr. Levy was arranging songs for nearly all the big publishers, we had plenty of material with which to play our favorite indoor sport. It was a rare song, indeed, whose musical parent we could not ferret out. Nearly all the successful popular songs frankly owned themes that were favorites of other days—some were favorites ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... D—, however, some intelligent friends of his arrived in the mean time, and having heard his statement about the whole affair, they 'smelt a rat,' and determined to ferret it out. They examined the waiter—previously handing him over five guineas—and this man declared the truth that Mr D— did not play at all—in fact, that he was in such a condition that there could not be any real play. Dick England was therefore 'blown' on this occasion. Mr D— returned him ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... monologue Gertrude decides to accept the Burgomaster. She is interrupted in her soliloquy by Lampe, the Beadle, who is a regular old Paul Pry, and boasts to the widow of his smartness and sagacity. According to himself he can ferret out anything, or any one, from a defrauder of the revenue to a thief, an anarchist or a murderer. Then he goes on to say that he intended to serve notice of distraint on Frau Willmers, but had found her door ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... have often thought your one want was gentleness,' said Miss Ada, with the gesture of her childhood—-her head a little on one side. 'And, besides, don't you know what Reggie used to call your ferret look? Well, I suppose you can't help it, but when you want to know a thing and are refraining from asking questions, you always have it ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... where, please God, we are going to dine today; I am more than fairly well off, and my name is Don Diego de Miranda. I pass my life with my wife, children, and friends; my pursuits are hunting and fishing, but I keep neither hawks nor greyhounds, nothing but a tame partridge or a bold ferret or two; I have six dozen or so of books, some in our mother tongue, some Latin, some of them history, others devotional; those of chivalry have not as yet crossed the threshold of my door; I am more given to turning over the profane than the devotional, so long as they are books of honest entertainment ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... this joke struck neither all at once. Sam'l began to smile at it as he turned down the school-wynd, and it came upon Henders while he was in his garden feeding his ferret. Then he slapped his legs gleefully, and explained the conceit to Will'um Byars, who went into the ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... with wonder that so many marriages are passably successful, and so few come to open failure, the more so as I fail to understand the principle on which people regulate their choice. I see women marrying indiscriminately with staring burgesses and ferret-faced, white-eyed boys, and men dwell in contentment with noisy scullions, or taking into their lives acidulous vestals. It is a common answer to say the good people marry because they fall in love; and of course you may use and misuse a word as much as you please, if you have the world ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... arrested me. He is still young, tall, broad-shouldered, and his constabulary uniform seems almost too tight for him. His face, square and massive, is pitted with smallpox, his moustache small and fair, and his eyes sharp and ferret-like. The third, who is in mufti, is Mr. N——, the procurer to the Chamber of Judgments.[2] Tall, stout, with an insignificant face, brown eyes, and a brown beard shaved on the chin, he is still a young man. In the town of X——, where he is a stranger, he enjoys a reputation for ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... had enough of that youngster at present," said one; "he has 'peached once, and will ferret out what we're about, and 'peach again if he has the chance. I only wish we had dropped him overboard with a shot ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... dual personality or is it merely extraordinary versatility, for she can certainly write detective stories just as well as she can write nonsense verse. The story is told in the first person by a modest young sleuth who is sent to a suburban place to ferret out the mystery which shrouds the murder of a prominent man. Circumstantial evidence in the shape of a gold mesh bag points to a woman as the criminal, and the only possible one is the dead man's niece with whom the detective ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... was: How soon will Russia be able to mount an army? Probably not very soon, he decided. That fact gave him time to ferret out more information; to become ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... when used in the general text of an inscription; in other words, that the use of an alphabet was not confined to proper names. This was the great secret which Young missed and which his French successor, Jean Francois Champollion, working on the foundation that Young had laid, was enabled to ferret out. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand, to look at. According to his own account, he leaves his old trade and joins ours of his own free will and preference. You will no more believe that than I do. My notion is, that he has managed to ferret out some private information in connection with the affairs of one of his master's clients, which makes him rather an awkward customer to keep in the office for the future, and which, at the same time, gives him hold enough over ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... dignity and fair fame of the establishment in its intercourse with clients, the soul of the place, the ever-busy manipulator, was her husband, Monsieur Broquette, a little man with a pointed nose, quick eyes, and the agility of a ferret. Charged with the police duties of the office, the supervision and training of the nurses, he received them, made them clean themselves, taught them to smile and put on pleasant ways, besides penning them in their various rooms and preventing them from eating too much. From morn till ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... pursued his friend sarcastically, "is why you haven't tried to smell the chaps out by means of Smiley. Now, if you let Smiley have a good sniff of that bit of rope on your watch-chain, and then turn him out into the square, he'd ferret them out for you." ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... of social supremacy which she might there entertain would soothe her ruffled vanity and assuage her disappointed heart; and at the same time he would be nearer Berenice Fleming. Say what one will of these ferret windings of the human mind, they are, nevertheless, true and characteristic of the average human being, and Cowperwood was no exception. He saw it all, he calculated on it—he calculated on the simple ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... and small, lean as with fasting or with a wasting hunger not of this world, and his hands were as small and slender as a woman's. But his eyes! They were cunning and trustless, narrow- slitted and heavy-lidded, at one and the same time as sharp as a ferret's and as ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... was known, when the town grew inquisitive, and the critics were compelled to ferret out his antecedents, that the new actor had already attained middle age,—that he had been vegetating for years in that obscurest and most miserable of all dramatic positions, the low comedian of a country-theatre,—that he had come timidly to London and accepted at a low salary the post of buffoon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... and make it very unpleasant for the president of Groveton Bank, was certain. He would ask, among other things, why Mr. Duncan had not informed him of the loss by cable, and no satisfactory explanation could be given. He would ask, furthermore, why detectives had not been employed to ferret out the mystery, and here again no satisfactory explanation could be given. Prince Duncan knew very well that he had a reason, but it was not ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... the personal charms of Mrs Nicholas Forster at the time of their union, she had, at the period of our narrative, but few to boast of, being a thin, sharp-nosed, ferret-eyed little woman, teeming with suspicion, jealousy, and bad humours of every description: her whole employment (we may say, her whole delight) was in finding fault: her shrill voice was to be heard from the other side of the street from morning ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... best men. You see there's another thing which brings him into favour with the captain and first lieutenant; he has a knack of finding men and getting them to join the ship, by making her out to be the most comfortable ship in the service, and there's no man knows better how to ferret out seamen, and to lead a pressgang down upon a score of them together. I learned all these things from different people, do ye see, but putting this and that together, I made out my story as I tell it to you. To my mind, Charles Iffley is ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... silly," said Prudence. "Why, suppose we were to lose ourselves, that old mare you are riding would take you home straight as the crow flies. Besides, I have no fancy for that ferret-faced Chintz becoming one of our party. We could never talk ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... the tyrant's horn and, in a thrice, The Tories gather. Eagerly they band, For is the King not greater than the land? And rows with royalty, a rabble's vice? Besides, what creeping tribes at his command, And Spies and Hessians at a ferret's price! ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... comparatively dry; the wind did not send its thin mist into this canvas cranny. Not so dark as he may have desired, if one were to judge by the expression in his feverish eyes as he peered back at the darkness out of which he had slunk, but so cramped in shadow that only the eye of a ferret could have distinguished the figure huddled there. Chilled to the bone, wet through and through, this white-faced lad, with drooping lip and quickened breath, crouched there and waited for the heavy footstep and the brutal command of the canvasman ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... terrarum ac gentium sunt regibus principibusque praestari par et aequum est, vt quanquam maximo locorum interuallo dissiti, et moribus ac legibus discrepantes, communem tamen generis humani societatem tueri et conseruare, mutuaque vt occasio ferret, charitatis et beneuolentiae officia velint exercere: in eo nos de vestra fide atque humanitate spem certissimam concipientes huic subito nostro Laurentio Alderseio in regnum vestrum proficiscenti, hasce literas nostras, quibus et nostra ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... explained, it is probable, by the fact, stated by Neal in his "History of New England," that there was an organized association of private individuals, a committee of vigilance, in Salem, during the continuance of the delusion, who had undertaken to ferret out and prosecute all suspected persons. He says that many were arrested and thrown into prison by their influence and interference. It is hardly to be doubted, that the persons who busied themselves to ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... vein, and are swept away by the stream. Surely now the regular leucocyte cavalry have them at their mercy, and can cut them down at leisure. We little realize the fiendish resourcefulness of the cancer-cell. One such adrift in the body is like a ferret in a rabbit warren; no other cell can face it for an instant. It simply floats unmolested along the lymph-channels until its progress is arrested in some way, when it promptly settles down wherever it may happen to have landed, begins to multiply and ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... Vance, who lived on a salary of five thousand a year, but whose wife was such a good manager that they kept a brougham and victoria and always put in their season at Newport and their spring trip to Europe. The little ferret-faced youth in the corner was Regie Colby, who wrote the Entre- Nous paragraphs in the Social Searchlight: the women were charming to him and he got all the financial tips he wanted from their ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... There is, at the close of this volume, a rather interesting Privilege du Roi, signed by Conrart ("le silencieux Conrart"), sealed with "the great seal of yellow wax in a simple tail" (one ribbon or piece of ferret only?), and bestowing its rights "nonobstant Clameur de Haro, Charte ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... clandestinely. In the villages, secret societies were formed which the priests chose to call "Freemasonry"; and on the ground that all vows which could not be explained at the confessional were anti-christian, the Archbishop gave strict injunctions to the friars to ferret out the so-called Freemasons. Denunciations by hundreds quickly followed, for the priests willingly availed themselves of this licence to get rid of anti-clericals and others who had displeased them. In the town of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... church, That leads nowhither; now, they breathed themselves On the main promenade just at the wrong time: You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat Making a peaked shade blacker than itself Against the single window spared some house Intact yet with its mouldered Moorish work— Or else surprise the ferret of his stick 20 Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinks Of some new shop a-building, French and fine. He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, The man who slices lemons into drink, The coffee-roaster's ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... have a notion that we have, in these parts, a species of the genus Mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat: a little reddish beast, not much bigger than a field-mouse, but much longer, which they call a cane. This piece of intelligence can be little depended on; but farther inquiry may be made."—Natural ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... quiet, Jolly Roger took off his shoes. After that he made no more sound than a ferret as he crept to the door. An inch at a time he raised himself, until he was standing up, with his ear half an inch from the crack that ran lengthwise of the frame. Holding his breath, he listened. For an interminable time, it seemed to him, there was no sound from within. ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... at him out of his ferret eyes, and says very quietly, 'I think the will had better ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... that he had not taken the third sucker under his own care. Gryphus would have been sure to ferret it out in the search, and would then have treated it ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... throw all the letter-writin' on her shoulders. You take special note of her, Wopper, and if it should seem to you that they don't treat her well, you let me know.' 'Willum,' says I, 'I will—trust me.' 'Well, then,' says Willum, 'there's one other individooal I want you to ferret out, that's the gentleman—he must be an old gentleman now—that saved my life when I was a lad, Mr Lawrence by name. You try to find him out and if you can do him a good turn, do it.' 'Willum,' says I, 'I'll do it—trust me.' 'I do,' ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... busy making strawberry jam, which had turned out very well, all except the last lot. Gerald called me to see his new ferret just after I had put the sugar in, and, by the time I got back, the jam had, ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... struggled towards his lips never arrived there. The book of exorcisms fell from his paralysed hand, and the vial of holy water lay in shivers upon the floor. Ere he could collect himself, the dead Pope had seated himself beside the Pope with one foot in the grave, and, fondling a ferret-skin, proceeded to enter ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... who met Freistner in Amsterdam and started these negotiations, and I'm damned if I like Fenn, or trust him. Did you see the way he looked at Stenson out of the corners of his eyes, like a little ferret? Stenson was at his best, too. I ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... no good, without you're going to do something. I know; we'll go back and make Magg lend us his ferret, and then we'll try ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... significantly reflected. He was absolutely shrunk up with terror into half his size, his little thin, corded neck appearing as if it were striving unsuccessfully to work its way down into his trunk, and his small ferret eyes looking about in every direction for some one to extricate him out of the deadly thrall in which he was held. Mave, who had been aware of the enmity which his companion bore him, as well as of its cause, and fearing ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... and so I replied: "Look here, Marchas, are you having a joke with me?" "I never joke on duty." "But where the devil do you expect me to find any women?" "Where you like; there must be two or three remaining in the neighborhood, so ferret them out ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... tone and of the conversation many times before he left London next evening. He was rather an adept at the discovery of small mysteries; he liked to draw conclusions from a series of small events, and to ferret out other people's secrets. He thought that he was now upon the track of some design of Vivian's, and he became exceedingly curious about it. If it had been possible to open the box without disturbing the seals upon it, ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... less than that there is a secret gang of thieves and villains of all kinds, whose head quarters are somewhere in this region of country, and that I intend to ferret ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... somewhat resembling a ferret, but more nearly allied to the Nilotic ichneumon of Egypt, was a marvellously lithe and active little creature, perfectly tame, and coming as readily as a dog to his name, "Mungo," except when overfed, when he would sleep sometimes for hours, rolled up at the bottom ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... her niece—through those who had perpetrated the outrage; or she might even receive a few written words from the girl herself. After that it was a question of negotiating, or, while professing to deal with the perpetrators, to ferret them out if one could. The latter course was dangerous, for those who stoop to this particular crime are usually of a desperate type; he and Miss Van Rolsen could consider that question later. Meanwhile she must avoid ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Kent bit savagely at his cigar as a slight vent to his feelings. "'Killed by a dose of aconitine by a person or persons unknown,' was the jury's verdict, and a nice tangle they have left me to ferret out.'' ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... themselves or some one, and the Baptis' preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any hint of prearrangement in ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... thirty years of age; of a thin spare body, less than medium height; and features slightly marked with, the bar sinister. A face without beard—skin of cadaverous hue—nose sharply pointed—chin and forehead both receding—eyes small, but sparkling like those of a ferret—and long lank black hair, thinly shading his cheeks and brows—were the prominent characteristics of this man's portrait. His dress was of a clerical cut and colour—though not of the finest fabric. The ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... paroxysms. With flushed face, bloodshot eyes, and mouth foaming with a species of fury, he mounted his horse, went at full speed to the court-house, made inquiries of everybody who had seen his brother, asked with whom he had last been seen, and left no stone unturned to ferret out the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... remarkably tall and thin; a very shadow; with a white shadow of a face, and a nose that might have served as a model for a mask in a carnival of guys. A sharp nose, twice the length and half the breadth of any ordinary nose—a very ferret of a nose; its sharp tip standing straight out into the air. People said, with such a nose Mr. Gum ought to have a great deal of curiosity. And they were right; he had a great ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... obtaining the most accurate information in regard to the construction of the machine, he set to work and made one precisely like it; but it wouldn't go. Satisfied, now, that there was imposture, he resolved to ferret it out. There was some force beyond the machine he was convinced. Communicating his suspicions to a couple of friends, he was readily joined by them in a proposed effort to find out the true secret of the motion imparted to the machine. He had noticed that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... gist of what you have already told me," said the commissioner. "Muller, Miss Graumann believes her nephew innocent, contrary to the opinion of the local authorities in G—. She has come to ask for some one from here who could ferret out the truth of this matter. You are free now, and if we find that it can be done without offending the ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... unique are of the highest rarity, are of great historic value, while others are difficult of access, if not wholly inaccessible, to the general student. It s one of the purposes therefore of the Hercules Club to ferret out these materials, collate, edit and reproduce them with extreme accuracy, but not in facsimile. The printing is to be in the best style of the Chiswick Press. The paper with the Club's monogram in each leaf is ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... are poor fellows lurking about here and there, but bad blood is over among us. No need to ferret about ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... capital village of the tiny Lowland Republic of Nareda, goes Philip Grant, an operative of the United States Customs Department, on a dangerous assignment—to ferret out the men who are smuggling mercury into the United ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... bony frame clothed in semi-military garments, his wooden face perfectly shaved, his iron-grey hair neatly parted and plastered down upon his head with pomade or some equivalent after the old private soldier fashion, and his sharp ferret-like grey ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... A.M. saw strange sail, hauled up for her and spoke the Ferret, Whaler, last from ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... certainly. Ah ha! The old fool is unable to get up any more, he is not even able to strike anybody. If he cries out, nobody is afraid of him; but, at any rate, he has strength enough to pull the bell-rope, send for his steward, tell him to go to the office of the alispan[1] there ferret out and bring back his last will and testament—and then he can dictate another will to his lawyer quite cosily at ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... my hand down, and it was given a vicious bite by a white, pink-eyed ferret Paul was carrying there. I yelled with pain and surprise. I pulled my hand up in the air, the ferret hanging to a finger. The ferret dropped to the ground. Paul stooped and picked it up, guffawing. It didn't bite him. It knew and feared ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... walls were decorated with pictures cut from illustrated papers; there was a big fireplace, and by it was a hard- looking sofa covered with blue- and-white checked cotton stuff. A boy of about ten was lying on it, propped up with a pillow. He had a big head and a keen, ferret-eyed face, and just now was looking round the end of his sofa at the visitors. "Howd tha tongue, Tummas! " said his mother. "I wunnot howd it," Tummas answered. "Ma tongue's th' on'y thing about me as works right, an' I'm ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Linnet, with whom she wished to be on intimate terms, broke suddenly off, and the poor young lady was precipitated to the ground and sadly hurt. Her cries brought to her assistance her younger brother Tom, who, as soon as he had helped her home, ran for young Ferret, who had lately begun practice as a physician. When the good young doctor came, he found Miss Weasel lying on the sofa, looking very pale and very interesting. He felt her pulse, looked at her ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... the bones of the great Mogul!" he exclaimed—"and now that I am on the right scent, I shall soon ferret out the ravenous wolves that have carried my poor lamb to their infernal den. Ah, Corporal Grimsby, thou art a cunning dog!" So saying, he departed on his benevolent errand of endeavoring to rescue Fanny Aubrey from the power ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... They are both Low Church, Miss Garnons told me, but she herself held quite different views. Then she asked me if I did not think the Reverend Ernest Trench had a "soulful face," so pure and abstracted that merely looking at him gave thoughts of a higher life. I said No; he reminded me of a white ferret we had once, and I hated curates. She looked perfectly sick at me and did not take the trouble to talk any more, but joined Adeline, who had been winding silk with Fraeulein Schlarbaum for a tie she ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... sideways and looked at his master, like a ferret examining an angry terrier; alert, deliberate, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... government, preserving the while a calm punctilio and an exterior of fathomless simplicity. The ambassador of modern Europe is at once a Chesterfield, a Machiavelli, and a Vidocq. He must be a lamb, a lion, and a ferret. He must fly upon the wing of occasion, he must condescend to act as messenger boy to his Prime Minister, he must conduct a business office and a fashionable restaurant and ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... lifting the pail of hot water with which they had just washed the body. She had long lean arms, a hunched back, a great sharp chin sunk on her hollow breast, and small eyes restless as a ferret's; and she clattered about in great bowls of shoes, old and clouted, that were made for a foot as ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... eager as possible to be off, and, by the 16th, all was in readiness for their departure. Passports were obtained from Lafayette and places reserved in the public diligence. They took only one servant with them—the man Bertrand, whom Galvert had been at pains to ferret out and take into his employ, thinking to prevent him from mingling again with the ruffians and cutthroats of the Palais Royal and faubourgs. Such was the fellow's devotion to Calvert that he abandoned ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... have involved the formulating of a number of apparently irrelevant propositions; so that any one who please may accuse me of inexactness; and, to give an instance, cover the margins of my essay on Mediaeval Love with a whole list of virtuous love stories of the Middle Ages; or else ferret out of Raynouard and Von der Hagen a dozen pages of mediaeval poems in praise of rustic life. These objections will be perfectly correct, and (so far as my knowledge permitted me) I might have puzzled the reader with them myself; but it remains none the less certain that, in the main, mediaeval ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... retrieve the tubes. They dove for various hiding places—under benches, behind retorts, anywhere to get away from the terror running amuck in their midst. And after them sprang Dex, mad with his sudden miraculous success, to ferret them out one by one and blow them into hell ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... came home to-day laden down with bags of gold like Ali Baba. How he is going to do away with it so that the ferret eyes of the enemy will not spy it out, is a problem to me. And I do not want it explained for I am sure I should look right into the forbidden corner at the wrong moment ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... everything in her own mind for taking Maud back that very evening, but after all, one day was as good as another, and if Jim should once begin on the subject of Maud, who could tell what he might ferret out? He might even insist on himself taking Maud back to her supposed mother and baby sister, and then what would happen? And it would be of no use to keep back her sister's address from him, for ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... was by no means a youthful Apollo. To speak more plainly, he was no beauty. A tow head and freckled face often belong to a prepossessing boy of popular manners, but in Andrew's case they were joined to insignificant features, small ferret eyes, a retreating chin and thin lips, set off ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... boy to call every morning at Kenmuir, and trot off to the village school with Maggie Moore. And soon the lad came to look on Kenmuir as his true home, and James and Elizabeth Moore as his real parents. His greatest happiness was to be away from the Grange. And the ferret-eyed little man there noted the fact, bitterly resented it, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... in the forest. A baby rabbit had run past her, terrified; a ferret in pursuit. Wiggs had picked the little fluffy thing up in her arms and comforted it; the ferret had slowed down, walked past very indifferently with its hands, as it were, in its pockets, hesitated a moment, ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... big enough reward, I'll find out who the feller is," said Anderson. "Course, you understand it ain't my duty as marshal to ferret out matrimonial mysteries. I'd have to tackle it in my capacity as a private detective. An' you couldn't hardly expect me to do all this extry work without bein' paid ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... Forget the "Address"—and stop to stare—And who detains the Husband true, Running to Doctor Doode-Doo, To save his Wife "in greatest danger;" While e'en the Doctor keeps the stranger Another hour from life and light, To gape at the bewitching sight. The Bard, in debt, whom Bailiffs ferret, Despite his poetry and merit, Stops in his quick retreat awhile, And tries the long-forgotten smile; E'en the pursuing Bum forgets His business, and the man of Debts; The one neglecting "Caption"—"Bail"— The other "thoughts of gyves and Jail"— So wondrous are the spells that bind ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... States-General until Philip III. had mastered the subject in detail, was a prospect too dreary even for the equable soul of Brother John. Dismayed at the position in which he found himself, he did his best to ferret out the reasons for the preposterous delay; not being willing to be paid off in allusions to the royal investigations. He was still further appalled at last by discovering that the delay was absolutely for the delay's sake. It was considered inconsistent with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the first time, Beryl perceived that he held a slip of yellow paper from which he looked now and then to her face. His features were coarse and heavy, but his eyes were keen as a ferret's; and without answering his question, she turned away and looked across the water which teemed with craft of every description, laden with freight animate and inanimate, passing to and from the vast city, whose spires, domes and forest of masts rose like a gray cloud against the sky, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... I should want to kill it, anyway. Some of you English people have sporting ideas I can't understand. I struck a young man the other day—a well-educated man by the looks of him—who was spending the afternoon happily with a ferret by a corn stack, killing rats with a club. He seemed uncommonly pleased with himself because he'd ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... do so. But, look you, Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, And all the rest look like a chidden train: Calpurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero 185 Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes As we have seen him in the Capitol, Being cross'd in conference by ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... vel intactae segetis per summa volaret Gramina, nec teneras cursu laesisset aristas; Vel mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti, Ferret iter, celeres ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... out his instructions too laboriously. Clo didn't like the ferret-man, and she didn't believe that ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Nothing but the cool brain, sleepless vigilance, and wonderful sagacity of one man,—a young officer never read of in the newspapers,—removed from field-duty because of disability, but commissioned, I verily believe, by Providence itself to ferret out and foil this deeper-laid, wider-spread, and more diabolical conspiracy than any that darkens the page of history. Other men—and women, too—were instrumental in dragging the dark iniquity to light; but they failed to fathom its full enormity, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... to Portsmouth," observed the mother, "and find out all about this. I hardly know whom to suspect; but let Nancy alone, she'll ferret out the truth—she has many gossips at the Point. Whoever informed against the landing must ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... others and careless of himself was easily understood. Conjecture was rife. The presence of the horse admitted of several interpretations. An Indian ambush was the most probable, and a number of men were detailed to ferret out the mystery. We were then seventy miles below Sumner, and with orders to return to the herd at night six of us immediately started. The searching party was divided into squads, one on either side of the Pecos River, but no results were obtained from the first day's hunt. The herd had ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... worm your way into their circles, to feel them out. To contact their own underground, if one exists. To ferret out definite information on how they would react if we began definite changes in the ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... people, but there is no example of a person so destitute of all talent (excepting that of low intrigue), as was Cardinal Dubois, being thus fortunate. His intellect was of the most ordinary kind; his knowledge the most common-place; his capacity nil; his exterior that of a ferret, of a pedant; his conversation disagreeable, broken, always uncertain; his falsehood written upon his forehead; his habits too measureless to be hidden; his fits of impetuosity resembling fits of madness; his head incapable of containing ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... race, helpless as a child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a deliberate lazy way he set himself to torture me as a schoolboy would devote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaled beetle, or as a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself comfortably to the neck of a rabbit. The burden of his conversation was that there was no escape "of no kind whatever," and that I should stay here till I died and was "thrown on to the sand." If it were possible to forejudge the conversation of the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the car and in his nervous annoyance at once vented the hasty conclusion at which he arrived in the words: "I see; this is a trap, and you are a modern highwayman whose stunt will make good Sunday reading in cold print." He wore a sarcastic smile, and his sharp eyes gleamed like a ferret's. ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... marked aversion to engaging in any business pursuit. A mysterious case and its solution having been related to him, he resolved to devote his income, now amounting to a million dollars yearly, to amateur detective work. His great-desire was to ferret out and solve mysteries, murders, suicides, robberies, and disappearances that baffled the police and ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... fell while we were in the train, and the heat was far less oppressive in Croydon than in town. Holmes had sent on a wire, so that Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever, was, waiting for us at the station. A walk of five minutes took us to Cross Street, where ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... He was a human ferret, as had been proven many times during his boyhood. At one time the jewelry store in which he worked as a shipping clerk lost a valuable necklace, and after the police of Chicago had failed to find a clew, James' special ability was reported and he was given a week's vacation to ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... a ferret in the shape of a mastiff. You'll never persuade me that I can't tell what men are by their outsides. If I don't like a man's looks, depend upon it I shall never like HIM. I don't want to know people that look ugly and disagreeable, any more than I want to taste dishes that look disagreeable. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... politics and that's pretty near the same thing. There are prowling bands of outlaws, calling themselves soldiers, that the authorities can't reach. Look at those mountains over there! What government that has to give half its time or more to watching its own step, can manage to ferret out every nest of highwaymen in every canon? Those boys are my big trouble, Jim! A raid from them is always on the books and there are times when I'm pretty near ready to throw up the sponge and drift. But it's a great land; ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... quoted Kent from the Fourth Reader. He was shaking with suppressed laughter, that turned into astonishment at Old Tilly's calm rejoinder. If it didn't take Old Till to ferret things out! ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... butted me; such daring at the hands of such a dastard implied unchangeable resolve, a great pressure of necessity, and powerful means. I thought of the unknown Carthew, and it sickened me to see this ferret on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... delight to the traveller of the seventeenth century because it contained so many curiosities and rareties. To ferret out objects of vertu the Jacobean gentleman would take any journey. People with cabinets of butterflies, miniatures, shells, ivory, or Indian beads, were pestered by tourists asking to see their treasures.[293] No garden ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... by G ——, in person. He called upon us early in the afternoon of the thirteenth of July, 18—, and remained with us until late in the night. He had been piqued by the failure of all his endeavors to ferret out the assassins. His reputation—so he said with a peculiarly Parisian air—was at stake. Even his honor was concerned. The eyes of the public were upon him; and there was really no sacrifice which he would not be willing to make for the development of the mystery. He concluded a somewhat ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... one has his own portrait of Mrs. Grundy, and some idea of the personality she shows to him; but has any one ever tried to ferret out that disagreeable old woman's own position; to find out where she lives and why she has nothing to do but meddle in affairs which do not concern her. Is she a lady? One would imagine she is not. One would also imagine that she lives in a solid well-repaired square brown stone house ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... college were heavier this year than they had been before; so that, much to her annoyance, she had been compelled to delay the last half-yearly payment of Bruce's interest. Nor could she easily bear to recall the expression upon his keen ferret-like face when she informed him that it would be more convenient to pay the money a month hence. That month had passed, and another, before she had been able to do so. For although the home-expenses upon a farm in Scotland are very small, yet in the midst ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... so long ago, neither?" he said, darting ferret eyes now at the telltale marks and now into the quarry beneath or through ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... in evening clothes, seeming a very elegant young gentleman indeed, but his two companions were of grosser type, as far as appearances went: one, Dacey, thin and wiry, with a ferret face; the other, Chicago Red, a brawny ruffian, whose stolid features nevertheless exhibited something of ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... was furious with her, notwithstanding his love for her, and indeed because of it. It was outrageous that a woman whom he adored should seek to ferret out facts which might send him to State's Prison. It was abominable that she would not cease to care for that stupid officer after he had been so carefully put out of her way. Coronado felt that ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... there is a mystery it's much more satisfactory to get to the bottom of it. Of course, something dreadful must have happened to account for the change in Miss Oliphant. It would be a comfort to know the truth, and, of course, one need never talk of it. By the way, Rosie, you are just the person to ferret this little secret out; you are the right sort of person for ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... seek it in your Ladies house then; pray send this Ferret home, and spin good Abigal. And Madam, that your Ladiship may know, in what base manner you have us'd my service, I do from this hour hate thee heartily; and though your folly should whip you to repentance, and waken you at length to see my wrongs, 'tis not the endeavour of your life ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Foyle had drawn about Grell's house in Grosvenor Gardens, Dutch Fred loitered, his keen, ferret eyes wandering alertly over passers-by. Misgivings had assailed him during a vigil that had lasted several hours. It was all very well to be "in with" the police; but suppose their plans miscarried? Suppose Red Ike and his unknown friends got to know that the "double cross" was being put ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... sure," retorted Evatt, in evident irritation. "'Twixt thine army service, the ship that fetched thee on, and that miniature, I have more clues than have served to ferret ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... and narrow-chested. His face was like a bit of parchment, furrowed and wrinkled, without a hair on it to hide the folds in his skin. His hair resembled that of an Ignorantin[9] brother, with its gray locks falling onto his greasy collar; he had a nose like a ferret, and rat's eyes, but he was able to offer me food and quarters for the night, and it was not requisite that he should be handsome, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... priest did not reply. He stared, and his eyes grew ferret-sharp. Then he shifted his position, and stared again. It beat into my brain that he had lived thirty years among the Indians, and that his eyes were trained. He could see meanings, where I saw a ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... disposal was increased by the fact; that when I reached the Arsenal I found the Louvre vacant, the queen, who lay at Fontainebleau, having summoned the King thither. Ferret, his secretary, however, awaited me with a letter, in which Henry, after expressing his desire to see we, bade me nevertheless stay in Paris a day to transact some business. "Then," he continued, "come ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... to the cause of freedom was not to be found in the field, but among neighbors who were lurking at midnight around the scenes of home. The districts of Albany and Schoharie was infested by Tories, and young Schoolcraft was ever on the qui vive to ferret out this most insidious and cruel of the enemy's power. On one occasion he detected a Tory, who had returned from Canada with a lieutenant's commission in his pocket. He immediately clapped spurs to his horse, and reported him to Gov. George ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... just take the liberty of hunting about, and seeing if I cannot ferret out some food or other," exclaimed Pat. "If these bastes of bears haven't broken into the pantry, maybe there will be a scrap of something or ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... natural history—gaining the custom of observing the habits of creatures. The following year I carried out my long-intended plan, having induced one of my cousins to join me in it. We made several cages and boxes; and among our captives we numbered a couple of rabbits, a weasel, hedgehog, ferret, and stoat, with a number of pigeons and other birds, and, I may add, three or four snakes. We caught a viper— or, as it is frequently called, an adder—the only venomous creature which exist in England; but my uncle objected to our keeping it alive, though ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... no; something went farther than speculation when I was not to be let in.—Where is this apocryphal elder? I'll ferret him. ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... Jumbo or themselves or someone and the Baptis' preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any hint or suspicion of ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... again to the frontier, without acquainting any one with the place of the girl's concealment. The story of Atkinson's return was confirmed by the man who had seen and recognised him, but who knew nothing of the cause of his visit; and Braxley declared he had already taken steps to ferret him out, and had good hopes through his means ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... black, remorseless let him go At all events, and dare the angry foe. He said, and this opinion pleased around: 305 Jove turn'd aside, and on his daughter frown'd, Unmark'd by Hermes, who, with strange surprise, Fretted and foam'd, and roll'd his ferret eyes, And but with great reluctance could refrain From dashing at a blow all off the plain. 310 Then he resolved to interweave deceits, — To carry on the war by tricks and cheats. Instant he call'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... the subject and invited the princess to attend one of her masked balls,—"a masquerade party," she explained, "of only forty guests at the most, and those the chief personages of Roman society. I ferret out all their secrets and can see through their masks; but I use no witchery about it. My guests are admitted by ticket only, and my major-domo, who receives these cards, writes on the back of each a short description of the bearer's costume. So I have only to go to him ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... asked her to write,)—was to go to America, out of the way. Then Mr. Henry would think he had escaped, and need never be told of my coenivance. I think he would throw up the agency, if he were; and he's a very clever man. If Ned is in England, Mr. Henry will ferret him out. And, besides, this affair is so blown, I don't think he could return to his profession. What do you ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... or a hotel but there was somebody ready to question her. In every town and city she was called upon for an interview before she had time to brush off the dust of travel. One of the New York papers detailed a reporter to follow her from point to point, catch every word she uttered, ferret out all she said to her friends and in some way extort what was wanted. She often remarked that "in this case men proved themselves the champion ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... game and for the sake of the little Burrows girl, whom I fell in love with when she was so friendless. I believed things would reach a climax in the Hathaway case, in this very spot, but I couldn't foresee that your cleverness would ferret out that letter, which the girl Irene intended to keep silent about, nor did I know that the Chief would send me here in person to supervise Hathaway's capture. Mighty queer things happen in this profession of ours, and circumstances lead the ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... dry man, with a face like a ferret, forty-five years old, and one of the celebrities of the prisons he had successively lived in since the age of nineteen, knew Jacques Collin well, how and ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... royal! Ay, knave, I do suspect it to be so. By my troth, I 'll ferret out the foulmarts either by force or guile. And yet force would avail little. If they have the clue we might attempt to follow them in vain through its labyrinths, they would inevitably escape, and I should lose the reward. Hark thee. Stay here and I'll fetch the writing for the message. Stir not ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... out, so do I," said Jerrem, who, although he did not confess it to himself, would have given all he possessed to feel quite certain Eve would keep his secret. "You see, it's so awkard like, when everybody's tryin' to ferret out how this affair came about. You didn't happen to mention it to nobody, I s'pose?" and he turned a keen glance ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... name on it. Gosh, what fools some wommen are! I thought I got her number all right, a whimperin' fool! A whimperin' little old fool! Now, Shorty, all we gotta do is collect the boodle. It's up to you to watch outside the hedge. I'm takin' all the risks this time m'self, an' I'm goin' to ferret my way under that there madam's winder. You stay outside and gimme the signal. Ef you get cold feet an' leave me in the lurch you ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... drew from his finger a massy ring. A little ferret-eyed monk, a transcriber of saints' legends and Saxon chronicles, was immediately called. He pronounced the writing heathenish, and of the Runic form. A sort of free translation may be given ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... excuse can be easily estimated. Hamblin, at Lee's trial, testified that he told Brigham Young and George A. Smith "everything I could" about the massacre, and that Young said to him, "As soon as we can get a court of justice we will ferret this thing out, but till then don't say anything ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... sovereign prince, from its rarity and exquisite beauty[4]. The other creature, found in no other country, is called by the Dutch the Stinkbungsen, or Stinking-Badger. This is of the size of an ordinary dog, but is shaped like a ferret. When pursued by man or beast, it retreats but slowly, and when its enemy draws near, discharges backwards a so intolerably fetid wind, that dogs tear up the ground and hide their noses in it, to avoid the smell. When killed, it ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... and surely, like a miser's gold. All went merrily on. Among those who worked least and laughed loudest, was the little constable that had taken so deep an interest in the affair that morning. Never did two ferret eyes twinkle so brightly, or peer more closely into ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... you drag our acres from the ferret's grip of Matthew Haffigan? How will you persuade Cornelius Doyle to forego the pride of being a small landowner? How will Barney Doran's millrace agree with your motor-boats?... Perhaps I had better vote for ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... and laboured in his determined grasp at the amenities of the occasion. It was the only heaviness. To the other contest between them he brought an amazing sureness, a suppleness, power, and audacity beyond praise. He directed his battle, and at his elbow Tom Mocket, sandy-haired and ferret-eyed, did him yeoman service. ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... distance from the sea-coast. One of his memories is of a blind man of the village, or town as it was then, who was used as an assistant in this business. He had lost his sight in childhood, one eye having been destroyed by a ferret which got into his cradle; then, when he was about six years old he was running across the room one day with a fork it his hand when he stumbled, and falling on the floor had the other eye pierced by the prongs. But in spite of ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... and he, John Hinton, would give himself no rest until he had laid it bare. No wedding-day could come to him and Charlotte until his mind was at rest on this point. It was against his interest to ferret out this hidden thing, but that fact weighed as nothing with him. It would bring pain to the woman he loved; it might ruin her father; but the pain and the ruin would be inflicted unsparingly by his ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... Yes, as he thought over things, that was the only really dangerous kind, and he had so seldom met it! Then his imagination suddenly pictured Laura Highford with her tiny mouth and pointed teeth. She had a showy little brain, absolutely no heart, and the senses of a cat or a ferret. What part of him had she appealed to? Well, thank God, that was over and done with, and he was perfectly free to make his discoveries in regard to ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... Luke Bradley's case; the fellow, I mean, who calls himself Sir Luke Rookwood—ha, ha! A rank impostor! Two fives, that makes fifty: you want another fifty, Paterson. As I was saying, we may make a good job of that—we must ferret him out. I know who will come down properly for that; and if we could only tuck him up with his brother blade, why it would be worth double. He's all along been a thorn in my Lady Rookwood's side; he's an ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "I am almost certain that she took this path, and I fancy that the man's voice sounded like that of Ravonino. Nothing more natural than that he should ferret her out. Yet it seems to ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... set off poachin' At back-end o' the year, Wi' ferret, bag an' snickle,(3) Church bells have catched my ear. "Thou's takken t' road to Hell, lad, Wheer t' pit-fire's bumin' slow;" That's what yon bells kept ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... frost was sharp, when the pale sun seemed to shine brightest round the rim of the disk, as if there were a band of stronger light there, I saw a white animal under a heap of poles by the wayside, near the great hedge I have mentioned. It immediately concealed itself, but, thinking that it was a ferret gone astray, I waited, and presently the head and neck were ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... down the road, his stick over his shoulder, fuming and muttering to himself in his anger, till he got near his front gate, when suddenly there popped up from behind the palings a long yellow ferret with ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... called also the smaller otter, and sometimes known as the water pole-cat. It may be seen swimming about the lakes, preferring generally the still waters in autumn to the more rapidly-flowing currents of spring. It somewhat resembles the otter, and differs in shape slightly from the marten or ferret. Its teeth, however, are more like those of the pole-cat than the otter; while its tail does not possess the muscular power of ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... don't trust Mr. Narkom's proverbially tricky memory for names. He introduced me as Jones once, and I lost the opportunity of handling the case because the party in question couldn't believe that anybody named Jones would be likely to ferret it out." ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... it will be interesting to them at some future day, to be known to you. This is, perhaps, the only moment of your life in which you can acquire that knowledge. And to do it most effectually, you must be absolutely incognito, you must ferret the people out of their hovels as I have done, look into their kettles, eat their bread, loll on their beds under pretence of resting yourself, but in fact to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure in the course of this investigation, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the espionage resulting in the conviction that there was something in his possession which he did not wish her to see. Once, when she came unexpectedly upon him, he hastily thrust something into his pocket, appearing so much confused that she resolved to ferret out the secret. ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... late is a sure death-trap to a fool. A young rabbit always thinks of it first, an old rabbit never tries it till all others fail. It means escape from a man or dog, a fox or a bird of prey, but it means sudden death if the foe is a ferret, ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... they could produce and administer remedies to suit, and not leave the body to find them. Should we so conclude and find by experiment that man is so arranged, and wisely furnished by deity as to ferret out disease, purify and keep the temple of life in ease and health; we must use great care when we assert such is not undeniably true up to the present. The opposite opinion has had full sway for twenty centuries at ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... Ferret once more!" said he. "I knew him of old in France, where he has done us more harm than a company of men-at-arms. He speaks English as he speaks French, and he is of such daring and cunning that nothing is ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the waiting was over. The ship filled with vibration as Guns opened up. Twenty-five seconds to target. His eyes flicked from the sightscreen to the sky ahead, looking for the telltale flare of rockets—ready to follow like a ferret. ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... general bearing all loudly proclaimed his Gallic nationality. His smooth shaven face showed a firm mouth with bloodless lips so thin as to be hardly perceptible. His eyes, when they could be seen at all, were greenish in color, and small and restless as those of a ferret. He advanced into the room with the obsequious deferential manner which in all well-trained servants becomes second nature, moving across the thickly carpeted floor with the rapidity ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... sat in a high-back'd chair, was a little, frail, deform'd gentleman of about fifty, dress'd very richly in dark velvet and furs, and wore on his head a velvet skullcap, round which his white hair stuck up like a ferret's. But the oddest thing about him was a complexion that any maid of sixteen would give her ears for—of a pink and white so transparent that it seem'd a soft light must be glowing beneath his skin. On either cheek bone this delicate coloring centred in a ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch |
