"Nail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an' we thought as it war a boguy, Seth made no more ado, but he up to't as bold as a constable. Why, there he comes out o' Will Maskery's; an' there's Will hisself, lookin' as meek as if he couldna knock a nail o' the head for fear o' hurtin't. An' there's the pretty preacher woman! My eye, she's got her bonnet off. I mun go ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Julia, dance!" he cried; and in his gyrations brought without warning his nail-spiked sandal down on Hito's foot. Hito bellowed and danced upon one foot with pain, and once dancing, found that ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... a social amenity! Preposterous! No; Mr. Cedarquist forgot that we were dining out ourselves to-night, and when he told me he had asked you here for the same evening, I fell upon the man, my dear, I did actually, tooth and nail. But I wouldn't hear of his wiring you. I just dropped a note to our hostess, asking if I could not bring you, and when I told her who you WERE, she received the idea with, oh, empressement. So, there it is, all settled. Cedarquist and the girls are gone on ahead, and you are to take the old ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... appeared to the narrator, or conveyed his infernal dictates. The man at first refused to say; but it was gradually drawn from him that the Demon had no certain and invariable form: sometimes it appeared to him in the form of a rat; sometimes even of a leaf, or a fragment of wood, or a rusty nail; but that his Master's voice always came to him distinctly, whatever shape he appeared in; only, he said, with an air of great importance, his Master, this time, had graciously condescended, ever since he left the asylum, to communicate with him in a much more pleasing and imposing ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shall be made, I recommend the court circle as your place of retirement. Governors, creditors, Queen, and imprisonment, all as compactly placed, in the same sentence, as if it were the creed written on a thumb-nail! Well, Sir, we will suppose my interest what you wish it.—Who and ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... remarked slowly and thoughtfully, "you 've no idea the trouble that negro is to me. Would you believe it? he actually left my nail-brush behind at Detroit, and not another to be had for love or money this side of Montreal! And only last night he mislaid a box of rouge, and, by Saint Denis! I hardly dare hope there is so much as an ounce of it ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... We exhausted one subject completely before we turned to the other. One of the returning turkeys took an unwarrantable liberty, and, mounting the doorstep, came in and walked about the kitchen without being observed by its strict owner; and the tin dipper slipped off its nail behind us and made an astonishing noise, and jar enough to reach Mrs. Hight's inner ear and make her turn her head to look at it; but we talked straight on. We came at last to understand each other upon such terms ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... old-style Radical: he won't do you much harm. You hit the nail on the head when you mention Norburn. Norburn would be very pleased to run your factory as a State work-shop for two pound ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... said of printing can be extended to every agent for the advancement of labor; from the nail and the mallet, up to the locomotive and the electric telegraph. Society enjoys all, by the abundance of its use, its consumption; and it enjoys all gratuitously. For as their effect is to diminish prices, it is evident that just so much of the price as is taken off by ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... stairs. She was in a very bad humor. She had snagged her skirt on a nail in the old gate, and although that very morning she had detested the suit, her round of shopping had again endeared it to her. She told the Portier in English what she thought of him, and climbed ponderously, pausing at each ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and Algeria, countries that are wilder looking, and much wilder seeming than Egypt. Now, as I approached Assuan, I seemed at last to be also approaching the real, the intense Africa that I had known in the Sahara, the enigmatic siren, savage and strange and wonderful, whom the typical Ouled Nail, crowned with gold, and tufted with ostrich plumes, painted with kohl, tattooed, and perfumed, hung with golden coins and amulets, and framed in plaits of coarse, false hair, represents indifferently to the eyes of the travelling stranger. For at ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... them. As the leaves develop, these membranous wrappings curl back, and finally wither and fall. In the plane-tree, or sycamore, this inner wrapping of the bud is a little pelisse of soft yellow or tawny fur. When it is cast off, it is the size of one's thumb nail, and suggests the delicate skin of some golden-haired mole. The young sycamore balls lay aside their fur wrappings early in May. The flower tassels of the European maple, too, come packed in a slightly furry covering. The long and fleshy inner scales that ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... set Charlie down in front of the hearth, and proceeded to shut the cottage door, which had been left open as they entered,—and locking it, dropped an iron bar across it for the night. Then she threw off her cloak, and hung it up on a nail in the wall, and bending over a lamp which was burning low on the table, turned up its wick a little higher. Helmsley watched her in a kind of stupefied wonderment. As the lamplight flashed up on her features, he saw that she was not ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... port-hole, too indistinctly, however, to locate it. And this lasted for weeks. One morning, in the ninth week, I perceived that the hatch had been left unfastened and I pushed it open. The cabin was empty at the time. With an effort, I was able to take a nail-file from a dressing-table. Two weeks after that, by dint of patient perseverance, I had succeeded in filing through the bars of my port-hole and I could have escaped that way, only, though I am a good swimmer, I soon grow tired. I had therefore to choose a moment when the yacht was not too ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... resembled pouring wine out of one vessel into another; there was no increase of quantity, and the flavor of the vintage was liable to evaporate;"—whoever would study the great, as well as the small, peculiarities of the painter who converted his thumb-nail into a palette, and while transcribing characters and events both rapidly and faithfully, complained of his "constitutional idleness:"—whenever, we say, our readers feel desirous of revelling in the biography of so diligent, so observing, so ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... health and consequent despondency, we had to work among labourers in a quarry. But the feeling soon passed, and we set ourselves carefully to examine the quarry. Cowper describes a prisoner of the Bastile beguiling his weary hours by counting the nail-studs on the door of his cell, upwards, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... the President again fought tooth and nail against the industry, and most strenuous efforts were made by him and his party to obtain a reversal of the decision, but without effect. This, however, only disposed of a small portion of the ground at stake. With regard to those areas which had never been ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... in town. And then, too, they are always sighing and groaning and trying to make out that they are too good for the business. I don't like such people myself. Those who are likely to excel in this business show their teeth betimes. Those children who put out the eyes of birds, nail bats to barn doors, and love to shoot at little dogs, those are the sort of fellows from which apt pupils ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... Prince with the Lip's Power is in, to make such a huff at this Time, shall come under Examination by and by; in the mean time the Solunarians have clench'd the Nail, and secur'd the War to last as ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... exuviation, are apparently soon worn entirely away by the friction against the sides of the cavity; hence in most specimens this part of the peduncle is quite naked. This same part, however, is furnished with nail- or rather star-headed little projections of hard, yellow, horny chitine (fig. 3 e). The star on the summit seems generally to have about five irregular points; one star which I measured was 7/6000th of an inch in total width, the footstalk being only ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... could employ, was freed from any suspicion of dishonest political methods or acts. As William M. Ivins, attorney for Mr. Barnes, left the New York Constitutional Convention to try the case at Syracuse, he said with un concealed and alluring self-satisfaction to Mr. Root: "I am going to nail Roosevelt's hide to the barn door." Mr. Root replied: "Be sure it is Roosevelt's and not some other hide that is ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... to the weapons, too. She had taken off her pistol when she had been nursing Bill and hadn't put it on since. Quietly, so as not to attract attention, she glanced about to locate it. It was hanging on a nail at the opposite end of the table,—and Joe stood just beside it. She had no desire to waken his suspicions of her fear. She knew she must put up a bold front, at least. Nevertheless her fingers longed ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... story of a boy who, having been left alone in his father's house one day, was suddenly set upon and roughly handled by a what-not, a shaggy old hair-cloth sofy and an album. The sofy had begun it by scratchin' his face and he had scratched back with a shingle nail. The album had watched its chance and, when he stood beneath it, had jumped off a shelf on to his head. Suddenly he heard a voice ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... clumsy, hasty sort of way. They made all sorts of mistakes and messes. Payne, the foreman carpenter, was putting some new boards on a part of the drawing-room floor: he was in such a state of panic that, while driving a nail, he accidentally struck the thumb of his left hand a severe blow with his hammer. Bundy was also working in the drawing-room putting some white-glazed tiles in the fireplace. Whilst cutting one of ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... recollection made him start. In his fear of being robbed, he had finally adopted the plan of carrying the key of the large press in his pocket. But this afternoon, oppressed by the heat, he had taken off his jacket, and he remembered having seen Clotilde hang it up on a nail in the study. A sudden pang of terror shot through him, sharp and cold as a steel point; if she had felt the key in the pocket she had stolen it. He hastened to search the jacket which he had a little before thrown upon a chair; the key was not here. At this very moment he was being ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... nail and thumb—they struggled and they thrust, The blood ran red from Dollar's side, like rain, upon the dust; He nerved his might for one last spring, and as he sank and died, Reft of an eye, his enemy fell ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... wild and desperate conflict. Tooth and nail Tommy attacks, the foe, fists and legs doing very gallant service. There would indeed have been a serious case of assault and battery for the next Court day, had not Providence sent Mrs. Monkton ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... music is a modern phenomenon. Beethoven encouraged it by his "Pastoral Symphony," and the French Berlioz did some very remarkable things in this line in his dramatic symphonies; but it remained for Liszt to hit the nail on the head in his symphonic poems. The French Saint-Saens followed him, rather than his countryman Berlioz; so did Tschaikowsky, Dvorak, and most modern composers, up to Richard Strauss, whose symphonic poems are the most widely discussed, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... all at once to bethink himsel' o' something, an' he ran to his coat that was hangin' behind the door on a nail, an' he drew oot a letter fra the pocket, an' ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... struck the nail on the head," said Irene. "Look here, Agnes; if anything happened to divide us I'd get worse than ever; because, you see, I am cleverer than I ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... interests, and you study the interests of your country; press the point of your own services, and rail at the Tories, and I'll bet my spurs against a rusty nail that you get to be a county ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... premature, but his