"Squirm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... worked. He was used not only to wriggle around the line inside of ends and to squirm through difficult outlets, but to charge the line as well, a feat of which his height and strong legs rendered him well capable. He proved a consistant ground-gainer, and with Blair, who worked like a hero, ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... writhe and squirm out of ropes with which they were bound, but though I writhed and squirmed like a good fellow, the knots remained as hard as ever, and there was no appreciable slack. In the course of my squirming, however, I rolled over upon a heap of clam-shells—the ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... as I trod thus on the bodies of wounded men who were not dead yet, and felt them moving, and heard their groaning; and I was conscious of a feeling of relief when a body that I trod upon did not squirm beneath my foot, and so by its stillness assured me that I was standing only on dead flesh that had no feeling ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... procedure, and take the whole matter to Captain Eri for settlement, but the more he considered this plan the less he liked it. Captain Eri was an unmerciful tease, and he would be sure to "rub it in," in a way the mere thought of which made his friend squirm. There wasn't much use in confiding to Captain Perez, either. He must keep the secret and pretend that ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... ways from lil chile, who wan't an atom shy of de Colonel, though he was of her, an' when he took her han' I could almost see him squirm like. I think he tried to be kind, an' he gin her a lil ivory book he had on his watch-chain, but you see he didn't feel it. He didn't care for children, and it seemed as if he wanted to get away from this one. But he couldn't. She was his'n; I'd bet my soul on dat. He had ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... only after I had miserably squirmed my way through Mods., as a man may squirm through some hole in a prison wall, that I had the slightest idea of what was meant by the ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... attention to Brown, who was sitting at the bow of the boat, here looked toward him, and seeing that he was intently searching for something, asked what was the matter. Brown answered that a snake was in the boat and that he was trying to find it. Here Jones commenced to twist and squirm. "Hallo!" said Brown: "here's another!" No sooner had he said another when Jones sprang into the canal. He made several lunges and, Peter like, looked as if he was walking on the water. Smith added more steam ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... to fancy what will happen then. This is what comes to pass when one serves a brutal master, old man; one must e'en be a brute one's self. I cannot kill thee; they'd miss thee and start a search—besides, my lady said me nay. Ha, that makes thee squirm? Ay, she'd be mine for the lifting of my finger—even I, Nicanor, thy master's slave, have but to say to her, thy master's daughter, 'Go thither!' and she goes, and 'Come!' and she comes to me as I will. Hearest thou that, old man? Her lips have been defiled ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... way, if the truth be told. He did not even contemplate inflicting physical injury on Horace Gower. That would have been absurd. But he wanted to hurt him, to make him squirm, to heap trouble on the man and watch him break down under the load. And he did not see how he possibly could. Gower was too well fortified. Four years of war experience, which likewise embraced a considerable social experience, had amply shown Jack ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... in it. Boas above our heads, snakes and scorpions under our feet. Land-crabs, terrapins, and iguanas move about in our vicinity. Malaria is in the air we breathe; the road is infested with "hotwater" ants, which bite our legs until we dance and squirm about like madmen. Yet, somehow, we are fortunate enough to escape annihilation, and many another traveller might also. Yet here, in verity, are the ten plagues of Egypt, through which a traveller in these regions must ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... insolent glances of triumph. "You would like to be where I am, wouldn't you?" the glance would say, with the words almost formulated in her mind. "But you won't. You never will be. I've got him. He's walking out with me and not with you. I like to see you squirm, you envious little cat." Jane was not a princess, she was merely a child of the people; but I am willing to eat my boots if it can be satisfactorily proved that there is a princess living on the face of the ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... was deep in one of his most awful crimes? But, on the other hand, had he not fooled me for ten years? So why should he be careful about the mere card of an undertaker? How did he know where I had gone that night to be enlightened? Still, why did he squirm and appear so uneasy when I went out? Was it only because he had so much to tell me about his disappointment over the interview with Mr. Tescheron? Certainly, that must be it. Then came the last "but" of all—Why didn't he come to see me, or why had I not ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... see how Judas began to squirm and run about—agile and swift as though he had a whole dozen ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... I know, without opening my eyes, that you are shocked, bless your delicacy! How do you think I should have got through life if I'd been thin-skinned? What good does it do you? You are pining away in this hole of a lodging. You squirm when Mrs. Myers tries to be friendly with you; and I sometimes laugh at your expression when Eliza treats you to a little blarney about your looks. Now I would just as soon gossip and swear at her as go to ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... glides along in the intense and immediate vicinity of the object-ball, and a count seems exquisitely imminent, lift one leg; then one shoulder; then squirm your body around in sympathy with the direction of the moving ball; and at the instant when the ball seems on the point of colliding throw up both of your arms violently. Your cue will probably break a chandelier, but no matter; you ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... all in a flutter and tryin' to hide it. Vee looks at me inquirin' and anxious, but I chats on for a while just as if nothing had happened. Somehow, I was enjoyin' watchin' Auntie squirm. My mistake was in forgettin' that Vee was fidgety, too. No sooner has Auntie left the room, to send Helma scoutin' down to the front door, than ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... was soft and wet. I poked him once to see him squirm. And then Will said, "I wonder if He knows that ...
