"Flea" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their delectation and amusement. No band of enthusiastic pilgrims ever started in such high feather to see a dramatic and terpsichorean feast as did we. There was an expression of mystery and expectancy on every face. Mary Garden and all she does would be a mere flea bite to what we should see of pure and simple naughtiness. But alack and alas for our blasted hopes and the human weakness that had been worked on by the adroit press agent! The show was a "fake:" there was nothing naughty about it—and very little that was nice. No refrigerating plant ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... Suspicions were excited; but again they remained 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 - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... POLICY. Well, I hope I haven't. If I 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 in ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... '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
... again! Turmoil and flurry may be characteristic of the manners of to-day; both are far from the ideal of beautiful manners which should be as assured, as smooth, as controlled as the running of a high-grade automobile. Flea-like motions are no better suited to manners ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... John." "Not a whit," rejoins a Radical reformer, "the income tax is popular, especially with people who don't pay it; Lord John's opposition to Locke King's motion sealed his fate." "Locke King's division was a flea-bite," cries a staunch Protestant, "the Pope has ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... quicken hymns, that they did hear, incensed, Satiric comments overbold, From one whose part was by decree The jester's; but they boiled to feel him bite. Better for them had they with Reason fenced Or smiled corrected! They in the great Gods' might Their prober crushed, as fingers flea. Crumbled Olympus when the sovereign sire His fatal kick to Momus gave, albeit Men could behold the sacred Mount aspire, The Satirist pass by on limping feet. Those Gods who saw the ejected laugh alight Below had then their last of airy glee; They in the cup sought Laughter's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... done weel 'ud's done in a hurry, unless its catchin a flea, aw've heeard sed, but Joa Trailer wod'nt ha believed 'at that should be done in a hurry, for he hurried for nowt. It wor allus sed 'at he wor born to th' tune o'th' Deead March, an suckled wi' Slowman's Soothin Syrup. His mother declared ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... course you've heard of the Nancy Lee, and how she sailed away On her famous quest of the Arctic flea, to the wilds of Hudson's Bay? For it was a foreign Prince's whim to collect this tiny cuss, And a golden quid was no more to him than a copper to coves like us. So we sailed away and our hearts were gay as we gazed on the gorgeous scene; And we laughed with glee as we caught the flea ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... idea of a man that speaks with a squeaking voice through his nose, to express a timid and weak fellow, who is always thrashed by the other actors, and always boasts of victory after they are gone."—Tolondron, p. 324. In Italian, Policinello is a little flea, active and biting and skipping; and his mask puce-colour, the nose imitating in shape the flea's proboscis. This grotesque etymology was added by Mrs. Thrale. I cannot decide between "the hen-chicken" of the scholar and "the skipping flea" of the lady, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... moral sentiment which applies out of Pigdom. This creature would not have passed muster at a county fair; no Suffolk blood compacted and rounded him; he belonged to the "racers," and skipped about his pen with the alacrity of a large flea, wiggling his curly tail as expressively as a dog's, and "all but speakin'," as Israel said. He was always glad to see Miss Lucinda, and established a firm friendship with her dog Fun, a pretty, sentimental, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... one by the bare shoulder and spoke him burning words. "Canalla," he cried him, "horrible flea! Thou makest the air to reek—impossible to breathe. Fly, thou gnat of the midden, or I crack ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... horses could draw it easily. Holger Danske was so big a man, that when he had a suit of clothes made, the tailors were obliged to use ladders to take his measure; but one day an unfortunate tailor tickled him in the ear with his scissors, and Holger Danske thought it was a flea, and squeezed him to death between ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... they have broken through the soil, an enemy awaits them in the small black insect commonly known as the cabbage or turnip fly, beetle, or flea. This insect, though so small as to appear to the eye as a black dot, is very voracious and surprisingly active. He apparently feeds on the juice of the young plant, perforating it with small holes the size of a pin point. He is so active when disturbed that ...
— Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them • James John Howard Gregory
... pictures of the Plum-pudding flea, and the Moppsikon Floppsikon Bear, and state by whom waterproof tubs ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... to be, for the most part, blind to what took place immediately around her. General Bellairs himself (who vaguely supposed that some man might try to make love to his daughter five years hence, and thereupon be promptly sent off with a flea in his ear) was not more unconscious than she that there was, had been, or might be anything, as the phrase runs, 'between' the two junior members of the party. Lady Deane had no hints to give and ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... chorus would interrupt 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 and ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... differently made from other men, just because he is a priest. Well, as a matter of fact, he is very firm and determined. I have known some who wouldn't have had to be wheedled so long. And he is quite capable of crushing his heart, just as one might crush a flea. It must be the Almighty who gives ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... ounce of pleasure from the Rule of Three,— I was bad right through; sweared 'hully gee,' And worse sometimes, like 'jiminee;' Scrawled with a pencil on my jographee, Stole birds' eggs in the huckleberry tree,— Oh, I was bad; tried to learn a flea How to keep his balance on a rolling pea,— Oh, regular bad; and my ma, said she, 'If you don't be better than what you be, I'll put you in the cupboard and turn the key.' But I wouldn't ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... and quickened breath of Temporary Captain Bobby Little endorsed every word that Major Wagstaffe had spoken. As he rolled into his "flea-bag" that night, Bobby requoted to himself, for the hundredth time, a passage from Shakespeare which had recently come to his notice. He was not a Shakespearian scholar, nor indeed a student of literature at all; but these lines had been sent to him, cut out of a daily almanac, ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... "That's a flea-bite. Let her keep it. You're in for it now, and you'd better say nothing about money. He has a decent solicitor, and let him arrange about the settlements. And look here, Jane;—get it done as ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... acrita, or polypes, among the sub-kingdoms; the intestina, among the annulosa; the tortoises, among the reptilia; the armadillo and scaly ant-eater, pig, mouse, jerboa, and kangaroo, among quadrupeds; the waders and tenuirostres, among birds; the coleoptera, (bug, louse, flea, &c.) among insects; the gastrobranchus, among fishes; are examples which will illustrate the special characters of this type. These are smallness, particularly in the head and mouth, feebleness, and ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... 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 ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... said Mike Flannery, "ye would not say that same, for to the flea professor th' flea is as big as a house. He studies him throo a telescope, Mrs. Muldoon, that magnifies th' flea a million times. Th' flea professor will take a dog with a flea on him, mam, and look at th' same ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... you could take it out in talking," snorted Andy. "My chips are in. I've got three-hundred-and-twenty acres picked out, up here, and I'm going to file on 'em before these damned nesters get off the train. Uh course, that won't be more'n a flea bite—but I can make it interesting for my next door neighbors, anyway; and every flea bite helps to keep ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... be a flea in Rosario, however—just one flea; but he is a most ubiquitous and a most insatiably blood-thirsty little person. The worst of it is that, night or day, you are never perfectly sure where he may be. It is ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... a very 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 ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... in general; and if it be meant that all true spiders spin, it is no doubt correct; but the Gossamer which "A Young Inquirer" asks about is the production of a small black spider about the size of a flea, which was a true aeronaut long before Montgolfier or Lunardi, and if "A Young Inquirer" has access to either the "Linnean Transactions" or the first series of Loudon's "Magazine of Natural History," ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... hath moste of suche handkerchers, is compted the valeauntest manne. There are many also that sowe together these skinnes of menne, as other doe the skinnes of beastes, and weare theim for their clothyng. Some of them flea the right hand of their enemies beyng slaine, so that the nailes also remain vpon the fingres, and make couers of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... became 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 ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... I say!' he 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
... her head maliciously upon her arm like a child that sleeps; but in making her preparations she opened fond eyes, that smiled and winked in advance of the little secret thrills, sneezes, squints, and trances of the page who was about to lie at her feet, separated from her by the jump of an old flea; and in fact she advanced so much and so near the square of velvet where the poor child should kneel, whose life and soul she trifled with, that had he been a saint of stone, his glance would have been constrained to follow ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... that addressed Orpheus, in the infernal regions, and offered him for food a roasted ant, a flea's thigh, butterflies' brains, some sucking mites, a rainbow tart etc., to be washed down with dew-drops and beer made from seven barleycorns—a very heady liquor.—King, Orpheus and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... it?' he said. 'The understanding of a flea, a hopping flea with a proboscis. Why should you crawl abject before the understanding of ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... the top of the wave; I mean artistic individualism, which is so much crueller, so much blinder and so much more irrational even than commercial individualism. The decay of society was praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms. The aesthete was all receptiveness, like the flea. His only affair in this world was to feed on its facts and colours, like a parasite upon blood. The ego was the all; and the praise of it was enunciated in madder and madder rhythms by poets whose Helicon was absinthe and whose Pegasus was the nightmare. This diseased pride was not even ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... farther and fared worse. These sort of things never come singly, it seems. I had another request for your hand, my dear, only this afternoon, from that scoundrel Frank Muller, of all men in the world," and his face darkened as he said the name. "I sent him off with a flea in his ear, I can tell you. Had I known then what I know now, I should have referred him to John. There, there! He is a bad man, and a dangerous man, but let him be. He is taking plenty of rope, and he will hang himself one of these ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... followin' glimpsin' that flea-bitten cayouse at Tramperos. But the mules can't think or talk of nothin' else. It arouses their religious enthoosiasm to highest pitch; even the cynic Jerry gets half-way keyed up over it. I looks ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... on the particular book that I had designated as their dining-table. We have seen that fleas are capable of being highly educated, hence it is reasonable to presume that other insects, specially and generically akin to the flea, likewise possess the faculty of remembering events. Of course, this faculty is necessarily more highly developed in some animals than in others; it differs in degree of development, not ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... When a person feels an irritation in these parts, he must immediately look at the place; and if he discern a tiny black point, surrounded by a small white ring, the former is the chigoe, or sand- flea, and the latter the eggs which it has deposited in the flesh. The first thing to be done is to loosen the skin all round as far as the white skin is visible; the whole deposit is then extracted, and a little snuff strewn in the ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... turning himself into some small commonplace creature to plague his friends on board—a mouse, one day, a flea the next, a fly on the third. Quite naturally, no one suspected his ability to adopt such fantastic disguises. So little did they guess—he had one or two narrow escapes from being swatted or ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... successful art of no mean order, Ronsard's method of admitting us, as it were, to his conversation with himself is definitely his own. His interruptions of a verse with 'Ha' or 'He'; his 'Mon Dieu, que j'aime!' or 'He, que ne suis-je puce?' (the difference between Ronsard's flea and Donne's would be worth examination) have in them an element of irresistible bonhomie. We feel that he is making us his confidant. He does not have to tear agonies out of himself, so that what he confides has no chance of making ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... showing how a person's weight operated the contrivance, shutting the doors behind and simultaneously opening the doors in front; but Mr. Harnden did not draw attention to the palpable fact that a waiter would need to have the agility of a flea to escape being swatted in the rear ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... this rule, the curator cracked a flea under his robe, but Joseph did not call his attention to his disobedience, but bowed his head and left him to the scruple of conscience which he hoped would awaken in ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... louse, apply linseed oil. Paris green, in water, will kill the canker worm. Tobacco water does the work for plant lice. Peach-tree borers are excluded with tarred or felt paper, and cut out with a knife. Jar the grape flea beetle on an inverted umbrella early in the morning. Among small-fruit insects, the strawberry worms are readily destroyed with hellebore, an ounce to a gallon of warm water. The same remedy destroys ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... Yankee spy, do you want to be pinched between my thumb and finger as if you was a flea?" bellowed the boxer. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... doctrinaires, airy metaphysicians, and the like. The thing she loved of all else was to chaff them and drench them in holiday impertinence, exhibit them treading on air and arguing with the clouds, or measuring the jump of a flea, as a type of their ethereal refinements. But Dialogue continued his deep speculations upon Nature and Virtue, till, as the musicians say, the interval between them was two full octaves, from the highest to the lowest note. This ill-assorted pair it is that we have dared to unite and harmonize-reluctant ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... now perceived behind the stockman a black boy on a young colt, leading a sturdy flea-bitten grey, laden with a pack bag on either side. He jumped off as lightly as Moongarr Bill and hitched his horses also to the veranda posts. Except that he was black as a coal, save for the whites of his eyes and his gleaming teeth, ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... each evening—and he always had some audience. So that Alvina had opportunity to come into contact with all the odd people of the inferior stage. She found they were very much of a type: a little frowsy, a little flea-bitten as a rule, indifferent to ordinary morality, and philosophical even if irritable. They were often very irritable. And they had always a certain fund of callous philosophy. Alvina did not like them—you were not supposed, really, to get deeply emotional over them. But she found it ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... little Prose Dialogue, I see lots that might be weeded. I wonder at one word which is already crossed—'Emergency.' 'An Emergency!' I think Blake could have made a Picture of it as he did of the Flea. Something of the same disgusting Shape too. . . . Blake seems to me to have fine things: but as by random, like those of a Child, or a Madman, of Genius. Is there one good whole Piece, of ever so few ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... stick in front of his father's house; and Tom went down to Main Street for her, and bought a mattress which he carried home on his shoulder. This she spread on the bedroom floor, Mrs. Hemmerde having already given both rooms a sound scouring, just in case a flea or a spider should be lying perdu. After which Polly fell to baking again in good earnest; for the travellers would be famished by ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... winter, whereas in the summer months it appears to be immensely remote from the rest of the civilised world. From having been the prey of the inexpressible foreigner in his shooting season, it suddenly becomes, and remains during about five months, the happy hunting ground of the silent flea, the buzzing fly and the insinuating mosquito. The streets are, indeed, still full of people, and long lines of carriages may be seen towards sunset in the Villa Borghesa and in the narrow Corso. Rome and the Romans are not easily parted as London and London ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... in the East, is really efficacious. It is the powdered "Pire oti" (or flea-bane), mentioned in Curzon's 'Armenia' as growing in that country; it has since become an important article of export. A correspondent writes to me, "I have often found a light cotton or linen ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... terrible clarity—that to be a Winner was to be absolutely nothing. Like being the best flea, among all the fleas on ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... 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 much when up in London, was very proud of him. Crocker was dressed ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Against the grain, this fifteen-year: my son And that dead woman were too strong for me: They turned me false to my nature; broke me in Like a flea in harness, that draws a nutshell-coach. Till then I'd jumped, and bit, at my own sweet will. Oh! amn't I the wiseacre, the downy owl, Fancying myself as knowing as a signpost? And yet, there's always some ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... the women too. I made it a point to speak to Mrs. Spofford and her niece about him this morning,—and the poor girl has been making quite a fool of herself over him, you may have observed. Mrs. Spofford owns quite a block of stock in our institution, so I considered it my duty to put a flea in her ear, if you see ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... track of HIM. Might's well try to put your finger on a flea. He's here to-day and gone yesterday, as the Scriptur' says. He ate a little mite of supper, but not much, and then off he puts. Says he's goin' to walk the fog out'n his head. I told him, s' I, 'You'll walk a plaguey sight more in than you do out, THIS night,' but he went just the ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... was wroth and his face reddened with rage and he said to the servant; "Let him walk the highway of the Moslems; but, when we turn off it to our tents, and find that he still follows us, we will send him about his business with a flea in his ear." Then he bowed his head and walked on, the Eunuch walking behind him. But Hasan of Bassorah followed them to the plain Al-Hasa; and, as they drew near to the tents, they turned round and saw him close on their heels; so Ajib was very angry, fearing that the Eunuch might tell his grandfather ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... more, for such was uncle's last intimation. Never mind; he can't take his money and comfort with him, and in all probability will find himself in the same boat as myself. He never enquires whether I am starving or not. 3—a mere flea-bite to him—would have put us straight, and with his security and good interest might have obtained me a good situation long ago. I can face poverty and degradation no longer, and would sooner ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... idea of going somewhere else; and the chances of the stranger within their gates approached those of an icicle in Hades, as our friends across the water would say. Finally, in despair, Draycott rushed into the road and seized a venerable flea-bitten grey that was ambling along with Monsieur, Madame, and all the little olive-branches sitting solemnly inside the cab. He embraced Madame, he embraced the olive-branches; finally—in despair—I believe he embraced Monsieur. He wept, he entreated, he implored them to take ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... us back, as he thinks, with a flea in our ears, but it is a flea which will tickle his majesty before long," observed Lieutenant Blake, who had something of his ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... this psychological moment to pull a plug of black MacDonald from his pocket and bite off a mouthful, without taking the telescope from his eye—"an' the wind is in our favour an' he's as busy as a flea!" he finished. ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... The rough, ungarnished coffin of stained deal lay bare and unsightly on the floor of an old market- cart; a woman sat beside, steadying it with her feet. The husband drove; and the most depressed of the three was the horse, a broken- kneed, flea-bitten grey. It was pathetic, this bringing home in death of the old father whom, while he lived, they had been too poor to house; it was at no small sacrifice that they had spared him that terror of old age, a pauper's grave, and brought him to lie by his ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... one of Potts' ears or one of his shoulders, I was perfectly satisfied—first, because that sort of thing was good for the whole dog; and, second, because the thing would get about even when Potts' head would reach around and bite a flea off my hind legs ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... second week the symptoms above detailed continue, becoming often more severe, and there develops great nervousness and delirium. About this time there are frequently observed over the chest, abdomen and thighs, minute reddish spots resembling flea-bites; these spots last for a few days and then pass away and are followed by a fresh crop in other situations. During this period of the disease inflammation of the bronchial tubes frequently comes on, and now and then pneumonia develops. Bleeding from the bowels is an occasional highly ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... Great Britain; and to judge by the 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 is the price of admission to the ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... against a netting and looked vaguely out 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 customs and privileges that had never been infringed. ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... cove time to breathe in. Well, in half an hour out comes my Carry as lively as a flea. She got into a passing cab and away she went. Fortunately I can run a bit, and reached the Palais Royal in time to see Caroline change two notes of two hundred francs ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... on earth Who beat all other bardies at a canter; Rob' Burns his mother called him at his birth. Though handicapped by rum and much a ranter, He won the madcap race in Tam O'Shanter. He drove a spanking span from Scottish heather, Strong-limbed, but light of foot as flea or feather— Rhyme and Reason, matched and yoked together, And reined them with light hand and limber leather. He wrote to me once on a time—I mind it— A bold epistle and the poet signed it. He thought to cheat ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... he feels like. Sometimes he's on and off the island half a dozen times a week, and again we don't hear nothing of him for months; sometimes he just stops here for days and mebbe weeks, and again he's here one minute and gone the next. Jumps round like a flea on a griddle, I say; you can't never tell nothing about what he's going to do or where he'll be next.... My land o' mercy, Mr. Searle! What a start you did ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... made on your aunt's opals. But perhaps you might have your mother go over and see Miss Alicia. She could mention what you thought, and even if the old lady did pretend to scoff at the idea, it would put a flea in her ear, so perhaps she'd keep an eye on ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... the third floor of the flea-bag. Part of the place was only two stories high. The door at the end of my corridor opened out onto the roof. When I had calmed down, I stepped through the door into the ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... word. It is remarkable, too, that, though articulating distinctly, he keeps his mouth shut most of the time, and speaks through his nose. I have occasionally observed him even eating Sequoia seeds and nibbling a troublesome flea, without ceasing or in any way confusing his "Pee-ah! pee-ah!" ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... to beef, butter, and good red wheat; white corn, sad vegetables, cold water, sackcloth take their place, with fasts on bread and water, and festivals mitigated by fish. Goodbye to pillows and bolsters and linen shirts. Welcome horse-hair vests, sacking sheets, and the "bitter bite of the flea,"—sad entertainment for gentlemen! Instead of wise and merry talk, wherein he excelled, solitary confinement in a wooden cell (the brethren now foist off a stone one upon credulous tourists) with willing slavery to stern Prior Basil. The long days of prayer and meditation, the nights short ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... Crocker had said, coming into the great man's room, "I hope you will do me the honour of being present at my wedding breakfast." The suggestion was an unpardonable impertinence. "I am asking no one else in the Department except the Duca," said Crocker. With what special flea in his ear Crocker was made to leave the room instantly cannot be reported; but the reader may be quite sure that neither did Aeolus nor the Duca accept the invitation. It was on that very afternoon that Mr. Jerningham, with the assistance of one of the messengers, discovered that Crocker had—actually ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... replied the officer. "We can't be bothered with a single prisoner. What is one flea on a blanket? Another time, if we come across you again with enough of your comrades to make the game worth while, why then, perhaps we may give ourselves the pain of keeping you. You've seen that we have enough food to feed your whole trench, ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... not!" agreed Cap sarcastically. "A mere A-number-one pair of mules belonging to another fellow is only a flea bite to offer a visitor for supper! Well, all I got ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Lord!" he said, with even more than his usual deliberate utterance, "in England the liveliest flea that ever gave a triumphal jump in air would find his spirits inclined to droop! I tell you, ma'am," he continued, addressing himself to Zara, whose merry laugh rang out like a peal of little golden ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... close, and Charley went off to the Florida Keys, where he spent a month living with some friends before holing up with his mother and sister for the winter. He was offered a job in New York, at a year-round flea museum in Times Square, but after some thought he decided against it. He'd never had to work winters, and he wasn't going ...