getaway doesn't cut any ice. What we want to do is to nail him, clamp the evidence home, and put him out of business before his friends can say Jack Robinson. The story now is that he was caught driving a little bunch of cows to met the big bunch his pals were rustling, and that we left him in charge of Brad while ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... Administration lost some of its staunchest supporters the moment its later organ, the Sentinel, began advocating the general regulation of prices. With ruin staring them in the face, these devotees of tradition could only reiterate their ancient formulas, nail their colors to the mast, end go down, satisfied that, if they failed with these principles, they would have failed still more terribly without them. Confronting the practical question how to prevent speculators ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... the Little Doctor had not returned from Denson's, where she had been summoned to attend one of the children, who had run a rusty nail into her foot. She had gone alone, for Dr. Cecil was learning to make bread, and had refused to budge from the kitchen till her first batch was ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... of," cheerfully. "You've hit the nail on the head about her, Maria." He was a peaceable, affectionate fellow at bottom. He had never hoped that his sister would tolerate Kitty, and women's squabbles in a family he abhorred, like every other man; and here she was extending a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... fierce destroyer, chose Above the faith of wedlock-bands, my tomb With odours visited and annual flowers. Not less renown'd then in Mount Ephraim, Jael who with inhospitable guile Smote Sisera sleeping through the Temples nail'd. 990 Nor shall I count it hainous to enjoy The public marks of honour and reward Conferr'd upon me, for the piety Which to my countrey I was judg'd to have shewn. At this who ever envies or repines I leave him to his lot, and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... to-o much nail-o ketchem clo'e (clothes)?" snorted Hop Sing, coming around to the side verandah with two pins in his hand, to where Miss Jo Halstead was embroidering ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... the cross. In the relief of the night against the window-pane its jewels shone like the only living things in the hovel. A figure was extended upon this cross, and every nail was a precious stone; the crown of thorns ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... coroner, having indicated thus clearly his opinion that Mr Bunner had hit the right nail on the head, desired the jury ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... was dignified and businesslike, and if a smile hovered about her lips as they explored the odd little house, it did not go beyond the bounds of a polite interest. At length she seated herself on an empty nail keg in the shop, and became absorbed in thought. The agent leaned against the door frame ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... obscure piano-forte teacher, who could only venture to address pupils, patrons, and friends. What did he promise? Among other things, music from "Lucia," music from "Norma," music from "Ernani." Teresa made another approving mark with her thumb-nail; and Carmina purchased tickets. ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... on acts which were assuredly not recorded as examples for our imitation. The prophet who hewed in pieces a captive king, the rebel general who gave the blood of a queen to the dogs, the matron who, in defiance of plighted faith, and of the laws of eastern hospitality, drove the nail into the brain of the fugitive ally who had just fed at her board, and who was sleeping under the shadow of her tent, were proposed as models to Christians suffering under the tyranny of princes and prelates. Morals and manners were subjected to a code ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... horny appendages of the skin, and, with the exception of the hands, the soles of the feet, the backs of the fingers and toes, between the last joint and the nail, and the upper eyelids, are distributed more or less abundantly over every part of the surface of the body. Over the greater part of the surface the hairs are very minute, and in some places are not actually apparent above the level of the skin; but the hair of the head, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... it cannot be controlled to cut accurately. A light hatchet is preferable to a heavy one. It should never be used for nailing purposes, except in emergencies. The pole of the hammer—that part which is generally used to strike the nail with—is required in order to properly balance the hatchet ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... tackles, hold hard. Tear holes big enough for the man with the ball to get through. Don't be afraid. Ends, you want to get down like lightning on kicks. Nail in his tracks the man who catches the ball, but don't, for the love of the pigskin, touch him until he has it, or you'll be offside. Watch out for fake kicks, forward passes, double passes—watch out for all tricks. If there's a fumble, fall on the ball and stay there, unless you see a ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... thickest thither flew The knight, and at each stroke felled, hurt, or slew. L Thus fought they long, yet neither shrink nor yield, In equal balance hung their hope and fear: All full of broken lances lay the field, All full of arms that cloven and shattered were; Of swords, some to the body nail the shield, Some cut men's throats, and some their bellies tear; Of bodies, some upright, some grovelling lay, And for themselves eat graves out ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... an old empty nail-keg near the improvised cot and looked at the child; while Laughing Anne, moving to and fro, preparing the hot drink, giving it to the boy in spoonfuls, or stopping to gaze motionless at the flushed face, whispered disjointed bits of information. She had succeeded ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... As far as Pelle could see, there would soon be no place as big as his thumb-nail for capital to feed upon out there. The farmers went about things so quickly! Pelle came of peasant stock himself, and did not doubt that he would be able to get in touch with the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Elizabeth with the manuscript set in a ring of gold covered with a crystal; he had also contrived a magnifying glass of such power, that, to her delight and wonder, her majesty read the whole volume, which she held on her thumb-nail, and "commended the same to the lords of the council and the ambassadors;" and frequently, as Peter often heard, did her majesty vouchsafe to wear ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... moment on his way to this country—-if he is not already here, by the by—one of the shrewdest and finest speculators in the world, who is coming over on purpose to do what up to now our own men seem to have funked—fight the B. & I. tooth and nail." ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... see Mr. Mason now. He's all lathered up and frothin' at the mouth. But in an hour or so he'll be calmed down, maybe before. I tell you what; you stroll out and take in the store windows for a spell and then drift back later. Come up here if you like, or you can wait in the arcade and nail him as he comes ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... his lips as if he enjoyed himself; and the hawk soon came wheeling down to the ground, which he no sooner touched, than away ran the weasel, having got an excellent dinner at the expense of the hawk. He was not a bit the worse for the ride; while Mr. Hawk lay there as dead as a nail. The biter was bitten that time, wasn't he? It was a pretty good lesson to the hawk family not to be so greedy, though whether they ever profited by it is more than I can say. From the account that a little girl gave me of the incursions recently made upon her chickens, I judge that they ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... the Interrupted Scolia. It is very like the larva of the Common Cockchafer. It is a fat, pot-bellied grub, with a thick, red cap on its head and armed with strong, black mandibles, which are powerful implements for digging and cutting through roots. The legs are sturdy and end in a hooked nail. The creature has a long, heavy, brown paunch. When placed on the table, it lies on its side; it struggles without being able to advance or even to remain on its belly or back. In its usual posture it is curled up into a narrow hook. I have never seen it straighten itself completely; the bulky ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... island. I had not shaved since I arrived, so the little hostess asked me after a while if I would like to shave myself before dinner. I told her I would, so she got me some water in the potato-dish and put it on a chair; then her sister got me a little piece of broken looking-glass and put it on a nail near the door, where there was some light. I set to work, and as I stood with my back to the people I could catch a score of eyes in the glass, watching me intently. 'That is a great improvement to you now,' said the host, when I had done; 'and whenever you want ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... little indeed. So that most individuals, under a wise government, would be most carefully protected from all vicious attempts to inject extraneous ideas into them. Every extraneous idea, which has no inherent root in the dynamic consciousness, is as dangerous as a nail driven into a young tree. For the mass of people, knowledge must be symbolical, mythical, dynamic. This means, you must have a higher, responsible, conscious class: and then in varying degrees the lower classes, varying ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... of wool-growing I ever heard," cried the girl. "Up to this I've held it against you that you were a sheepman—a silly prejudice, of course, that I have grown up with—but now you can consider yourself free of that. I believe you have hit the nail on the head." ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... would see about it, and then once more she took herself off. Quenu thought that it was too good of her to take so much trouble in running about after that brute Gavard. In point of fact, however, she had simply gone upstairs to Florent's bedroom, the key of which was hanging from a nail in the kitchen. She hoped to find out something or other by an inspection of this room, since the poultry dealer had failed her. She went slowly round it, examining the bed, the mantelpiece, and every corner. The window with the little balcony was open, and the budding pomegranate was steeped ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... had concentrated on a broken fingernail, and he turned to the dressing-table for a knife. She followed him with her eyes and watched him carefully trimming the nail. She had often, amongst the many things that puzzled her, wondered at the fastidious care he took of his well-manicured hands. The light of the lamp fell full on his face, and there was a dull ache in her heart as she looked at him. He demanded implicit ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... just as I was beginning to feel quiet stealing over my limbs, and settling densely on my mind, a noise at my head startled me broad awake again, and, I will frankly confess it, brought my heart into my mouth. It was such a noise as a person would make scratching loudly with a finger-nail; it came from under the knapsack which served me for a pillow, and it was thrice repeated before I had time to sit up and turn about. Nothing was to be seen, nothing more was to be heard, but a few of these mysterious rustlings far and near, and the ceaseless accompaniment ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lived in, and the concern that was now upon me, put an end to all invention, and to all the contrivances that I had laid for my future accommodations and conveniences. I had the care of my safety more now upon my hands than that of my food. I cared not to drive a nail, or chop a stick of wood now, for fear the noise I might make should be heard: much less would I fire a gun for the same reason: and above all I was intolerably uneasy at making any fire, lest the smoke, which is visible at a great distance in the day, should ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... seven miles Northwest of Southampton by the London and Southwest railway, but the 311th did not take the L. & S. W. The hob-nail limited was the official troop train and the route covered ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... were extremely intimate. Kneller had a very fine garden, and as the doctor was fond of flowers, he permitted him to have a door into it. Ratcliffe's servants gathering and destroying the flowers, Kneller sent to inform him that he would nail up the door; to which Ratcliffe, in his rough manner, replied, "Tell him, he may do anything but paint it."