— Under the Tree • Elizabeth Madox Roberts
... secret passage to the ship's supplies. Their blouses were pouched out all around with the store of gingersnaps, nuts, and apples which they had managed to stow away as a reserve fund. Lloyd had seen the larger boy draw out six bananas, one after another, from his blouse, and then squirm and wriggle and almost stand on his head to reach the seventh, which had slipped around to his back while he was eating the others. They were munching ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... like the sweating system, asks, is to be let alone. To uncover its atrocities is like turning over a huge stone in the meadow in springtime, that has been a hiding-place for bugs and worms that nest away in the dark. As soon as the hot, searching sunlight finds them, they will wriggle and squirm in agony until they can crawl under cover again. So I do not wonder that, when the hideous cruelty of the tenement-house sweat-shop is brought to light, the sweater and all his friends wriggle and squirm in an agony of fright ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... now, from her tone, what was behind the veil of her intimations and he found a curious new pleasure in watching her squirm. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... touched with something higher and brighter through that instant's approach and confidence. If I were to write down his thought as he walked, it would be with phrase and distinction peculiar to himself and to the boy-mind,—"It's the real thing with her; it don't make a fellow squirm like a pin put out at a caterpillar. She's good; but she ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... little time watching the natives going to and fro, passing one another with perfect ease by means of a dexterous squirm, and carrying loads on their backs, or live fowls under their arms, with ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... then that he saw The Book of Beasts lying on the pebbles, open at the page with "Dragon" written at the bottom. He looked and he hesitated, and he looked again, and then, with one last squirm of rage, the Dragon wriggled himself back into the picture and sat down under the palm tree, and the page was a little singed ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... the editorial secretary. "But where am I to send you?... Ah, now I have it! That article of yours on the rue Norvins affair, yesterday evening, was interesting—it made the others squirm, I know! Isn't there anything more to be got out ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... squirm from the moment it was given to her. She enlarged on the hint Colonel Menard had given, and held the drapery bound tightly around the prisoner. The boat shot past the church, and over the spot where St. John's bonfire had so recently ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... universe with a passionate gesture. "Nerves!" he cried bitterly. "Yes, that's what they say when an actor dares to think. 'Go on! Play your part! Be a marionette forever!' That's what you tell us! 'Slave for your living, you sordid little puppet! Squirm and sweat and strut, but don't you ever dare to think!' You tell us that because you know if we ever did stop to think for one instant about ourselves you wouldn't have any actors! Actors! Faugh! What do ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... bib'ber thir'ty birch ci'der bit'ter thirst'y chirp mi'ser dif'fer third'ly flirt spi'der din'ner birch'en girl vi'per frit'ter chirp'er shirt cli'ent lit'ter girl'ish squirm gi'ant riv'er gird'er squirt i'tem shiv'er stir'less third i'cy sil'ver first'ly girt spi'ral in'ner birth'day ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... big foolish giant, Koku, done got his se'f into trouble!" chuckled the colored man. "He done got holt ob one ob dem air contraptions, Massa Tom, an' he cain't let go! Ha! Ha! Golly! Look at him squirm!" and Rad laughed shrilly, which accounted for some of the ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... it so that you squirm and tingle and your heart goes pit-a-pat," replied Nancy. "There! I'm not going to talk any more. If you won't tell me why you came, I suppose you will come into the other room and have ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... architect, and, therefore, grossly inartistic, lacking every feature which makes for solemnity and beauty. The detail was coarse and roughly finished, the red-brick walls, as always, an offence to the eye; big texts seemed to squirm, like semi-paralysed eels, over the chancel arch and round the East window. The latter, off which Jimmy could hardly take his eyes, was a veritable triumph of the Victorian tradition. Its colouring was gruesome, its design grotesque; and yet it was ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... squirmed as I said it; and I see him squirm, for he believed in it: he believed in licensing this shame and disgrace and woe; he believed in makin' it respectable, and wrappin' round it the mantilly of the law, to keep it in a warm, healthy, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... plain enough. I have seen men raise Cain out of sheer devilishness, out of a desperate notion to smash everything because they were going to smash themselves. Some people seem able to amuse themselves by watching other people squirm. Maybe you are like that. You had complete power over me once. I surrendered to that gladly, then. You appear to have a faculty of making men dance to any tune you care to play. But all the power you have now, so far ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... require them to sit as so many little immoveable statues. "There, sit in just that spot, and don't you move an inch till I bid you." Who has not heard a parent give forth such a mandate? And a school-master, too, to some little urchin, who tries to obey, but from that moment begins to squirm, and turn, and hitch, and chiefly because his nervous system is all deranged by the very duty imposed upon him. And, besides, what if Tommy, in the exuberance of his feelings, while sitting on the bench, does stick out his toe a little ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... stanch and generous. Fate had played him a scurvy trick in making him a trembler, but he knew it was not in him to turn his back on Dingwell. No matter how much he might rebel and squirm he would have to come ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... walk, but when I saw that young woman looking as if she was dead on the ground I felt I must do something, and seeing a pail of water standing near by, I held it over her face and poured it down on her a little at a time, and it wasn't long before she began to squirm, and then she opened her eyes and her mouth just at the same time, so that she must have swallowed about as much water as she would have taken at a meal. This brought her to, and she began to cough and splutter and look around wildly, and then I took her ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... that Wrightington, the halfback, was injured, though this never came out in the newspapers. Wrightington caught a punt and started back up the field. In those days you could wriggle and squirm all you wanted to and you could pile on a thousand strong, if you liked. Frank Hinkey was at the other end of the field playing wide, and ready if Wrightington should take a dodge. Murphy caught Wrightington ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... in it all, of course. Montmorency's ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at. If he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nuisance, and make people mad, and have things thrown at his head, then he feels his day has ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... whose voice sounded just as hoarse. "Not unless they try to do us mischief. This is the time for a strategical retreat, as they are three to one, and we may at any time be cut off. I say, Tom, I feel in such a horrible state of squirm; don't you?" ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... be well occupied. Carried on willy-nilly I mounted the first steps at hand; elbowed on down the aisle until I managed to squirm aside into a vacant seat. The remaining half was at once effectually filled by a large, stout, red-faced woman who formed the base of a pyramid of ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... had a bag in his hand. And while Mr. Rabbit was watching, he squeezed through the hole in the stump. Even for Peter Mink the hole was almost too small. But he managed to squirm through, though it cost him a few groans; and he said some words that made Mr. Rabbit shake ...
— The Tale of Peter Mink - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... some place where it is cleaned and oiled and kept in good working order. The modern wraith has sold his sheet to the old clo'es man, and dresses as in life. Now the ghost has learned to have a variety of good times, and he can make the living squirm far more satisfyingly than in the past. The spook of to-day enjoys making his haunted laugh even while he groans in terror. He knows that there's no weapon, no threat, in horror, to ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... to the top of the highest pine tree in the forest yonder; she could squirm through the underbrush with the agility of a rabbit. She loved every crawling, hateful thing, such as all honest people despised, and she once fought with the son of an uphill farmer for robbing a bird's ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... and squirm, antique Greece disgrace of a Dusante woman—don't forget her. Gertie, you ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... would make a wad of bills squirm out of the toe of a stockin'! It's new game to me. I've always worked the personal touch. But I'll sure ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the data desk, Donna was beginning to squirm quietly and make groping motions with her outstretched hands. Truesdale had retreated to the forward end of the control room, his features ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... still as a mouse and never took his eyes off her. It gave the Muley Cow a queer turn to be looked at so steadily. It made her fidget and squirm. ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... resting on his upturned, stubby thumbs. He was there to see that each of us, his creatures, dependent absolutely upon him for our political lives, should vote as he had sold us in block. There was no chance to shirk or even to squirm. As the roll-call proceeded, one after another, seven of us, obeyed that will frowning from the gallery,—jumped through the hoop of fire under the quivering lash. I was eighth ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... of Sandusky welcomed him with clubs and shrieks. He was painted black—the paint of death—and tied loosely to the stake by the ankles and the waist, so that he might squirm. He had been pretty well beaten, and seemed so exhausted that they had no fears of ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... there is a stamping of fat men in heavy overcoats round the brightly varnished 'bus. "Are we going?" says a little man to the refreshed but purple-faced chauffeur. "Yes!" "That's good. I've had enough of this." The guard winds his horn, and after a preliminary squirm of the plump tyres on the soft road, the vehicle and its company goes tumbling down the road as if it ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... that gong! The first time this happened I thought the last day was come sure. I didn't think it in bed—no, but out of it—for the first effect of that frightful gong is to hurl you across the house, and slam you against the wall, and then curl you up, and squirm you like a spider on a stove lid, till somebody shuts the kitchen door. In solid fact, there is no clamor that is even remotely comparable to the dire clamor which that gong makes. Well, this catastrophe happened every morning regularly at five o'clock, ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... carried down to the bottom of the river, where it was cool and refreshing, he uttered no word of complaint, but rather enjoyed the experience.The crocodile crawled in to a cave, and prepared to digest the marionette at its leisure. Pinocchio was naturally annoyed at this and began to kick and squirm about. ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... armor crushed, his robes rent, his breast gory; a bleeding gash on his brow, cutting right across the stern scowl of battle! He should press his foot hard down upon the old serpent, as if his very soul depended upon it, feeling him squirm mightily, and doubting whether the fight were half over yet, and how the victory might turn! And, with all this fierceness, this grimness, this unutterable horror, there should still be something high, tender, and holy in Michael's ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the pain high up or low down?" And the doctor punched Katy's spine for some minutes, making her squirm uneasily. ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... can be found already spun among the leaves, by nutting parties later in the fall. There is small question if Luna pupae be alive, for on touching the cocoons they squirm and twist so vigorously that they can be heard plainly. There is so little difference in the size of male and female Lunas, that I am not sure of telling them apart in the cocoon, as I ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... fainting with weakness and without a particle of strength left in him, he still believed that death ended all, and he was still unafraid. His views were too simply and solidly based to be overthrown by the first squirm, or the ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... don't expand to my circumference. You don't permeate my orbit. You don't get on to me. It was this way. I got up and looked out on the world. I says: 'J. R., it's clear you haven't enough cash for your ambitions. But you've got a opportunity. Throw it in. Be bold. If your conscience squirms, let it squirm. If it wriggles, let it wriggle. Take the risk. Expand to large ideas.' I took it. Say, I made parties unwilling investors in me. Now, then, there they are, as delegated in you. Here's me, Julius R., monarch by purchase and election of the sovereign state of Lua. You asks, 'What ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... was a lad I served a term In a military school—how it made me squirm! I wore a shako, and a lot of braid. And I startled fire horses when on dress parade; But they took all glory away from me As a second lieut. a-wearing of ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... to this: 'Notice. Our poet is stuck for a rhyme to "hunger." If any one can oblige the poet, we'll give him a paragraph all to himself in the next number. N.B.—The rhyme must be a name of some kind—bird, beast, or fish.' Ho, ho! Don't squirm so, Plunger. What branch of the animal kingdom do you ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... atmosphere in the neighbourhood was not conducive to his peace of mind, nor did it improve his inclination to eat to know that those flies which nothing could keep out of his food, had come from ——. And his internals would squirm at the thought. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... the harpoon into each other ruthless, though? Why, you could see that old girl fairly squirm when she got one of them assault-and-battery glances. Her under lip would quiver a bit, she'd wink hard three or four times, and then she'd sort of collapse, smotherin' a sigh and not finishin' what she'd started out to say. She did want to be ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... him if I could. He agreed to it. Said I might use his name. He's no family to squirm ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... damned wailing ... and Frankie dying at her feet whispering, "What the devil, Pauline?" Then the trial. Hot and cold hours. A roomful of silent, open-mouthed faces listening to her weep, watching her squirm with proper shame and anguish as she told her story to the jurors ... the details of the abortion. "And then I couldn't stand it. I don't remember what happened. Oh, I loved him! I don't remember. He cursed me. He called me a ... Oh, God, names. Awful names! I told ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... men may warn him; Babies cry and women coax; But he cares not one iota, For he calmly smokes and smokes. Oh, he cares not whom he strangles, Vexes, puts to flight, provokes; And although they squirm and fidget, He just ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... closely, for if he catches a fish you will see that he always seizes it either by the head or tail, rarely by the middle, as the fish would then squirm and shake so violently that the otter would not like it. Sometimes, too, an otter will lie in wait on a rock at the head of a rapid, and when a fish tries to ascend to the upper reach of the river by leaping out of the water and thus avoiding the swift current, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... is brewed for all attending a local market—hastened to seat himself upon the shaft horse, which almost sank to the ground beneath his weight. "NOW they will go all right!" the muzhiks exclaimed. "Lay it on hot, lay it on hot! Give that sorrel horse the whip, and make him squirm like a koramora [22]." Nevertheless, the affair in no way progressed; wherefore, seeing that flogging was of no use, Uncles Mitai and Minai BOTH mounted the sorrel, while Andrusha seated himself upon the trace horse. Then the coachman himself lost patience, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... what a hard life we slaves had, cause you ain't old enough to 'member it. Many a time I've heard the bull whips a-flying, and heard the awful cries of the slaves. The flesh would be cut in great gaps and the maggits (maggots) would get in them and they would squirm in misery. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... middle-sized Bear; and they had gone out for a walk. Goldilocks went in, and she saw"—the little girl is very still; she would not disturb that story by so much as a loud breath; but presently the comb comes to a tangle, pulls,—and the little girl begins to squirm. Instantly the voice becomes impressive, mysterious: "she went up to the table, and there were three plates of porridge. She tasted the first one"—the little girl swallows the breath she was going to whimper with, and waits—"and it was too ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... dream of a towel, nor dare to be guilty of such a piece of "stuck-upness"—and the shirt would get wrong side out, or would bundle round the neck, or would cling to the wet shoulders till they had to get on their knees almost to squirm into it. But that over, all was over. The brace, or if the buttons were still there, the braces were easily jerked up on the shoulders, and there you were. Coats, boots, and stockings were superfluous, collars and ties ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... squirm. He'll think about that all the rest of the afternoon, and will hardly dare look you in the face next ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... fitting time and opportunity present themselves. He will not attempt to make a musician of an unmusical child, nor a mechanic of an artistic child. He will not object to the brilliant and impractical dreams of the young inventor, but will help to make them practicable; and though he may squirm at some of the investigations of the budding scientist, he will ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... his strength to squirm free enough to get a hand upon the revolver in his pocket, but the constricting tentacle did not give for even an inch. The only result of his effort was to twist his hood to one side, leaving him as effectually blindfolded as though his head were ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... which the peasant did not come round to ask after the calf, being frightened lest it should cost him another hundred dollars, for he had begun to squirm a bit at having to part with so much money. Meanwhile the clerk decided that the calf was as fat as it could be, so he killed it. After he had got all the beef out of the way he went inside, put on his black clothes, and made his way ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... you are called upon to recite in class, your mind seems to be a complete blank—in a state of "deadlock." You may break this "deadlock" and start brain-action by some kind of movement. It may be only to clear your throat, to ejaculate "well," or to squirm about in the seat, but whatever form the movement takes, it will usually be effective in creating the desired nervous energy, and after the inertia is once overcome the mental stream will flow freely. The unconscious ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... volplane, slanting steeply down at the herd. He wanted to get close enough so that they could see who he was, and he wanted to fill his lungs and then shout down to them something that would make them squirm. He meant to flatten out a hundred feet or so above them and shout, "For I'm a rider of the sky!" and then give a range yell and climb up away from them with arrogant indifference to ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... of him, a frank voluptuary. He was unafraid to die, bitter and cynical of all the ways of living; and yet, dying, he loved life, to the last atom of it. He was possessed by a madness to live, to thrill, "to squirm my little space in the cosmic dust whence I came," as he phrased it once himself. He had tampered with drugs and done many strange things in quest of new thrills, new sensations. As he told Martin, he had once gone three days without ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the look J. Bayard gives me at that! It's a mixture of seven diff'rent kinds of surprise, reproach, and indignation. And the line of argument he puts up too! How he does wiggle and squirm over the very thought of givin' that picture to Twombley-Crane, after he'd done ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... for he was not prepared for such a thing. He tried to squirm out of it as best as he could, made promises, gave orders on the treasurer to all who wanted them and, spying Janina called aloud to her with the object of mollifying somewhat his previous conduct: "If you want something from the treasurer, I will give ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... that before-breakfast ill-humour, you must brave cold water in an attempt to find enough fuel to cook with, then your philosophy and early religious training avail you little. The first ninety-nine times you are forced to do this you will probably squirm circumspectly through the bush in a vain attempt to avoid shaking water down on yourself; you will resent each failure to do so, and at the end your rage will personify the wilderness for the purpose of one sweeping anathema. The hundredth time will ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... and called down on your dear head maledictions which for fulness and snap would have made a mediaeval Pope squirm with envy." ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... a while Jason would vent smoke pleasantly from his malodorous pipe until the frown would settle back between his eyebrows and he'd begin to squirm on the bench again, glancing warily at Executive Level, feeling helpless about ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... won't blow no worse than yesterday," replied Slivers. "But I knowed he wouldn't tackle it anyhow. He'll be back here in a minute, to squirm ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... that they came out," said the colonel, trying not to squirm. "They came, they saw, and they conquered. And all I have to say is that I thank you for your interest in the matter, but that we shall have to decline to add your new and very efficient, but uncontrollable, weapon to the ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... to see what has become of the white canoe," said Frank, with deliberate intent to make his companions squirm. ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... a bear with a sore head; he also cast a side look at his companion, as though questioning his sincerity. Asa liked to see anyone squirm, and often did and said things just for that privilege. His companions had long ago declared that he was cut out for a surgeon—or a ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... air is to have enough to breathe. That is true enough in a sense; but your lungs are thinking about the air, if you are not. And so it is with your rich people—they may not be thinking of money, but they're breathing it all the while; take them into another element and see how they squirm ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... think it's Felix Wagner," admitted Fred. "Looked like his figure, but I can't squirm around so as to see again. Doesn't matter much anyway. Hi! there, turn out a little more, Bristles; you're heading for a hole! Not too far, because there's another just as bad stretching out from the other side. Careful now, ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... ye knows the medicine ye gets fer mutiny on the high seas. Every yeller dog of ye can look for'ard to a prison sentence of twenty years or so. As for Splinter—yer leader—I can 'member the time I'd ha' had the pleasure er watchin' him squirm from a yardarm without any further preliminaries. As 'tis, maybe he'll be 'lowed to think it over th' rest of his life in ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... a feather-pillowy pit of infinitude. I even forgot to preach to myself, as I'd been doing for the last month or two. I knew that my time was upon me, as the Good Book says. There are a lot of things in this life, I remembered, which woman is able to squirm out of. But here, Mistress Tabbie, was one you couldn't escape. Here was a situation that had to be faced. Here was a time I had to knuckle down, had to grin and bear it, had to go through with it to the bitter end. For other folks, whatever ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... unforeseen appearance. On the whole, the position was not so bad as it seemed in that first moment when the owner of the 59 Du Vallon was revealed in the handsome Count. In any event, what did it matter if his harmless subterfuge were revealed? The girl would surely laugh, while Mrs. Devar would squirm. So now for a turn along the ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... dear Sir, surely you mean to go under the Juggernaut handsomely, and not squirm in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... his eyes sternly fixed upon him, Captain Clinton stood confronting the unfortunate youth, staring at him without saying a word. The persistence of his stare made Howard squirm. It was decidedly unpleasant. He did not mind the detention so much as this man's overbearing, bullying manner. He knew he was innocent, therefore he had nothing to fear. But why was this police captain staring at him so? Whichever way he sat, whichever way his eyes turned, he saw this ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... religious and sexual coloring—he would see nuns' heads. He also developed auditory hallucinations and would hear voices of a disagreeable nature. He was subject to peculiar sensations as though there was a wire framework inside him which made him squirm. This necessitated his ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... bunk. They waited for Sim to show up, but he did not come to the room. At eight o'clock Stan began to squirm. ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... the while the inner folds of her tight fitting sheath kept me prisoner, and treated my Cock to the most delicious contractions and pressures, till I was so inflamed, Cupid's charger plunged on his mad career once more, making my dark beauty writhe and squirm in the excess of her ecstatic emotion; several times we seemed to stop by mutual consent, and lay for a while enjoying those heavenly sensations. After thus delaying the final crisis to the uttermost, the moment came when the life ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... too narrow by fully four inches. "What in the world is the matter—am I all swollen—could it be due to having eaten too many mushrooms?" "That is quite possible," said Chaudebonne; "yesterday you ate enough of them to split." All the accomplices joined in ridiculing him, and he began to squirm and show a somewhat livid color. Mass was rung, and he was compelled to attend in his chamber robe. Laughing, he said: "That would be a fine end—to die at the age of twenty-one from having eaten too many mushrooms." In the meantime, Chaudebonne advised the use of an antidote which ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... to hear what they were saying now in the next room. Eugenia was talking and he didn't like what she was saying about those recurrent dreams of Marise's, because he knew it was making poor Marise squirm. She had such a queer, Elly-like shyness about that notion of hers, Marise had. It evidently meant more to her than she had ever been able to make him understand. He couldn't see why she cared so much about it, hated to have it talked about casually. But he wasn't Eugenia. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... 'Certainly, Sunday clothes'. I'll speak to Hilary, and try to get her to leave you alone. As for those kids, just leave them to me; I'll tackle them, and tell them what I think of the way they behaved to-night—the young wretches! I fancy I'll make them squirm!" ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... to the kitchen to be cooked for us. It was the custom of the house, intended to be a pleasing assurance that our fish was fresh, but a custom with just a savour in it of cannibalism. I have never cared to be on speaking terms with the creatures I am about to eat. I squirm when I see the lobster for my salad squirming, though I know the risk if it should not squirm at all. Had I lived in the country among my own chickens and pigs and lambs, I should have been long since a confirmed vegetarian. But to go to the Cabaret Lyonnais ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... incessantly, which made it impossible for James to place the headset properly. This went on until he stalked away and sat down again. Immediately Martha sat like a statue. But as soon as James reached for the little screws that adjusted the electrodes, Martha started to giggle and squirm. He stalked away and sat through another session between Martha ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... rued my hasty words, for his eyes were hot with anger, and he strained fiercely at his bonds in effort to break free. Yet I felt safe enough beyond the sweep of his great arm, rejoicing that my tongue was sharp enough to penetrate so thick a hide, and make the man squirm beneath his outer vestment ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... children all about, and have this red-faced personage take a scarlet hand out of the tub, dry it on a dirty apron, and hold it out to her. And for her part she was prepared to take it, damp or clammy as it might be, without a squirm. ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... the vapours hide In shadows vague—Unholy light! (Spectres to each soul on a wrack) Dank caverns of each vaulted soul With spiral thoughts of fevered haste, 'Mid the throb of murderous life In haunted zones of vandals gyte, Squirm at the pulse of this blind shoal Where blood-veined dreams and acrid waste Cut thro' the senses like a knife And bid Icarian Thought to sit Below a bleak, untower'd home, Where fagots that the skelp hath stunned— Plunderers of unfathomed ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... everybody against him. He had his religion—he believed in hell; he was glad of it; he enjoyed it; it was a great source of comfort to him to think when he didn't like people that he would have the pleasure of looking over and seeing them squirm upon the gridiron. When any man said he didn't believe there was a hell this gentleman got up in his pulpit and called him a hyena. That fellow believed in a devil too; that lowest skull was a devil factory—he believed ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... natural Grub. When quickly drawn from the liquid element by the angler, they sometimes come up with a single drop of water hanging to them, and sometimes—though more rarely—with two Gills. The question whether the hook hurts them, or only tickles till they squirm, is one of those knotty problems that physiologists have failed to solve. COWPER, the poet, had a tenderness for the earthworm. So also had IZAAK WALTON, who recommends that he be skewered "tenderly, as if ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... points of resemblance after all. When the southern simoon from the stock yards is wafted across the vinegar orchards of Chicago, and a load of Mormon emigrants get out at the Rock Island depot and begin to move around and squirm and emit the fragrance of crushed Limburger cheese, it reminds ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... of me to divulge how I came into possession of the four needles. They were small cambric needles. Emaciated as my body was, I had to saw four bars, each in two places, in order to make an aperture through which I could squirm. I did it. I used up one needle to each bar. This meant two cuts to a bar, and it took a month to a cut. Thus I should have been eight months in cutting my way out. Unfortunately, I broke my last needle on the last bar, and I had to wait three months before I could get another needle. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... get free, but Hugh had taken a firmer grip upon his person, and saw to it that he could not squirm loose. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... is sheer and smooth and icy now, as then. He was probably the first man to attempt its descent, and I was always weak and spent when he ended his story of it, so vividly did he portray its dangers. I sat tense, digging my nails deep into my palms, living through every squirm and twist with him, from the moment he slid down from the comparatively safe "Narrows" to the first niche in the glassy, precipitous wall, till, after many nearly-the-last experiences, he landed safely at its foot. That adventure had almost cost him his life, for ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... sin before them on the stool of penitence. They all stared at him attentively with hard and passionately interested eyes, in which there was never one trace of pity. It cannot be said with precision that he writhed; his movement was more a slow, continuous squirm, effected with a ghastly assumption of languid indifference; while his gaze, in the effort to escape the marble-hearted glare of his schoolmates, affixed itself with apparent permanence to the waistcoat button of James Russell Lowell just ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... three months and said it was heaven, account of not having them unnecessary evils on the place that would squirm round a man's legs and feel of his hair and hide round corners and peek at him and whisper about him. Then I changed foremen and Scott Humphrey, the new one, brought three towheads with him of an age to cause Homer the anguish of the damned, which they done ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... anguish had me in its grip. I might squirm as I would, it was all in vain. Hideous plans rose to my mind, born of this agony of terror. I might murder Stagers, but what good would that do? As to File, he was safe from my hand. At last I became too confused to think any longer. "When do we ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... name of the young man who called upon you, tell exactly the price he demanded for his silence, and I will have that printed in an opposition paper to-morrow. Then it will be our friend the Financial Field's turn to squirm! He will say it is all a lie, of course, but nobody will believe him, and we can tell him, from the opposition paper, that if it is a lie he is perfectly at liberty to sue us for libel. Let him begin the suit if he wants to do so. Let him defend his reputation. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... every night they ask. And that is not an easy task; I have to be so many things, The frog that croaks, the lark that sings, The cunning fox, the frightened hen; But just last night they stumped me, when They wanted me to twist and squirm ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... noticed the scar on her head before, running down between her ears—rather a new scar—three or four days old, I should say. It looked ghastly and blue-white in the flat moonlight. I ran over and grabbed her up to heave her over the side—you understand how upset I was. Now you know a cat will squirm around and grab something when you hold it like that, generally speaking. This one didn't. She just drooped and began to purr and looked up at me out of her moonlit eyes under that scar. I dropped her on the deck and backed off. You ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... You whelp of a sea wolf! You English cur! Take that—damn you! And that! You'll not forget me for awhile, That's it—squirm, I like to see it. When you wake up again, you'll remember Pedro Estada, How did that feel, you grunting pig? Here, LeVere, Manuel, throw this sot into the forecastle. Curse you, here is one more ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... call him Truthful Billy. He's as good a seaman as ever trod quarter-deck; but when he gets spinning yarns he ain't the sort of man as I could advise you to rely upon. Well, Billy, he's got a dog, and I've seen him sit and tell yarns before that dog that would make a cat squirm out of its skin, and that dog's taken 'em in and believed 'em. One night, up at his old woman's, Bill told us a yarn by the side of which salt junk two voyages old would pass for spring chicken. I watched the dog, to see ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... hair entirely burnt off on the top of my head?" he asked in comical despair. "These are the hottest coals of fire I've ever had handed out to me, That wretch of a Ruth knew she was making us squirm." ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... feet, so I got a piece of ice about as big as a raisin box, just zactly like one of Ma's feet, and laid it right against the small of Pa's back. I couldn't help laffing, but pretty soon Pa began to squirm and he said, 'Why'n 'ell don't you warm them feet before you come to bed,' and then he hauled back his leg and kicked me clear out in the middle of the floor, and said if he married again he would marry a woman who had lost ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... Roberts thoughtfully. "I felt ready for anything when those war canoes were coming on, and I believe I should feel just the same if the lads were standing ready to board the schooner. But I don't know; perhaps I should be all of a squirm. I don't want to brag. It all depends. Those who make the most fuss, Frank, do ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... only woman I know that it's real joy to hear music with. She knows what she's listening to. A fellow can sort of forget that he's got her along, an still be glad he has. As for you, you old money-hunting blunderbuss, the way you squirm in the presence of music ought to be a penitentiary offense. I'm almost glad you can't go." He gave a laugh that was dangerously genuine, and bolted for the hall to get ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... continued to sob and squirm all the while Rosemary cut and wound the gauze about her hand. As nearly as the inexperienced Rosemary could tell, the cut was not serious though it was ugly to see. Just as she fastened the tiny safety pin in place and was ready to ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... an augmenting irritation. Here was my great and comely idea transmuted by "George Glock"—which was the woman's foolish pen-name,—into a rather clever melodrama, and set forth anyhow, in a hit or miss style that fairly made me squirm. I would cheerfully have strangled Marian Winwood just then, and not upon the count ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... news to Johnny, news that made his soul squirm. Lying there sick at the Rolling R ranch, he had not known what was taking place. He had found his airplane ready to fly, when he was at last able to walk out to the corrals, but no one seemed to know how much the repairing ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... wouldn't say so. I've learned that much about her. Say, you'd a died to seen old Dunk look down his nose! I'll bet money she done it just t' rasp his feelin's—and she sure succeeded. I'd go anyway, now, just t' watch him squirm." ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... one of the featured speakers at these seminars. He speaks effectively, arousing his audience to an awareness of the Soviets as an ugly menace to freedom and decency in the world. He makes his audience squirm with anxiety about how America is losing the cold war on all fronts, and makes them burn with desire to reverse this trend. But when it comes to suggesting what can be done about the terrible situation, Mr. ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... desperate efforts to squirm away now, but his position was such that he was unable to bring his full strength to bear ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the right of way—a right no human being would care to dispute were the way ten times its width—some drowsing lizards, sprawling in the sunshine along the ties, roused at the sound and tremor of the coming train to squirm off into the sage-brush, but no sign of animation had been seen since the crossing of the big divide near Promontory. The long, winding train, made up of mail-, express-, baggage-, emigrant-, and smoking-cars, "tourists' coaches," and huge sleepers at the rear, with a ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... can!" I go to concerts and look wise, and shudder as in misery; in vain the prima donna tries to win approving smiles from me; in vain the tenor or the bass, to gain from me admiring looks, pours floods of music through his face—I squirm as though on tenderhooks. And people watch my curves and sigh; "He has it all by heart, by jing! What melody would reach the sky if he ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... He's a Russian Jew. Schrioski, is his name." At the head of the table I felt Kitty squirm, knew she was twisting her feet in fear and indignation. I ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... said. "You put a little dart squarely in their hearts, and they don't like it. But they can squirm as much as they please, we're out of their reach ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... same," she said to the flushed Judith in the mirror, "they are very nice feet—Bud Lee, I'd just like to make you squirm one of these days. You're altogether too—too—oh, scat, Judy. What's the matter ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... landed, a second boche who like the first had been squatted down rose to his feet, slowly, it seemed, alongside me. We were both bereft of speech from the surprise; the fellow under me was incapable of locomotion as well, for while I felt him squirm ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... woman tried to take him from her one summer not long ago, and that he gave her to understand that she could not, so she went away. If she's back, it means only one thing, and I think probably she'll succeed; but you can be sure it will make me squirm properly." ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... would have noticed her sister's distressed face, but Trip once more claimed her attention. Just across the aisle was Old Silas Pratt's class, to which John and Charles Stuart belonged. They had just entered, and, with a squirm and a grunt, the little dog jerked himself free from the nervous grip of his preserver's feet, and darted across the aisle to his master. Charles Stuart shoved him under the scat, pinning him there with his legs, ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... bent his eyes upon her and lifted his slender fingers toward her head, the little girl, giving a sudden scared, angry squirm, struck the silver dish a resentful, upward blow with one vigorous, white ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... vici manner of one who had made Usk and Wye his potsherd, and who over the Hampshire Avon had cast his shoe. Russel, the famous editor of the Scotsman, the Delane of the north country, who, pen in hand, could make a Lord Advocate squirm, and before whose gibe provosts and bailies trembled, who had drawn out leviathan with a hook from Tweed, and before whom the big fish of Forth could not stand—even he, brilliant fisherman as he ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... for a woman to own herself in the wrong, especially to a man," she said, when he had begun to squirm and wonder what biting words she would say. "I've always thought that I had as good nerve as any one. I have, usually. But that double-jack scared the life out of me after the first blow, and I thought I wouldn't let on. I couldn't admit I was afraid. I was terribly ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... it—the crinoline—must have got caught up in something, and an opening thus left between it and the ground. However this may be, certain it is that an absurdly large and powerful bull-dog, who was fooling round about there at the time, managed, somehow or other, to squirm in under my aunt's crinoline, and effectually imprison ...
— Evergreens - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... done my thinking with allowance for the whole of human character, Claire. That was what was wrong with me. I'm doing that now. I'm finding myself again. It is back with the beginning of things I must start. Back with the first squirm of life in the primordial mud. It's no use trying further back than that. No use at all. Back ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... 'I know what you're after, sir—it's Jack Everett's launch, commonly called "Squirm". She's got a four-bladed propeller, and one blade is ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... fool to listen to your blarney, Rackliff. Just because I was idiot enough to believe in you, I made myself a thief and a liar. Oh, I've been punished for it, all right. Never knew I had a conscience that could make me squirm so much. Some ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... work well!" thought the boy with a sigh of relief, as he saw the snake squirm a little, ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... times and by the barbarous severity of the game laws. An intense hatred of shams and injustice lurks in every song; but the hatred is saved from bitterness by the humor with which captives, especially rich churchmen, are solemnly lectured by the bandits, while they squirm at sight of devilish tortures prepared before their eyes in order to make them give up their golden purses; and the scene generally ends in a bit of wild horse-play. There is fighting enough, and ambush and sudden death lurk at every turn ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long |