— Charley de Milo • Laurence Mark Janifer AKA Larry M. Harris
... 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 and be off—Bill vanted to get at Poll, Poll ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... so he called her Russia. There is a young 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
... The king, we found, was engaged in a war with the sun, and he offered me a commission, but I declined the honour his majesty intended me. Everything in this world is of extraordinary magnitude! a common flea being much larger than one of our sheep: in making war, their principal weapons are radishes, which are used as darts: those who are wounded by them die immediately. Their shields are made of mushrooms, and their darts (when radishes are out of ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... 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 ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... knew that he had stepped closer to Mr. Potter, and was speaking in a trembling rage. "Don't ye intermate an' insinerate; for if ye do, I kin fling out some insinerations likewise. Yeou jest open yer mouth about me stealin' an' I'll put a flea in old man Cameron's ear. Ha! Ye know what I mean. Better hev a care, Jabe ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... only wanted to do all the jumping. "Let me do the taking," he would have said, "and you can do the winning." When Mr. Crabbe hopped over three in a row, Mr. Frye became gloomy. He felt that Mr. Crabbe was getting all the pleasure. "You're too spry for me," he said. "You're like a flea. Well. . . ." ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... was a real barracks. The town was an imitation town. The fort, spick, span, in rows, with nicely planted trees and green grass-plats (kept in condition at vast expense to the War Department), stood on the bank of the sluggish river, while just below it and across the stream sprawled the town, drab, flea-bitten, unkempt, littered with tin cans and old bottles, a collection of saloons, gambling-houses and nameless dives, with a few people—a very few—making an honest living by selling groceries, ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... yersel': I hae frichtit the deid afore noo. Sae gang yer wa's to Mistress Coorthoup, wi' a flech (flea) i' yer lug (ear). I wuss ye luck—sic luck as I ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... in and build the fire if we ain't going to freeze to death!" exclaimed Grandma Brown, jogging up on a flea-bitten black mule. ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... GRAHAMS and the STANLEYS. There is 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... had come up nicely; but no sooner had the first green leaves expanded than myriads of little flea-like beetles devoured them. A timely article in my horticultural paper explained that if little chickens were allowed to run in the garden they would soon destroy these and other insects. Therefore I improvised ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... 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 ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... Wormwood hath seed get a handful or twaine To save against March, to make flea to refraine: Where chamber is sweeped and Wormwood is strowne, No flea, for his life, dare abide to be knowne. What saver is better (if physick be true), For places infected than Wormwood and Rue? It is as a comfort for hart ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... That will do for cleanliness. Now for clothing. Lots of socks, but only one change of other things, unless you care to take a third shirt in your greatcoat pocket. Two good pairs of boots, and a pair of slacks. Then, as regards sleeping. Your flea-bag and your three Government blankets, with your valise underneath, will keep you (and your little bedfellows) as warm as toast. You may get separated from your valise, though, so take a ground-sheet in your pack. Then you will be ready to dine and ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... 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 ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... to squeeze out a tear and at the same moment depart in wrath to her room and lock the doors, refusing to answer—the trouble being why in heaven's name must a pound-and-a-half spaniel called Monster, nothing but a flea-bearing dust mop, do nothing but sit and yap for chocolates?—what man is going to dare do otherwise than suppress a little profanity and then go and whisper ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... said the man. "I know the guy, and how to handle him. You just watch him like he's watching you, Mr. Mershone, and if anything happens you skip as lively as a flea. I can use that two hundred ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... Curtesye promises his 'lytyl John' a breechless feast, or as the Oriel MS. reads it, a 'byrchely' one,[1] & as the Forewords have shown that young people did get floggings in olden time, it may be as well to give here the sketch of a boy flea-bitten, no doubt, with little bobs of hazel twigs, that Richard Hill has preserved for us. Boys of the present generation happily don't know the sensation of unwelcome warmth that a sound flogging produced, and how after it one ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... it was a flea—bite, last night, but, mercy, I am as stiff and sore as a gentleman need be. How do you feel? I see you have one of your fins in ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... fulmo. Flash (of wit) spritajxo. Flask boteleto. Flat plata. Flat (music) duontono sube. Flatten platigi. Flatter flati. Flatterer flatulo. Flattering flatema. Flavour gusto. Flaw difekto. Flax lino. Flay senhauxtigi. Flea pulo. Flee flugi. Fleece sxaflano. Fleecy laneca. Fleet (quick) rapida. Fleet sxiparo. Flesh (meat) viando. Flesh karno. Flexibility fleksebleco. Flexible fleksebla. Flexion flekso. Flicker lumsxanceli. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... this habite, doe so, and are thought to merite more then the other, but they which cannot doe so make a vowe to sacrifice a Ramme at the mountaine of pardons; and after they bee washed, it is not lawfull for any man or women, to kill either flea or lowse with their handes, neither yet to take them with their nailes, vntill they haue accomplished their vowed orations in the mountaine of pardons abouesayd: and therefore they cary with them certaine stickes ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... there was once reigning, Who had a goodly flea, Him loved he without feigning, As his own son were he! His tailor then he summon'd, The tailor to him goes: Now measure me the youngster For jerkin and ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... emigrating," the stranger went on, trying to make his coarse voice sound friendly. "I just had in mind puttin' a flea in your ear. Because it is the wrong time of year to be goin' west, in the first place, and the woods are full of Indians and the roads alive with cutthroats, in the second place. If I was you young shavers I'd sell out and wait a year or two, or till next spring ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... 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
... called tutsen, is the French tout-saine (heal all). There are some others which, however, are not peculiar to the West; as kickshaws (quelque chose), etc. We have also many inverted words, as swap for wasp, cruds for curds, etc. Then again we call a fly a flea; and a flea a flay; and the smallest stream of water ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... the boxes, if of the depth required. Applications of guano, 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 ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... of his force to salute him in the darkness was his next in command, Barry Whalen. They had been together in the old Rand Rifles, and had, in the words of the Kaffir, been as near as the flea to the blanket, since the day when Rudyard discovered that Barry Whalen was on the same ship bound for the seat of war. They were not youngsters, either of them; but they had the spring of youth in them, and a deep basis ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stepped out of eternity for the sake of the picture. And not all the kings and kaisers, cardinals and courtezans rolled into one great swaggering splurge of majesty could hold a candle to a ragged Bedouin chief on a flea-bitten pony, on the way to a ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... wi' the bree,' Annapla's aye sayin', but here there's neither bree nor puddin'. To think that a' my traison against the master i' the interest o' his dochter and himsel' should come to naethin', and that Sim MacTaggart should be sent awa' wi' a flea in his lug, a' for the tirravee o' a lassie that canna' value a guid chance when it offers! I wonder what ails her, if it's no' that mon-sher's ta'en her fancy! Women are a' like weans; they never see the crack in an auld toy till some ane shows them a new ane. Weel! as sure as death I wash my ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... council were near the town-hall; and that those little animals moved from place to place with wonderful agility. Johnson sat in great impatience till the gentleman had finished his tedious narrative, and then burst out (playfully however), 'It is a pity, Sir, that you have not seen a lion; for a flea has taken you such a time, that a lion must ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... often told how they Saw Cupid bitten by a flea; And thereupon, in tears half drown'd, He cried aloud: Help, help the wound! He wept, he sobb'd, he call'd to some To bring him lint and balsamum, To make a tent, and put it in Where the stiletto pierced the skin; Which, being done, the fretful pain ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... pleased both Maimoune and Danhasch. Maimoune then changed herself into a flea, and leaping on the prince's neck, stung him so smartly, that he awoke, and put up his hand to the place; but Maimoune skipped away, and resumed her pristine form, which, like those of the two genies, was invisible, the better to observe what he ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... 