—"Well," replied Kneller, "he may say what he will, for tell him, I will take anything from him, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... dawn into the modern world of distant enemies and secret deadly missiles was unforgettable. Some one showed me a steel arrow which had been dropped within the arsenal, a small, sharpened, nail-like thing that would transfix a body from head to feet. These arrows are dumped over by the thousands to fall where they will. That little machine a mile and more aloft in the sky, busily buzzing its way across the heavens, is the ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... can be crumbled between the fingers, and the bean within is too hard to be dented by finger nail or teeth. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... said. You may kiss my thumb-nail with the white spot in it for luck. No, sir. That is presuming. Now I am snug, and ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... is just one of Tim's large stories. I do assure you it was not, at first, bigger than my thumb nail, and I am certain it ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... busy about the breakfast, and as Mr. Van Brunt afterwards described it, "looking as if she could have bitten off a tenpenny nail," and indeed as if the operation would have been rather gratifying than otherwise. She gave them no notice at first, bustling to and fro with great energy, but all of a sudden she brought up directly in front of ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... but laugh. "I've seen a few passages of arms," he said. "By Jove, you don't know what war is till you see two —— at it tooth and nail. Two—what, Lucy? Oh, I mean fine ladies; they have no mercy. Her Grace will set her claws into the fair countess. And as for the ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... the collar—here.' Wastei moved closer to her and presented himself sideways to Berbel pointing out the place with his finger. 'The Jew said it was from a rusty nail, or that it might be an ink-spot—but he is only a Jew. That is not rust, nor ink, Frau Berbel. That is the old wolf's last blood—on the right side, just under the ear. He would have shot me for a poacher, if he could, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... and entered, Garth following in stony silence. It was dark within the long, narrow room, although the starlight gleamed feebly through the dirty window panes. Wayne found the lantern upon the nail where it had hung when he was a boy, lighted it, and turned the wick low so that there was only a wan light in the ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... and put by that psalm-book which had already played a part so decisive in the first chapter of her love-story. In the absence of the mesmerist's eye, we are told nowadays that the head of a bright nail may fill his place, if it be steadfastly regarded. So that torn page had riveted her attention on what might else have been but little, and perhaps soon forgotten; while the ominous words of Dandie - heard, not heeded, and still remembered ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... loosened can never attach itself again to the trunk; and whenever wounds, abrasures, or sections of loose bark exist on the trunk of a tree, the damaged part should be cut away cleanly, as far as the injury extends. Careful persons have been known to nail to a tree a piece of loosened bark, in hope of inducing it to grow again, or at least of retaining on the young wood its natural covering. Unfortunately the result produced by this operation is exactly opposite to that intended. The decaying ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... you've hit the nail on the head this time, Mr. Fairfield," added Dock, who evidently had a theory of his own to propose. "They say you are worth some thirty or forty thousand dollars, ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... enough ejaculation, but it served to drive home the nail which the detective's outspoken declaration had hammered into the Earl's startled consciousness. Here, in truth, was a new and disturbing phase of the matrimonial problem contrived by Hermione, aided and abetted by that mischievous scoundrel, Curtis. Still, ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... chosen his time well. Yet she screamed, loud and shrill, once, twice, a third time, before Malbihn could leap across the tent and throttle her alarming cries with his brute fingers. Then she fought him, as any jungle she might fight, with tooth and nail. The man found her no easy prey. In that slender, young body, beneath the rounded curves and the fine, soft skin, lay the muscles of a young lioness. But Malbihn was no weakling. His character and appearance were brutal, nor did they belie his brawn. He was ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... too. Turn the hands up to muster by the quarter-bell. We'll load the guns as soon as the lights are out; let the gunner fill forty rounds, and desire the carpenter to nail up the hatchway-screens. Let them be rolled up and stopped. We'll keep them up for a full due, till we return ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... have a front-door and a side-door by which they may be entered. The front-door is on the street. Some keep it always open; some keep it latched; some, locked; some, bolted,—with a chain that will let you peep in, but not get in; and some nail it up, so that nothing can pass its threshold. This front-door leads into a passage which opens into an ante-room, and this into the interior apartments. The side-door opens at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... of drinking supernaculum, consisted in turning down the cup upon the thumb-nail of the drinker after his pledge, when, if duly quaffed off, no drop of liquor ought to appear ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... part of the operation now begins: to isolate the vessel from the spine behind, the inferior cava on the right side, and the plexus of nerves in the cellular tissue all round. The cleaning of the vessel must be done in great measure by the finger-nail, and much dexterity will be required to pass the ligature without unnecessarily raising the vessel from its bed, especially as the vessel itself may very possibly be diseased, and the aneurism of the iliac ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... was a nail in the Kid's coffin, for Carlyle was well liked at White Oaks. By this time the toils began to tighten in all directions. The United States Government had a detective, Azariah F. Wild, in Lincoln county. ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... at what was good or noble—his hardest critic could not nail him to one such sentence; and yet, it seemed somehow to me that his unknown nature was a systematic blasphemy against it all. If fiend he was, he was yet something higher than the garrulous, and withal feeble, demon of Goethe. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... steel Saw steel Hot-rolled sheet steel Scythe steel Lathe spindle steel Shear knife steel Lawn mower knife steel Silico-manganese steel Machine knife steel Spindle steel Magnet steel Spring steel Mining drill steel Tool holder steel Nail die shapes Vanadium tool steel Nickel-chrome steel Vanadium-chrome steel Paper knife steel ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... nail squarely on the head," he stated. "We have here in this room a representative gathering from the whole world. If there is any one of you who can say that this mystery ship was built and manned by your people, let him speak, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... night. Such is the way in which mortgages of this kind are always drawn. Yes, sir, it was drawn with such diabolical skill that on this night of all nights the mortgage would be foreclosed. At midnight the men would come with hammer and nails and foreclose it, nail it ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble, Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail, Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket, thou:— Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread! Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant; Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard, As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st." ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... like a doughnut—see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and kep'him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do 'most anything—and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this flor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... one plant may be made to live and grow and produce on the roots of another? If we strip off the bark of any actively growing, woody plant we will find just beneath a soft, colorless substance; this substance is cambium. It feels slimy to the touch and if scraped with the finger nail a little doughy mass can be raised. As we examine it it will be seen to quickly darken to cream color, then to yellow and finally to dark brown. A change has taken place in it in a few seconds, right under our eyes. When we first exposed it, it was living, active ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... my gun the whole crowd were on their feet, and a moment later were at the scene of war. We went to the place where it lay, and beheld a very large white wolf lying there, "dead as a door nail." ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... she would there was eagerness in her tone. Remarking this, I decided to give another and closer look at the floor and the nails. I found the latter had not been properly inserted; or rather that there were two indentations for every nail, a deep one and one quite shallow. This caused me to make some examination of the others, those which had not been drawn from the floor, and I found that one or two of them were equally insecure, but not all; only ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... the young lord stood in helpless fury; and the hand he had grasped around his sword-hilt gripped it so hard that blood started under each nail. But his page bent and kissed the clenched fist with ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... poor stunned wife something to do, and he had taken more interest in the details of the proceeding than he otherwise would have done, in the hope of calling her forth to action again. So he seemed to know every brass-headed nail driven up for her convenience. Only one had been displaced. It was Esther's bonnet nail, which in his deep revengeful anger against her, after his wife's death, he had torn out of the wall, and cast ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... occasion of Captain Owen visiting the brother of the King of Baracouta, a calabash of palm-wine was produced, which, in consequence of some imperfection in the vessel, leaked out its contents; in order to cure this defect, the hospitable chief took off his hat, and, scraping with his thumb-nail a portion of the clay and grease from his head, effectually checked further leakage, with ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... was his delight to tell of cruises against the French and battles with his own shipmates, when he and an antagonist used to be seated astride of a sailor's chest, each fastened down by a spike-nail through his trousers, and there to fight it out. Sometimes he expatiated on the delicious flavor of the hagden, a greasy and goose-like fowl which the sailors catch with hook and line on the Grand Banks. He dwelt with rapture on an interminable winter at the Isle of Sables, where ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ensuing summer, and these are the fruit-bearers. One bunch of grapes is enough for a spur to carry. Professional gardeners cast off the weight of the bunches, and allow 1 ft. of rod to each pound of fruit. Tie or nail the bunches to the trellis or wall, and remove all branches or leaves ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... not quite amounting to a trespass as it had been sued for in the older precedents. To take an instance which is substantially one of the earliest cases, suppose that a man left a horse with a blacksmith to be shod, and he negligently drove a nail into the horse's foot. It might be that the owner of the horse could not have one of the old writs, because the horse was not in his possession when the damage was done. A strict trespass property could only be committed against the person in possession of it. It could not be ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... wide and about three feet long, should be placed on a firm support, upon which it would rest solidly without any tendency to joggle. At its middle was bored a small circular depression, about the size of a man's thumb-nail and shallow. Into this was thrust the tapered end of a round rod of maple wood about as thick as a large man's thumb. The upper end of the rod fitted freely into a socket in a ball of maple wood of suitable size to be held in the ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... to take off. This hard rider came aboard in a skiff after the anchor was up, and, having cast the skiff adrift, offered good money for a passage to Spain or any other foreign port, and paid it down upon the nail. He, Goody, had taken the money, though with a doubtful heart, and given a receipt to the name of Charles Smith, asking no questions, since for this gold he need not account to the owners. Afterwards also the man, having put off his spurs and soldier's jerkin, set himself to ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... started for police headquarters at breakneck speed, but on the way he stopped at Brander's rooms; for a miserable suspicion was growing in his brain. "If that really was Isis," he was thinking, "it's funny she didn't nail me before I got to the door, even with ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... exceedingly. A packman who chanced to be passing heard the tale and suspected the cause. Going to the discarded sweetheart, he told her that her rival had given birth to a fine child; thereupon she sprang up, pulled a large nail out of the beam, and called to her mother, 'Muckle good your craft has done!' The labouring wife was delivered forthwith. (See The Folklore ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... face of the picture smartly with a finger-nail, he gave a slight start, passed a hand over it with the palm pressed flat, and suddenly assumed the humanly intelligent expression of a hunting-dog that has hit on ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... primly side by side upon it; and at the back stood a couple of small bound volumes in which the nun was accumulating little by little private devotions that appealed to her. A pair of beads hung on a nail by the window over which was drawn an old red curtain; two brass candlesticks with a cross between them stood over the hearth, giving it a faint resemblance to an altar. The boards were bare except for a strip of matting by the bed; and the whole room, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... glance at the mantle hanging on a nail in the wall, and took the baby on her knee and danced him about; and the little fellow burst into a chuckling laugh, and Thomas echoed it with ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... over that humble but wholesome meal! Miss Harding praised our host's cooking, and his honest blue eyes glistened at the compliment. Miss Harding and I sat on a board which rested on two nail kegs, while Peterson, against his protest, had the one ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... I set my thumb-nail to it, and there, freshly cut and tied with a piece of the very blue ribbon she was wearing, lay a lock of her hair, a curl curiously and as it seemed wilfully twisted back upon itself, as if it had refused to be so imprisoned—just, in ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... sharp and swift, but must be calculated so as only just to reach the glass, being checked just at the right point, as one hammers a nail when one does not want to stir the work into which the nail is driven. A pushing stroke, a blow that would go much further if the glass were not there, is no use; and for this reason neither the elbow nor the hand must move; the knuckles are the hinge upon ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... Stebbins, you've released your chin To say that here, and here, we press-folk ail. 'Tis a great thing an editor to skin And hang his faulty pelt upon a nail (If over-eared, it has, at least, no tail) And, for an admonition against sin, Point out its maculations with a rod, And act, in short, the gentleman ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... 'football. By no means a scaly idea. I rather fancy, Comrade Bannister, that you have whanged the nail on the head. Is he strong on any particular team? I mean, have you ever heard him, in the intervals of business worries, stamping on his desk and yelling, "Buck up Cottagers!" or "Lay 'em out, Pensioners!" or anything like that? One moment.' Psmith ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... nothin' to a time I had in a brig off Hatteras," observed Teddy, who had somewhat recovered his composure; "we had to cut away both masts, you persave, and to scud under a scupper nail driv into the deck, wid a man ready to drive it further ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... so, whilst waiting, Pierre stationed himself at an open window, conducting on to a balcony, and his eyes roamed over the endless sea of herbage to the far-away whiteness of Rome, above which rose the dome of St. Peter's, at that distance a mere sparkling speck, barely as large as the nail of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... we did all we could. 'Twas little; would that Drake had heeded our advice! But I am rejoiced to see you on the road to recovery, dear boy; 'twould have been another nail in my coffin to know that you had lost your life in doing a service for me. I thank God for that, from ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... inches; the width of the face from 10 to 13 1/4 inches. The colour and length of the hair varied in different individuals, and in different parts of the same individual; some possessed a rudimentary nail on the great toe, others none at all; but they otherwise present no external differences on which to establish even varieties ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... that one nail had been driven home, and he was on the point of leaving the attic, for he knew he had not much time and hoped that downstairs he would be able to make some discoveries of importance, when it occurred ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... business and financial supermen. As a clever traveler had announced in an after-dinner speech at the Alta-Pacific, "There was honor amongst thieves, and this was what distinguished thieves from honest men." That was it. It hit the nail on the head. These modern supermen were a lot of sordid banditti who had the successful effrontery to preach a code of right and wrong to their victims which they themselves did not practise. With them, a man's word was good just as long as he was compelled to keep it. THOU SHALT NOT STEAL ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... enough to show that it was all that the other old house was not. It did not sag, or lurch, or do any of those disreputable things. It stood up as straight and was as firm on its foundations as on the day when its last hand-wrought nail had been driven home, a century or so before. No mistaking its period or architecture—it was the long-roofed salt-box type, the first Connecticut habitation that followed the pioneer cabin; its vast central ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... dead—dead as nail in door—and my revenues have died with it; but I am not as a man without hope. I have got a sort of opening to the "Morning Chronicle," !!! Mister Manning, by means of that common dispenser of benevolence, Mister Dyer. I have not seen Perry the editor yet: but I am preparing a specimen. I shall ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... men seek the plaudits of the world by achievements for human good, and by striving to elevate and ennoble men. Looking back through nineteen centuries we behold a cross, and on it the crucified Christ, with nail-pierced hands, and wounded, bleeding side, but whose heart was so full of love and pity that even in His dying agonies He had compassion upon His persecutors, and cried out, "Father, forgive them, for they know not ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... shock, Albeit finer than her smock, {50a} Marry! her smiles are not of vanity, But resting on sound Christianity. Faith, you would swear, had nail'd {50b} her ears on The book and cushion of ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... she wept. "He never came upstairs, but went out, and I went to bed. He left the door leading to the stairs open, too, on that night, a thing he never did before. And then the key of the shop. Bart used to hang it on a nail in the cellar and father would put it into his pocket after supper. Deborah couldn't find it in his clothes, and when she went afterwards to the cellar it was on the nail. On that night, Paul, father did everything different to what ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... drawing the tongue partially forward, to pass the hand into the pharynx and to twist the tumor gently from its attachment. One veterinarian who has had considerable practice in treating this form of disease scrapes through the attachment of the tumor gradually with his thumb nail. When the attachment is too strong to be severed in this way an instrument like a thimble, but possessing a sharp edge at the end, may be used to effect the same purpose, or the base of the tumor may be severed by the use ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... led the way to a big and naked outhouse strewn with very dirty rushes; and lighted a rush-candle fixed between two of the stones of the wall, and set the glowing turf upon the hearth and gave him two unlighted sods and a wisp of straw, and showed him a blanket hanging from a nail, and a shelf with a loaf of bread and a jug of water, and a tub in a far corner. Then the lay brother left him and went back to his place by the door. And Cumhal the son of Cormac began to blow ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... Give it to him, Nora; it's on a nail by the white boards. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... and with his long pear-shaped head, shaven to the skin, his white cheeks, protruding chin and long heavy white hands he resembled nothing so much as a large fish hanging on a nail at a fishmonger's. He worked always in a kind of cold desperate despair, his pince-nez slipping off his shiny nose, his mouth set grimly. "What is the use?" he seemed to say, "of helping these poor wounded ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... putting the great barn in readiness for the dance was accomplished; the last bolt of cambric was hung in place from the rafters. The last evergreen tree was nailed to the joists of the walls; the last lantern hung, the last nail driven into the musicians' platform. The sun set. There was a great scurry to have supper and dress. Annixter, last of all the other workers, left the barn in the dusk of twilight. He was alone; he had a saw under one arm, a bag of tools was in his ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... much about him. Scientific experimenter of some kind, I believe. Very exclusive," added Mr. Curtis Fleming, with a grin. "Never sociated with any of us neighbors. Rent on the nail, though. Insane, too, I think. Writes letters to himself ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... thing happened. As the king stepped on board the boat one of the sandals of the white slipper, which had got loose, caught in a nail that was sticking out, and caused the king to stumble. The pain was great, and unconsciously he turned and shook his foot, so that the sandals gave way, and in a moment the precious shoe was in ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... down there, colonel, and play me something good," said Johnson, rolling a nail-keg as a seat up to one ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... groups; he is evidently a non-partisan and is timidly hesitating for whom to give his vote! He does not know, and is at odds with himself; he leaves it to chance—he has lifted up his hands and extended his thumbs; with his eyes shut he aims nail against nail; evidently he will trust his vote to fortune; if the thumbs meet, he will cast an affirmative ballot, but if they miss he will ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... nails. Una's own finger-tips were hard with typing; her manicuring was a domestic matter of clipping and hypocritical filing. But to Mrs. Truax manicuring was a life-work. Because of much clipping of the cuticle, the flesh at the base of each nail had become a noticeably raised cushion of pink flesh. Her nails were too pink, too shiny, too shapely, and sometimes they were an unearthly white at the ends, because of nail-paste left under them. ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... savages; but one, I observed, possessed a necklet unlike that of the others, which greatly aroused my curiosity. It was made of thirteen gold plates, irregular in form, about as broad as a man's thumb-nail, and linked together with fibres. I was allowed to examine it, and had no doubt that the pieces were of pure gold, beaten flat by the savages. When questioned about it, they said it was originally obtained from the Indians of Parahuari, and Parahuari, they further ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... I'll be there to-morrow night," she thought, picking it up and slitting the wrapper with a convenient nail file. ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson |
