"Flea" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... air. It distracted her, and for about a quarter of an hour she sat perfectly still, doing nothing. At last she pushed the spoilt paper aside, took afresh piece, and was beginning to write, "On May the 14th, 1842," when there was a crunch on the gravel, and a furious voice said, "I am sorry for Flea Thompson." ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... was absurd and she knew it. Margaret could go where she liked. It would all be chaste as a piano-recital. But the flea that she had been trying to put in the girl's ear seemed very ineffective. She is just as I was at her age, thought this lady, who, in so thinking, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... together with a key to it, weighed but one grain of gold. He also made a chain of gold, consisting of forty-three links, and, having fastened this to the before-mentioned lock and key, he put the chain about the neck of a flea, which drew them all with ease. All these together, lock and key, chain and flea, weighed only one ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... ashes, dilutions of oil-soap, and plaster of Paris, applied while the plants are wet, will be found of greater or less efficacy in their protection. The pungent smell of guano is said to prevent the depredation of the flea-beetle, which, in many localities, seriously injures the plants early in the season, through its attacks ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... a vigorous flea in each ear, which did much to disturb his complacency. Bennie had not made him thoughtful, only vengeful. There is nothing quite so discomposing as the scornful rejection of proffers of self-seeking philanthropy. Bennie's indignation was instinctive ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... happens he'll freeze to death in hell. It don't rile me a thing to be told the things he guesses my mother was. Maybe that's a matter of opinion, and, anyway, she's mixin' with a crop of angels who don't figger to have no truck with Scotch machine bosses. I guess a sight of his flea-bitten features 'ud set 'em seein' things so they wouldn't rec'nise their harps from frypans, and they'd moult feathers till you wouldn't know it from a snowfall on Labrador. But when he mixes his notions of my ma with 'lazy'! Lazy! Lazy! Gee! Why, if I signed in a half hour late ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... blockhead land-men submitted. 'None of your coquette airs, therefore, with me, madam,' said he, 'for I am resolved to have you this night. No struggling nor squalling, for both will be impertinent. The first man who offers to come in here, I will have his skin flea'd off at the gangway.' He then attempted to pull me violently towards his bed. I threw myself on my knees, and with tears and entreaties besought his compassion; but this was, I found, to no purpose: I then had recourse to threats, and endeavoured to frighten ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... the master, lounging at Blood's elbow, looked darkly upon the departure of the Deputy-Governor. Behind them a little mob of grim, stalwart, sun-tanned buccaneers were restrained from cracking Bishop like a flea only by their submission to the dominant will of their leader. They had learnt from Pitt while yet in Port Royal of their Captain's danger, and whilst as ready as he to throw over the King's service which had been ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... a benign and almost paternal glance. "You're tremendously sweet to put that flea in my ear, Kay. It's a wonderful prescription, but it lacks one small ingredient—the wealthy, courageous and self-sacrificing friend who will consent to run the sandy on your astute parent, as ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... in front; that young fellow—what had they nicknamed him—'The Buccaneer?' looked precious hangdog there behind her; had got a flea in his ear, he shouldn't wonder. Serve him right, taking her down all that way to look at the house! The proper place to look at a house ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... monsters of mythology and geology, for nothing could be a more terrible or ferocious antagonist than many of our well-known insects, if sufficiently enlarged. No animal now alive has more than a small fraction of the strength, in proportion to its size, of the minutest spider or flea. It may be that through lack of food, difficulties imposed by changing climate, and the necessity of burrowing in winter, or through some other conditions changed from what they were accustomed to, their size has been ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... you not charmed with the splendid accommodations of your fancy ship?" whispered the mischievous Jim. "There is not room for a flea to hop, without giving him the cramp in ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... jumping, such as jumping is supposed to be in the shires, he knew nothing. He was, too, a bad hand at galloping, but with a shambling, half cantering trot, which he had invented for himself, he could go along all day, not very quickly, but in such fashion as never to be left altogether behind. He was a flea-bitten horse, if my readers know what that is,—a flea-bitten roan, or white covered with small red spots. Horses of this colour are ugly to look at, but are very seldom bad animals. Such as he was, Crocker, who did not ride ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... at something, as if, in fact, he were resenting the man's words, but it might have only been that he was being troubled by the flea which he had several times that morning tried to scratch out of ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... thunder-gods, sons of the chief thunder-god, fell violently in love with the same Aino woman. Said one of them to the other, in a joking way: "I will become a flea, so as to be able to hop into her bosom." Said the other: "I will become a louse, so as to be able to stay ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... one relic of antiquity, a Pythagorean. He has obliged me with his biography. He was, to use his own words, engendered by the sun shining on a dunghill at his father's door,' and began his career as a flea; but his identity was, somehow, shifted to a boy of nine years old. He has had a long spell of humanity, and awaits the great change—which is to turn him to a bee. It will not find him unprepared; ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... thereby gets a chance to rise. And the alternation of ascent and descent constitutes one of life's main charms, as fortune is solely determined by comparison. And to the man with a programme, who wants to remedy the sad circumstance that the hawk eats the dove, and the flea eats the hawk, I have this question to put: why should it be remedied? Life is not so mathematically idiotic that it lets only the big eat the small, but it happens just as often that the bee kills the lion, or drives it to madness ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... also that immortal Parliamentary metaphor, emanating from the same mysterious source,—"The feature upon which the question hinges!" The only man who could have properly painted this was the enthusiastic BLAKE, who so successfully limned the ghost of a flea! These matters, however, are to be considered as merely supplementary ornaments to great themes. The grand subjects are to be sought for in Hansard's Reports, in petitions against returns of members, in the evidence that comes out in the committee-rooms, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... only love, And that they loved fu' dearly, O! They dinna care a flea for men, Let them court hooe'er ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... decency," replied the big man, in his most commanding manner. "It's life and death to you—and it doesn't matter a flea-bite to me. So, since you came to grief through me, why shouldn't I do the fair thing, and put you back on your ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... the old school. "Ah, your honour," said the girl, with a malicious leer, "you were not in such a tantrum last year, when I told you about the widow, you know who; but if you had taken a friend's advice, you'd never have come away from Doncaster races with a flea in your ear!" There was a secret sting in this speech, that seemed quite to disconcert Master Simon. He jerked away his hand in a pet, smacked his whip, whistled to his dogs, and intimated that it was high time to go home. The girl, however, was determined not ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... persistence, even though he was a pest. Johnny saw more in him than his companions could find, and had quite a little sport with him: he made fine practice for roping, for he was about as elusive as a grasshopper and uncertain as a flea. Johnny was in the same general class and he could sympathize with the irrepressible nuisance in its efforts to stir up a little life and excitement in so dull a crowd; Johnny hoped to be as successful in his ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... A Flea, a Grasshopper, and a Leap-frog once wanted to see which could jump highest; and they invited the whole world, and everybody else besides who chose to come to see the festival. Three famous jumpers were they, as everyone would say, when they all ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... to see him; or having seen him,—for a man may force his way in anywhere with a little trouble,—if she sends him away with a flea in his ear, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... the executioner, with half a shrug and half a shiver; 'they are dust—they are nothing—the possession of Georgia by the Russians is to Persia what a flea which has got into my shirt is to me: it teazes me now and then, but if I gave myself the least trouble, I would hunt it out in a minute. The Russians are nothing.' Then, as if he were anxious to waive the subject, he turned to me, and said: ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... intellectually, he looked upon me as below notice; but, morally, he assured me that he would give me a written character of the very best description, whenever I chose to apply for it. "You're honest," he said; "you're willing, though lazy; you would pull, if you had the strength of a flea; and, though a monstrous coward, you don't run away." My own demurs to these harsh judgments were not so many as they might have been. The idiocy I confessed; because, though positive that I was not uniformly an idiot, I felt inclined to think that, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... troublesome enemies attacking these plants are: the flea- beetle, the cabbage-worm, the cabbage-maggot (root) and "club-root"; directions for fighting all of which will be found in the ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... the bare foot of a Wrestler and bit him, causing the man to call loudly upon Hercules for help. When the Flea a second time hopped upon his foot, he groaned and said, "O Hercules! if you will not help me against a Flea, how can I hope for your assistance against ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... to do one thing, and that is to give up my keys as soon as possible. I am tired of this profession of jailer. Besides, I shall not be able to stay here much longer. This escape has put a flea into the ear of the authorities, and they are going to give me an assistant, a former police sergeant, who is as bad as a watchdog. Ah! the good days of M. de Boiscoran are over: no more stolen visits, no more promenades. He is to ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... Fairy. When I feel a girl a-sleep, Underneath her frock I peep, There to sport, and there I play; Then I bite her like a flea, And about I skip." ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... of insects without wings, from the spider to the scorpion, from the flea to the lobster; or with wings, from the gnat and the ant to the wasp and the dragon-fly, differ so totally from each other, and from the red-blooded classes above described, both in the forms of their bodies, and their modes of life; besides the organ of sense, which they ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... down upon the wretched little scribbler, the man of mere letters and jargon, half-clothed in untanned hides, his only weapon an inkhorn at his belt, his pennon the feather of a goosequill! How they laughed at him, calling him an atom or a flea, good for nothing! 'He does nothing, he cannot even collect our taxes, or look after our estates, whilst we bold riders, armed to the teeth, sword in hand and lance on thigh, we fight, and we are the finest fellows in the land!' So they said when they saw the poor devil dragging himself on ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... was a wise man than a rich one. He then told me that it was a custom among the Romans for a man to give his slaves their liberty when he lay upon his death-bed. I could not imagine what this meant, until, after having a little composed himself, he ordered me to bring him a flea which he had kept for several months in a chain, with a design, as he said, to give it its manumission. This was done accordingly. He then made the will, which I have since seen printed in your works word for word. Only I must take notice that you ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... generous offer of his own. Her reply to a pursuer of that sort was easy. Comedy, after the barbaric attack, refreshed her wits and reliance on her natural fencing weapons. To Westlake, the unwritten No was conveyed in a series of kindly ironic subterfuges, that, played it like an impish flea across the pages, just giving the bloom of the word; and rich smiles come to Emma's life in reading the dexterous composition: which, however, proved so thoroughly to Westlake's taste, that a second ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he must learn to have an eye to the main chance, and eschew heroics: what was life without money! It was not as if he gave it grudgingly, for he made him heartily welcome. The property was in truth but a flea-bite to him! He hoped the Macruadh would live long to enjoy it, and make his father-in-law the great grandfather of chiefs, perpetuating his memory to ages unborn. There was more to the same effect, void neither of eloquence nor of a certain ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... nearly white or variegated with large liver-coloured patches. We now see them either completely liver-coloured, or of a flea-bitten blue or grey, or else black, with fine sterns showing much blood, and extremely thin ears. There can be no doubt but that the crosses by which they have obtained the qualities and appearance I have mentioned, render ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... shame, St. Ronan's, that the game laws, whilk are the very best protection that is left to country gentlemen against the encroachment of their inferiors, rin sae short a course of prescription—a poacher may just jink ye back and forward like a flea in a blanket, (wi' pardon)—hap ye out of ae county and into anither at their pleasure, like pyots—and unless ye get your thum-nail on them in the very nick o' time, ye may dine on a dish of prescription, and sup ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Fly; the Teeth of a Snail; the Eggs of Silk-worms; the Blue Fly; a water Insect; the Tufted Gnat; a White Moth; the Shepheards-spider; the Hunting Spider, the Ant; the wandring Mite; the Crab-like insect, the Book-worm, the Flea, the Louse, Mites, Vine mites. He concludeth with taking occasion to discourse of two or three very considerable subjects, viz. The inflexion of the Rays of Lights in the Air; ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... retaining fee into Alan's hand as he left the court, shook their heads as they returned the money into their leathern pouches, and said, 'that the lad was clever, but they would like to see more of him before they engaged him in the way of business—they did not like his lowping away like a flea in ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Professor. "This particular kind of bath is not adapted for a flea. Let us suppose," he continued, folding his table-napkin into a graceful festoon, "that this represents what is perhaps the necessity of this Age—the Active Tourist's Portable Bath. You may describe it briefly, if you like," looking at the ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... excitability were not limited to women. It is said that 'the legal male mind' is the only mind fit for suffrage." Miss Shaw then made her wit play around the legal male mind like chain lightning. "It is said that women are illogical, and jump to their conclusions, flea-like. I shall not try to prove that women are logical, for I know they are not, but it is beyond me how men ever got it into their heads that they are. When we read the arguments against woman suffrage, we see that flea-like ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... who calls for a fugue on the "Amen," and the roisterers improvise one on the theme of the rat song, which calls out hearty commendation from Mephistopheles, and a reward in the shape of the song of the flea—a delightful piece of grotesquerie with its accompaniment suggestive of the skipping of the pestiferous little insect which is the subject ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the skittles dance again, and bang goes the bowl at her sconce instead of the skittles: it vas lucky for her it did not hit her, for if it had, I'll be d———d if ever she'd a cried Buy my live flounders any more—he vas at play vith Sam Stripe the tailor; so the flea-catcher he jumps in between 'em, and being a piece-botcher, he thought he could be peace-maker, but it voudn't do, tho' he jump'd about like a parch'd pea in a frying-pan—Poll called him Stitch louse, bid him pick up his needles ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Norandino's will A thousand tortures shall their guerdon be: But Gryphon, who the dame alone can ill Excuse, entreats for both impunity; And many matters urges with much skill. But well is answered: and 'tis ruled, to flea Martano's body with the hangman's scourge, And only short of ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... manufactured. The wolf hunts, fights, and tears its victim in pieces; and then, by means of that interior labor which I have spent so much time in describing, transforms it into nourishing liquid: and when all this is accomplished, the little flea, who lives hidden among his hairs, coolly draws out for his own use the valuable blood obtained with so much effort. There are many parasites in the world, my dear child—yourself, for instance, to begin with—who ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... the surf, the darting of the fishes, the drifting of the snow, the white crystals of the frost, the shrieking of the ice, the boom of the bittern, the barking of the sea lions, the honk of the wild geese, the skulking coyote who knows that each beast is his enemy and has not even a flea to help him "forget that he is a dog," the leap of the salmon, the ecstasy of the mocking-bird and bobolink, the nesting of the field-mice, the chatter of the squirrel, the gray lichen of the oak, the green moss on the log, the poppies of the field and the Mariposa ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan
... the Dutch!" exclaimed Mr. Hennage disgustedly. "If that young feller ain't one fool of a bridegroom, a- runnin' away from his bride like this! For quick moves that feller's got the California flea faded to a whisper. Two weeks ago he was a- practicin' law in Sacramento, a-puttin' through a deal in lieu lands; then he jumps to Stockton an' wires me for fifty dollars; then he hops to Bakersfield an' gits married, after which he lands in the Yosemite Valley ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... "I've come to ask you up to tea," he added. "The Unclekins is there. When I told him that Kathleen had sent Fairing away with a flea in his ear, he nearly fell off his chair. He lent me twenty dollars on the spot. Are you coming our way?" he continued, suddenly trying to imitate Charley's manner. Charley nodded, and they left the office together and moved away under a long avenue ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... (Haltica cucumeris, Harris.) This nimble minute beetle (Fig. 13) belongs to the flea-beetles, (Haltica family,) the same sub-group of the leaf-beetles (Phytophaga) to which also appertains the notorious steel-blue flea-beetle (Haltica chalybea, Illiger) that is such a pest to the vineyardist. Like all the rest of the flea-beetles, ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... him!—a chorus of agreement. Then would follow a description of that terrible flea-bitten mare, and of Johnnie's bravery; of the fierce kick, and the boy's quiet bearing of his agony, all closing with a word about the wound ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... mental stamina it affords him in most cases, what a waste of good food it is! The dishes are so numerous and so quickly changed, that he has no time to decide on which he likes best. Like an industrious flea, rather than a bee, he hops from flower to flower in the educational garden, without one penny-worth of honey to show for it. And then—though I feel how degrading it is to allude to so vulgar a matter—how high ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... were all back at their loopholes, the rest were busy loading the spare muskets, and everyone with a red face, you may be certain, and a flea in his ear, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... blood? Look ye, friend, it shall not be lost blood to me.—I take you all to witness, that there surgeon, or apothecary, or farrier, or dog-doctor, or whatsoever he may be, has robbed me of the balsam of life.—He has not left so much blood in my body as would fatten a starved flea.—O! that there was a lawyer here to serve ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... This supposes that there was at the beginning but one single species, an elementary and very slightly defined organization, from which all that lives descended in the way of regular generation. The oak and the wild boar which eats its acorn, the cat and the flea which lodges in its fur, have common ancestors. The family, originally one, has been divided under the influence of soil, climate, food, moisture, mode of life, and by virtue of the natural selection which has preserved and ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... know about his absurd drill, Tregellis, and I had other things to think of, as you may suppose. I had no difficulty in taking my right place on parade, for there was a trooper with a red nose on a flea-bitten grey, and I had observed that my post was always immediately in front of him. This saved a great deal of trouble. The other day, however, when I came on parade, I galloped up one line and down the other, but the deuce a glimpse could I get of that ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said they, "and void of genius; he does not make the flea to fly, and stars to fall, nor the sun to melt wax; he has not the true Oriental style." Zadig contented himself with having the style of reason. All the world favored him, not because he was in the right road or followed the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... then; and by all means stir on the youth to an answer. I think oxen and wain-ropes cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were open'd, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... in which we live. But that is no reason why a man should indulge in fretful complaints, and, like Beresford,[1] pull a long face over the Miseries of Human Life,—and not a single hour is free from them; or still less, call upon the Deity at every flea-bite—in pulicis morsu Deum invocare. Our aim should be to look well about us, to ward off misfortune by going to meet it, to attain such perfection and refinement in averting the disagreeable things of life,—whether they come from our fellow-men or from the physical world,—that, ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... wills made out, you lads? You're a-go'n' to see a scrap presently, an' it ain't a-go'n' to be no flea-bite, I give you ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... vivacity than of historical recollections compiled out of histories, or filched out of handbooks. But to speak of the best inn in a place needs no apology: that, at least, is useful information. As every person intending to visit Gibraltar cannot have seen the flea-bitten countenances of our companions, who fled from their Spanish venta to take refuge at the club the morning after our arrival, they may surely be thankful for being directed to the best house of accommodation in one of the most unromantic, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... costly galaxy,' he said; and, having reduced me by one glance to the proportions of a performing flea, rather poorly trained, he gave his attention indulgently to ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... 'a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose, and 'a said it was a black soul burning ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... thought I had I'd take something for it, dontcherknow! When I cannot live among my fellows without surrendering my independence— forswearing freedom of speech and liberty of thought; without having to play the canting hypocrite or go hungry—to fawn like a flea-bitten fice to win public favor—I'll make me a suit of leather, take to the woods and chop bee trees. I'd rather my babes were born in a cane-brake and reared on bark and wild berries, with the blood of independence burning in their veins, than spawned ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... disease-producing organism is introduced into the body of the healthy person, and beginning to multiply, brings about the symptoms of the disease. Malaria is transmitted in this way by the anopheles mosquito; typhus fever by lice, and plague by the rat flea. These are all diseases greatly to ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... upon the horizon, waiting for the outcome of the search, got a start. Yonder, far away on the other side of the river, between a little wood and the Staria Derevnia, a light boat drew to the shore, and a little black spot jumped from it like a flea. Koupriane recognized the little black spot as Kathanna. She was safe. Now he could not reach her. It would be useless to search the maze of the Bohemian quarter, where her country-people lived in full control, with ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... here a while ago. He came to see me in my official capacity as justice of the peace, and not postmaster. He wanted a warrant for the arrest of Chester Randel, and I made out one. The next thing is to arrest that good-for-nothing lad, but he's like a flea, I never can catch him when I want him. I've got another ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... knew what was the matter, darling," he said at last in a dispirited voice. "Good heavens! what flea has bitten you?" ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... goodness!" gasped Bea. "Well," firmly, "I shall put a flea in Edith's ear. She must call a halt. She is simply letting that crazy imagination of hers run rampant. I shall speak ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bite 'em; And so proceed ad infinitum. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... not, it amounts to the same thing. Every dog knows that you meant to be there, or at any rate, that to be there was the scheme of someone equally bad. The slightest rustle of the wind, the call of a bird, the ejaculation responsive to a flea—any of these, anything ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... Omaha or roystering blades from Pittsburgh or boulevardeers from Bucyrus—not a New Yorker in sight. He said he'd been reading where a wealthy nut had seat out an expedition to the North Pole to capture a certain kind of Arctic flea that haunts only a certain rare fox—but he'd bet a born New Yorker was harder to find. He said what this millionaire defective ought to of done with his inherited wealth was to find a male and female born ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... not so different from the rest of us!" threw out Magin. "What flea bites us? Why do you come here, courting destruction in a cockleshell that may any minute split on a rock and spill you to the sharks, when you might be punting some pretty girl up the backwaters of the Thames? Why do I float around in this old ark of reeds and bulrushes, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was the only member of the party who from habit insisted on leggings and boots. Their horses were steady, flea-bitten little beasts, not unlike mustangs, and mounts had been provided for the gun-bearers, to the huge delight of all three. Gholab Singh also demanded a horse, which he obtained, as being worthy of ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... converted at a Methodist camp-meeting, and as he became a kind of preacher among his own people, he staid converted. He had one fault, to speak not of others. He was irascible to a great degree; a mosquito or a flea would drive him into a passion. But throughout his long career as guardian of his master, he had been never known to lose patience with him. Even mothers become vexed exceedingly with undutiful children; but this care of Mat for his worthless master exceeded even that ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... and Dagger, Were us'd all in vighting; Ch've heard my Father swear and swagger, That it was but a Flea-biting: But ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... steep rise. And now that he had reached the cool glade of topmost Tinnaburra, he found that his arrival had caused considerable perturbation among a small mob of brumbies, or wild horses, consisting of some seven or eight mares and foals, led by a flea-bitten old grey stallion, who snorted angrily as he saw Finn, and minced forward toward the Wolfhound, his long chisel teeth bared, his four-foot tail billowing out behind him like a flag, and his black hoofs (the feet of mountain-bred brumbies are prodigiously hard ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... breaking off and throwing an affable nod towards Godolphus who, having attracted no attention by flinging himself on the grass with a lolling tongue and every appearance of fatigue, was now filling up the time in quest of a flea. "No breed, but he has points. Where ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... chops in their slobbery rest, Nor our mirth be stirred at his solemn looks, As wise, and as dull, as divinity books. Our old friend's dead, but we all well know He's gone to the Kennels where the good dogs go, Where the cooks be not, but the beef-bones be, And his old head never need turn for a flea. ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... volume with firstling violets, roses, and quadrifoils. He will next apply his wet hands, oozing with sweat, to turning over the volumes, then beat the white parchment all over with his dusty gloves, or hunt over the page, line by line, with his forefinger covered with dirty leather. Then, as the flea bites, the holy book is thrown aside, which, however, is scarcely closed in a month, and is so swelled with the dust that has fallen into it, that it will not yield to ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... life, would require a volume. The process is scarcely less complex in insects. Lyonnet found 3,993 muscles in a caterpillar, and while a large proportion belong to the internal organs, over a thousand assist in locomotion. Hence the muscular power of insects is enormous. A flea will leap two hundred times its own height, and certain large, solid beetles will move enormous weights as compared to the bulk ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... day I'm goin' to git tired o' hearin' you cuss my proxy," Mr. Gibney bawled after him, "an' when that fatal time arrives I'll scatter a can o' Kill-Flea over you an' the shippin' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... wife, a pretty and coquettish barberess. M. Gillenormand admired his own discernment in all things, and declared that he was extremely sagacious; here is one of his sayings: "I have, in truth, some penetration; I am able to say when a flea bites me, from ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... whole of yesterday, and thou art weary and exhausted. Let me fight this day." When the warriors caught sight of Judah's lion face and his lion teeth, and heard his lion voice, they were greatly afraid. Judah hopped and jumped over the army like a flea, from one warrior to the next, raining blows down upon them incessantly, and by evening he had slain eighty thousand and ninety-six men, armed with swords and bows. But fatigue overcame him, and Zebulon took up his station at his brother's left hand, and mowed down eighty thousand of the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Saunders lose most of the stuff, and put a flea in his ear to the effect that you think Carson is the guilty party. This will cause the fellow's room to be searched and the stuff will be found. You must be on hand to identify the ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... faithful and true witnesses. But saving Dr. Nichol of Swallo-Street, and Dr. Manuel of London-Wall, there is nothing sound in the way of preaching here; and when I tell you that Mr. John Gant, your friend, and some other flea-lugged fallows, have set up a Heelon congregation, and got a young man to preach Erse to the English, ye maun think in what a state sinful souls are left in London. But what I have been the most consarned ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... island of Cahini, almost touching the north coast of Hispaniola at the place where the colony was once founded. The remainder of the island along the west coast forms the province of Guaccaiarima, thus called because it is the extremity of the island. The word Iarima means a flea. Guaccaiarima means, therefore, the flea of the island; Gua being the article in their language. There are very few of their names, particularly those of kings which do not begin with this article gua., such as Guarionex ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... friends, Atterbury and Warburton. The misfortune is that the more just his satire, the more perishable is its interest; and if we regard the 'Dunciad' simply as an assault upon the vermin who then infested literature, we must consider him as a man who should use a steam-hammer to crack a flea. Unluckily for ourselves, however, it cannot be admitted so easily that Curll and Dennis and the rest had a merely temporary interest. Regarded as types of literary nuisances—and Pope does not condescend in his poetry, though the want is partly supplied in the notes, to indulge in much personal ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... by nicht and they slept by day; I wot they rade by an unkenned track; "The Bishop was licht as a flea," said Sim, "Or ever we cam' to ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... neuer shrinke nor shame, ne shed no teare at all, You make my wounds your selfe, and fill them up with gall: Yea you can see me sound, and faint for want of breath, And gaspe and grone for life, and struggle still with death, What can you now do more, sweare by your maydenhead, The for to flea me quicke, or strip me ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... man, will you? That last fellow you had ought to have been tied up himself. His flogging wouldn't have killed a flea." ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... much damage on the potato, tomato, eggplant, and other garden plants. The accompanying figure shows the common striped flea-beetle which lives on the tomato. The larva of this beetle lives inside of the leaves, mining its way through the leaf in a real tunnel. Any substance disagreeable to the beetle, such as plaster, soot, ashes, or tobacco, will repel its ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... said the tailor, 'I don't care a flea, There'll be still black-puddings, souse, and chitterlings for me.' Heigho! the ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... to the memory of "Dooley" to rename the bench-legged fyce "Sooner" and locate the scene of his "chronic repose" in St. Jo rather than under the flea-proof tree of Mrs. Emerson in Amherst. But who regrets the poetic license as ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... at Orenburg, Russia, Dec. 14, 1830, of a multitude of small, black insects, said to have been gnats, but also said to have had flea-like motions. ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... thousand yet," rejoined the organist; "and when he does, I'll send him away with a flea in his ear." ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... you, the person spoken to. ern, the sea-eagle. die, to expire. yew (yu), a kind of tree. dye, to color. eye, the organ of sight. draught (draft), drawing I, myself. ay, yes. draft, a bill of exchange. aye, an affirmative vote. dun, a dark color. flee, to run away. done, performed. flea, an insect. fate, destiny. flew (flu) , did fly. fete, a festival. flue, ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... down into that unsatisfactory fellow-creature and try to reach some common root of feeling other than those physiological needs which we share with every beast of earth. Diverting; hardly profitable. It would be like looking for a flea in a haystack, or a joke in the Bible. They can perhaps be found; at the expense ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... it done, and at the same time getting rid of the body? Great heavens! was I to be devoured piecemeal by a rapacious horde of the wild beasts that are said to infest the Russian beds! And utterly helpless, too, without the power to grapple with as much as a single flea—the least formidable, perhaps, of the entire gang! It was absolutely fearful to contemplate such an act of premeditated barbarity; yet what could I do, unable to speak a ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... not," retorted Mrs. Jenkins. "All the world knows you are soft enough for anything. I have sent him away with a flea in his ear; that's what ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... tables upon him completely; he ought to be ashamed of himself; she knew what he meant by his insinuations; if he must know how that moisture come on the bed, why she put the soap there in a hurry to catch a flea. He believed her and brought her a present next day in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Admiral of the Ocean Seas and Viceroy of the Indies who thus takes what can only be called a mean advantage of a poor seaman in his employ? It would have been a competence and a snug little fortune to Rodrigo de Triana; it was a mere flea-bite to a man who was thinking in eighth parts of continents. It may be true, as Oviedo alleges, that Columbus transferred it to Beatriz Enriquez; but he had no right to provide for her out of money that in all equity and decency ought to have gone to another and ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... shouted, 'or I'll call for the police. A nice thing for customers to 'ear you a-coming 'ere a-charging me with finding things in goods what I sells. 'Ere, be off, afore I sends you off with a flea in your ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... come," declared Joe. "I'll send them off with a flea in their ear. They'll find that I'm no ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... all determined not to leave little Inez in these poor lodgings. "Goodness knows," Bess remarked, "if she gets out of our sight now we may never find her again. She's just as elusive as a flea!" ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... 'That's a flea-bite. When we've got a little ahead with this it won't matter, sir, whether you spend twenty thousand or forty thousand dollars a year. We've got the concession from the United States Government through the territories, and we're in correspondence with the President of the Mexican ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... are quite as humiliating or as elevating as those given to girls. He may be Number One, Two or Three, Pig, Dog or Flea, or he may be like Wu T'ing Fang a "Fragrant Palace," or like Li Hung Chang, an ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... from the introduction of the eggs of the sand-flea (Pulex penetrans) into the tissues. It occurs in tropical Africa, South America, and the West Indies. The impregnated female flea remains attached to the part till the eggs mature, when by their irritation ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... in the cook-house she would say: "You must come out and tighten the tent ropes with this gale blowing, it won't be funny if the whole thing blows over in the night." But none of the horrors she depicted ever persuaded me to turn out once I was safely tucked up in my "flea bag" with "Tuppence" acting as a weight to keep the top blankets in place. In the morning when I awoke after a sound night's sleep, I would exclaim triumphantly: "There you are, 'Squig,' what price the tent blowing down? It's as safe as a rock ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... generous to a fault and accustomed to living like a gentleman—and he invested very heavily in real estate, too—but this Mr. Blount was always out for his interest and Honest John would skin a dead flea." ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... he, snug as a flea, Lay all this time a snoring, Nor dream'd of harm, as he lay warm, While all without ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... my mistress, M'sieur. I assure you it is the first time she has committed an indiscretion of this kind. May I put a flea in M'sieur's ear? The place is quite empty to-night, and besides there is the drive back to the Inn with Mademoiselle. Is not that ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Mr. Jonathan, our butler, is a very grave good sort of old man, with his hair as white as silver! and an honest worthy man he is. I was hurrying out with a flea in my ear, as the saying is, and going down stairs into the parlour, met him. He took hold of my hand (in a gentler manner, though, than my master) with both his; and he said, Ah! sweet, sweet ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... about cooties, but I take it back—I never knowed nothin' about them insecks till last night. Where they come from I dunno, but I'll tell the world they come, and if they wasn't half an inch long I'll eat 'em. They darn near dragged me off whole, and all the sleep I got ye could stick in a flea's eye. Lookit here." ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... much on chin-chin. Little an' dark an' quiet he was, an' jus' crazy fer dogs. Any old mutt'd do fer him—jus' so's it was in the shape of a pup. He was fair wild fer 'em. He picked up a yeller cur out there the day after the Yangtsin fight, an' that there no-account, mangy, flea-bitten mutt had ter stay with us the whole time. If the pup didn't stand in me an' Buck an' Ranch, he swore he'd quit too, so we had to let him come, an' he messed an' bunked with our outfit right along. Ranch named him Daggett, after the Colonel, which ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... universities) "satisfied with her own progress"; she added, being under intoxication, "that, if any danger existed, her scheme was to drown it in the bo-o-owl;" and two days afterward he saw her puffing and panting, and fiercely dragging a gigantic three-decker out into deep water, like an industrious flea pulling his phaeton. ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... I had for many a day held his observes and admonishments in no very reverential estimation. So that, when I heard him address me in such a memorializing manner, I was inclined and tempted to set him off with a flea in his lug. However, I was enabled to bridle and rein in this prejudicial humour, and answer him in his ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... 'Hist, Madonna.' She turned and looked at me with her eyes wide open. They are handsome eyes for a Sienese woman. That I allow. She said, 'Do you call me?' Says I, 'I do.' She says, 'Well?' I reply, 'He is well if you are.' 'Who, then?' says she. I say, 'Your lover.' This makes her jump like a flea on the bed. But she brazens it out finely, turning to her old crone with a 'What does the girl mean?' Bless you, THEY knew well enough. I folded my arms—so; I said, 'He has walked the stony hills barefoot to find you. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... hands to turn over the volumes; then he will thump the white vellum with gloves covered with all kinds of dust, and with his finger clad in long-used leather will hunt line by line through the page; then at the sting of the biting flea the sacred book is flung aside, and is hardly shut for another month, until it is so full of the dust that has found its way within, that it resists the effort to ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... was a king once reigning, Who had a big black flea, And loved him past explaining, As his own son were he. He called his man of stitches; The tailor came straightway: Here, measure the lad for breeches. And measure his coat, ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... was, and for which his accounts were regularly discharged), it seems, has a Clock or a Beetle, I think it is called a Diamond Beetle, which he is very fond of, and has a fancy for, and the defender has compared it to a Louse, or a Bug, or a Flea, or a worse thing of that kind, with a view to render it despicable or ridiculous, and the petitioner so likewise, as the proprietor or owner thereof. It is said that this is a Louse in fact, and that the veritas convicii excusat; and mention ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... a good Christmas fire is to them like the heats of the dog-days. Though they are frequently heard by day, yet is their natural time of motion only in the night. As soon as it grows dusk, the chirping increases, and they come running forth, and are from the size of a flea to that of their full stature. As one should suppose, from the burning atmosphere which they inhabit, they are a thirsty race, and show a great propensity for liquids, being found frequently drowned in pans of water, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... a flea," continued Tutt. "He, or it, can't be anything else, but Hogan doesn't have to be a lawyer. He could be an honest ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... later the Cavour was grappled securely to the skin of the Valhalla like a flea riding an elephant, and Alan was climbing in through the main airlock. It felt good to be aboard the big ship once again, after all ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... "But I got to do this personal. This here pen is like a rabbit gone loco. Now, here I set like a bag of beans, tryin' to tell John Torrance why I'm quittin' this here job without makin' him think I'm glad to quit—which I am, and I ain't. It's like tryin' to split a flea's ear with a axe; it can't be did without mashin' the flea. Now, if John was here I could tell him in three jumps. The man that invented writin' must 'a' been tongue-tied or had sore throat some time when ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... common failin' with church choirs, I've noticed. Milly Amos sung soprano, and my Jane was the alto; John Petty sung bass, and young Sam Crawford tenor; and as for Uncle Jim Matthews, he sung everything, and a plenty of it, too. Milly Amos used to say he was worse'n a flea. He'd start out on the bass, and first thing you knew he'd be singin' tenor with Sam Crawford; and by the time Sam was good and mad, he'd be off onto the alto or the soprano. He was one o' these meddlesome old creeturs that thinks the ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... when they was real sick. There was lots of typhoid fever then. I don't know nothing about no herbs, they used for diseases; only boneset and hoarhound tea for colds and croup. They put penrile (pennyroyal) in the house to keep out flies and fleas, and if there was a flea in the house he would shoo from that place right then ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... was writing that last chapter a flea appeared upon the page before me, as there once did to St. Dominic." He proceeds to say that his flea was a flea of flea-flesh, but that ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... got no more blood in his liver than a flea. Gatchell would hang his grandmother on a point of law. Why should you, or any other ordinarily intelligent person, ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... many of her sons to this curious race of vagabond students, when she herself was without any university to satisfy the cravings of her thoughtful and intellectual people. 'No country without a Scot or a flea' was an uncomplimentary proverb due to the numerous young clerks, equally fierce for frays and for lectures, who flocked to the seats of learning on the Continent, and sometimes became naturalized there, sometimes came home again, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all over town, for nobody believed any longer in their late idol. The simpletons and poltroons—all the fellows of Bezuquet's stamp, whom a flea would put to flight, and who could not fire a shot without closing their eyes—were conspicuously pitiless. In the club-rooms or on the esplanade, they accosted ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... Socialist—envy and sloth. So deeply was he imbued with envy that he was quite unable to rest so long as anyone else was better off than himself; and although he did not care one jot for "humanity" of which he prated so freely, and was incapable of regenerating a flea, he found in a certain section of the Socialist and Anarchist party that degree of dissatisfaction and covetousness which appealed to his degraded soul. Besides which the movement afforded him grand opportunities for living in sloth and sponging ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... on his paws, and watches the wall. He is not a very beautiful dog, and the light shows numerous old wounds where the hair will not grow. He is afraid of nothing on the face of the earth or under it. He will tackle a bullock as readily as he will tackle a flea. He hates all other dogs—except kangaroo-dogs—and has a marked dislike to friends or relations of the family. They seldom call, however. He sometimes makes friends with strangers. He hates snakes and has killed ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... smashed up completely, won't pay sixpence in the pound. As we find it a hard matter to live, he is not likely to make you an allowance of thirty pounds, or thirty pence a year, or to trouble himself by going to the Admiralty with the certainty of being sent away with a flea in his ear; so you see, Tom, you must just grin and bear it. If you don't get killed, I would advise you—should you ever wish to come home—to make your appearance with your pockets full of the prize-money ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... vague. The autopsy showed a state of things not precisely to be called peculiar to poisoning cases the intestines, which the fatal poison had not had time to burn as in the case of the d'Aubrays, were marked with reddish spots like flea-bites. In June Penautier obtained the post that had been held by ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thing if I get rid of Spitfire"—he had named him thus—"for two hundred and fifty dollars. He's a bad-tempered brute, and blind into the bargain. But I'm not bound to tell Mr. Richmond that, and so spoil my trade. I've put a flea in his ear about Nichols, and I guess he will ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... that your French physic? If every one of us should be whipped according to our faults, to be lashed at a cart's tail would be held but a flea biting. ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... Monsieur Paul still sat in the office, the following reply came in from the Secretary: "All you need do is to say to the French Consul, when he calls, that you obey your instructions, and have no authority to discuss with him the rights of French subjects. J. P. B." Monsieur Paul departed with "a flea in his ear." But he received an invitation to ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... sake, aunt," he said, "'twouldn't be no manner of good if it come down to a runnin' chase. Nearest depot's fifty mile' across the county line. Racin' this car ag'in' the sheriff's 'ud be like matchin' a flea ag'in' a grasshopper. Dern it, she's balked ag'in." He wrestled with the crank, conquered it and the machine shivered like a hunting dog while his aunt adjusted spark and gas. She nodded to him to start ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... is enough sight. And the fust mate's got a uniform cap on, like a purser on a steamboat. Make that artist feller take that cap off him, Jim. He's got to. I wish he could have seen some of my mates. They wa'n't Cunarder dudes, but they could make a crew hop 'round like a sand-flea in a ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... natural variety of aristocratic humanity. He has the good taste to refuse condescension sufficient to allow him to eat at table with a Frederick Douglass, a Samuel R. Ward, or a Dr. Pennington. Poor light little soul! It can borrow a pair of flea's legs, and, hopping up to the magnificent lights of public opinion, sit looking down upon the whole colored race ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... cattle to be driven, fields to be tilled, and men and women to be talked to. They were all real and true—solidly planted upon the feet—perfectly comprehensible—clay of his clay, neither more nor less. He shook himself like a dog with a flea in his ear, and rambled out of the gate. Said the Sahiba, to whom watchful eyes reported this move: 'Let him go. I have done my share. Mother Earth must do the rest. When the Holy One comes ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... prevent the malice of his accusers? What made him the instrument of his own death, but only his excessiveness of wisdom? whereby, while he was searching into the nature of clouds, while he was plodding and contemplating upon ideas, while he was exercising his geometry upon the measure of a flea, and diving into the recesses of nature, for an account how little insects, when they were so small, could make so great a buzz and hum; while he was intent upon these fooleries he minded nothing of the world, or ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... John's foot on her knee, instantly began to work away with as much skill as the most experienced surgeon. We all stood by watching her. After a little time she produced between her finger and thumb a creature considerably smaller than an ordinary flea, which she had taken out alive and uninjured. Giving it a squeeze, she threw it to the ground with an expression of anger at its having dared to molest her young master; and thus in a very short time she had extracted three or four insects from each of his feet. We had meantime begun to feel something ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... and here we heard for the first time of the Yorkshireman's coat-of-arms, which the lady of the house told us every Yorkshireman was entitled to place on his carriage free of tax! It consisted of a flea, and a fly, a flitch of bacon, and a magpie, which we thought was a curious combination. The meaning, however, was forthcoming, and we give the following interpretation as ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... then we took him out and got him to lay down on his stummick, because he was all muddy anyway, where he fell down the cellar; and how could it matter to anybody that had any sense at all? Well, then we had the rixual, and—and—why, the teeny little paddlin' he got wouldn't hurt a flea! It was that little coloured boy lives in the alley did it—he isn't anyways near HALF Georgie's size but Georgie got mad and said he didn't want any ole nigger to paddle him. That's what he said, and it was his own foolishness, because Verman won't let ANYBODY ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... woman in Suk el Ghurb named Fetneh or Civil War, and her sister is Hada, or Peace. An old lady lately died in Beirut named Feinus or Lantern. In the Beirut school are and have been girls named Pearl, Diamond, Morning Dawn, Dew, Rose, Only one, and Mary Flea. That girl America's full name was America Wolves, a curious name for ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... over the parapet, finding rest in a mild melancholy, his thoughts chiefly occupied with the decay of Prepimpin who sat by his heels gazing at the roadway, occupied possibly by the same sere reflections. Presently the flea-catching antics of a ragged mongrel in the middle of the roadway disturbed Prepimpin's sense of the afternoon's decorum. He rose and with stiff dignity stalked towards him. He stood nose to nose with the mongrel, his tufted tail in straight ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... had never been talked about, Caesar might have searched London for a wife in vain. Good Mr. Lumley professed a great affection for me, and would occasionally favour me with long and technical dissertations on the interior economy of the flea, for example; and once in the fullness of his heart confided to his wife that "Miss Coventry was really a dear girl; it's my belief, Madge, that if she'd been a man she'd have been a naturalist." These little dinners were indeed ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville |