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 the ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... make their appearance, led by their queen, a most beautiful and amiable little lady no bigger than a cambric needle. Assembling on the pillow of the crib, they would order their minstrels and orchestra to seat themselves on little master's forehead. The minstrels invariably were the cricket, the flea, the katydid, and the gnat, while the orchestra consisted of mosquitos, bumblebees, and wasps. Once in a great while, on very important occasions, the fairies would bring the old blind hop-toad down the chimney and set him on the window-sill, where ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... Churms, cry you mercy, sir; I saw not you. I think I have sent the scholar away with a flea in his ear. I trow, he'll come no more at ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... no rain, no wind, no flea, no fly; there is no Enoch nor any Elias to be sure; but there are women with nothing pedantic about them, who are as loving as ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Ned. Don't be confoundedly unjust. She didn't tell me to go and seek him. How can she help his whispering to her? And then she looks over at me, and I swear I'm not going to be defended by a woman. She must fancy I haven't got the pluck of a flea. I know what her idea of young fellows is. Why, she said to me, when Suckling went off from her, the other day, 'These are our Guards.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you," said the section chief, "I haven't had to read mine yet. The doctor fixed up the baths in town and yesterday he passed around those flea charms. Have you ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... 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
... nephew. "Sometimes I think that is why he hates to part with a book. He keeps a secondhand bookshop, you know, and he's positively insulting to customers who try to buy any of the books. The old boy is really queer in his head, but there's nothing to be afraid of. He wouldn't hurt a flea, ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... 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, flattered ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... Josh, that I know. But come, now—as between man and man—without humbug—a little capital might enable me to make a first-rate thing of the shop. The tobacco trade is growing. I should cut my own nose off in not doing the best I could at it. I should stick to it like a flea to a fleece for my own sake. I should always be on the spot. And nothing would make your poor mother so happy. I've pretty well done with my wild oats—turned fifty-five. I want to settle down in my chimney-corner. And if I once buckled to the tobacco trade, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... in some cases, the water flea, for example, for the female to produce young without the necessity of fertilization by the male. In order to perform the necessary work to insure food supplies for the winter other insects have developed highly specialized workers, especially fitted ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... internship in a hospital in Minneapolis, but still, oh well, you don't get to know folks here, way you do up home. I feel I've got something to say about running Gopher Prairie, but you take it in a big city of two-three hundred thousand, and I'm just one flea on the dog's back. And then I like country driving, and the hunting in the fall. Do you know Gopher ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... told them it had a little snake which used to suck on the lowest joint of its forefinger; and, when they (inquiring where) pointed to other places, it told them not there but here, pointing on the lowest joint of the forefinger, where they observed a deep red spot about the bigness of a flea-bite. They asked it who gave it that snake, whether the black man gave it: the child said no, its mother gave it. I heard this ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... grandfather dies; and you sendin' them both off with worse grace than if they had been beggars askin' you for a shillin'. Now, stop your snivellin' there, I tell you. You are like your poor sainted father,—God bless him where he lies,—he too used to cry, likely enough, if a flea bit him." ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... want 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 be watched day ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... "That's a flea in his ear," said Bunce chuckling, as Sir Francis went one way, Philip the other. "What do you ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... to disappointment, for not a chair was vacant—"Not room for a flea," as Madame explained to us, and we had to curb our appetites as ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... "roll of honour" at the celebrated tavern in the Avenue de l'Opera. Nor do the numerous scribbled inscriptions on the other walls, such saucy epigrams as "To hell with the prefect of police," "The police are damned low flea-full dogs" and the like impress me less favourably than the scribbled inscriptions on notes of assignation placed covertly by subsidised waiters into the serviettes of the Callot-adorned Thaises in the spectacularized haunts of the Bois. The piano in Le Caveau may be diabetic, senescent, ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... 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 are perfectly happy to chew your bread without asking where the corn comes ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... expressions of apology from McGregor, on learning what he had done, and patronisingly cool were the assurances of Ivor that the injury was a mere flea-bite. And intense was the astonishment when it was discovered that a stag and a hind had fallen to old MacRummle with that "treemendious" repeater! And great was the laughter afterwards, at lunch time ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington |
