"Trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as happy as I to praise: And most he pleased me, when he set a place For poor Hipparchus. Thus our eager work, While Delphis, in his thoughts retired, sat frowning, Grew like a home-conspiracy to trap The one who bears the brunt of outside cares Into the glow of cheerfulness that bathes The children and the mother,—happy not To foresee winter, short-commons or long debts, Since they are busied for the present meal,— Too young, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... not appease the men. They repudiated the agreement between their organization and ours, branding it as a trap, and the strike was continued. Then the manufacturers yielded completely, acceding to every ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... his head. "Oh, anywhere near Pall Mall," he said. Then, as the horse started forward, he put up his hand and shook the trap-door. "Wait!" he called. "I've changed my mind. Drive to ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... sucked in comfort between his twitching lips. Stealing niggers! No one would believe that he, a planter, had a hand in that, and for a brief instant he considered signaling Bess to return. Slosson must be told of Murrell's arrest; but he was sick with apprehension, some trap might have been prepared for him, he could not know; and the impulse ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... period of his life Elkins had lived on poker for five years, and lived well. But he gained more than money in this game, for he had made friends with the players and placed the first wire of his trap. Of those in the room Hopalong alone treated him with reserve, and this was cleverly swung so that it appeared to be caused by a temporary grouch due to the sting of defeat. As the Bar-20 man was known ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... body and the mind!" cried Gaston. "My God, are they nothing? Do you think that they are given to us for nothing but a trap? You cannot teach such a doctrine with your library there. And how about all the cultivated men and women away from whose quickening society the brightest of us grow numb? You have held out. But will it be for ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... Tatsu stood a light framework of wood with the silk already stretched and dried for painting. At his other hand a brush slanted sidewise from a bowl of liquid ink. The boy's pulses leaped toward these things even while his lips curled in disdain at the shallow decoy. "So they expect to trap me, these geese and jailers who have temporary dominance over my life," thought he, in scorn. No, even though he now desired it of himself, he would not paint! Let him but gain his bride—then nothing should have power to sting or fret him. But, ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... displeased if he answered 'No'; and then in consequence of this admission, Gorgias was compelled to contradict himself, that being just the sort of thing in which you delight. Whereupon Polus laughed at you deservedly, as I think; but now he has himself fallen into the same trap. I cannot say very much for his wit when he conceded to you that to do is more dishonourable than to suffer injustice, for this was the admission which led to his being entangled by you; and because he was too ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... her at all hours and in all places. The more she saw of him the more she abhorred his effeminate sensuality and lack of almost every quality that made life worth the living. But she must—she must learn the plot against Drusus, and precisely how and when the trap was to be sprung. And in a measure, at least so far as Lucius was concerned, she succeeded. By continually and openly reviling Quintus, by professing to doubt the legality of a marriage contracted against the terms of her father's will, by all but expressing ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... always smoke. How good everything tasted! I don't believe I have ever really enjoyed apple pie with a fork as I enjoyed it sitting on a log with a generous wedge in one hand and a hearty morsel of mouse-trap ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... of the topic again until the last afternoon of Rachael's stay. Then the visitor, coming innocently downstairs at tea time, was a little confused to see that besides Mrs. Bowditch and her oldest daughter, and old Mrs. Torrence, the Bishop and Mrs. Thomas were calling. Instantly she suspected a trap. ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... new life, the resources so rosily described to them failed to materialize. Many families faced starvation every winter, their only support the store of the Indian trader, who was baiting his trap for their destruction. Very gradually they awoke to the facts. At last it was planned to secure from them the north half of their reservation for ninety-eight thousand dollars, but it was not explained to the Indians that the traders were ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... of perspiration stood on his brow as he realized that the trap he had set for others might close upon himself, and for an instant he resolved to run ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... monotonous. Away to the far front, the north-east, flickered the tiny blazes; guiding lights, as Willett would have it; bale fires, as Harris began to believe—fires set by confederates to blind the eye of the pursuit, or lure pursuers to a trap. Away to the far front, seven miles now, and deep in a nook of the foothills, lay the site of Bennett's ruined ranch, and thither, at top speed of his scouts, was the young leader pressing. Not even a dull glow in the heavens above, or a spark on the earth ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... however, since the strangers were evidently making no attempt to conceal their presence. They were galloping rapidly toward the camp in plain view of all. There might be treachery lurking beneath their fair appearance; but none who knew The Hawk would be so gullible as to hope to trap him thus. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to the west, we made out her periscope. Intense joy thrilled our little crew. She was inshore from us. She was between our circular course and the chain nets—in the trap. The periscope we had seen might be a dummy, for a submarine frequently casts loose a phoney periscope to draw fire, but, at any rate, she must have been between us and the nets if she ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... much riled by the woman's manner to be willing to let her think he had made a mistake, and he stopped her short. "Look here," he said to her, "I don't ask you to come here to tell me anything about vehicles. When I order any sort of a trap I want it." When I heard Jone say trap my soul lifted itself and I knew there was hope for us. The stiffness melted right out of the landlady, and she began ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... writing-table, and a shelf at which Hawthorne sometimes wrote standing. A story has gone abroad and is widely believed, that, on mounting the steep stairs leading to this study, he passed through a trap-door and afterwards placed upon it the chair in which he sat, so that intrusion or interruption became physically impossible. It is wholly unfounded. There never was any trap-door, and no precaution of the kind described was ever taken. Immediately behind the house the hill rises in artificial ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of noise, voice, or movement, his madness would gain strength enough to burst the lock. I was rather ridiculously worried about the locks. A horrid mistrust of the whole house possessed me. I saw it in the light of a deadly trap. I had no weapon, I couldn't say whether he had one or not. I wasn't afraid of a struggle as far as I, myself, was concerned, but I was afraid of it for Dona Rita. To be rolling at her feet, locked in a literally tooth-and-nail struggle with Ortega would have been ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... puzzled, but went on: "'I cannot say whether it was his ignorance or a trap,' writes Saint-Simon; 'he wished to give his hand to my children. I noticed it ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... conversation Dora had said nothing. Now as she stood by the old gig, toppling forward with its shafts resting upon the floor, she thought she had never seen such a horrible, antediluvian old trap in her life. Nothing could add so much to her disappointment in going so soon, as going in that thing. If there had been anything to say which might prevent her brother from carrying out his intention, she would have said it, but so far there ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... about on a velocipede without a lamp after lighting-up time. In particular, I recalled the statement of a pal of mine that in certain sections of the rural districts goats were accustomed to stray across the road to the extent of their chains, thereby forming about as sound a booby trap ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... legs rather short for his height. He was clean-shaven, his hair was a sandy grey, his complexion florid, his eyes blue and piercing. His upper lip was long, and his mouth, when closed, rather resembled some sort of a trap. He was dressed with care, almost with distinction. But for his pronounced American accent, he would probably have been taken for ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... cherished by American hackers and explained here for the benefit of our overseas brethren, comes from the Warner Brothers' series of "Roadrunner" cartoons. In these cartoons, the famished Wile E. Coyote was forever attempting to catch up with, trap, and eat the Roadrunner. His attempts usually involved one or more high-technology Rube Goldberg devices — rocket jetpacks, catapults, magnetic traps, high-powered slingshots, etc. These were usually delivered in large cardboard boxes, labeled ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... very little cutting or thinning that does not pay. Just so, the protection of a given tract against fire may depend upon the ability to use, and therefore to remove, a part or the whole of the dead and down timber which now makes it a fire trap. For such reasons as these, the uses of wood and the markets for its disposal form exceedingly important branches of study for the Forest Examiner, who will usually find that his duties require him to be thoroughly ...
— The Training of a Forester • Gifford Pinchot
... the man— Polonius lied like a partisan, And Salomon still would a hero seem If (Heaven dispel the impossible dream!) He stood in a shroud on the hangman's trap, His eye burning holes in the black, black cap. And the crowd below would exclaim amain: "He's ready to ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... also "day"; the crescent denoted not only the moon, but also "a month;" a pen and inkstand signified "writing," etc. So one object was substituted for another analogous to it,—as the picture of a boot in a trap, which stood for "deceit." A conventional emblem, too, might represent the object. Thus, the hawk denoted the sun, two water-plants meant Upper and Lower Egypt. Thirdly, hieroglyphics were used as determinatives. That is, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... cases favors freedoms that are vital to our society, and, even if sometimes applied too generously, the consequences cannot be grave. But its recent expansion has extended, in particular to Communists, unprecedented immunities. Unless we are to hold our Government captive in a judge-made verbal trap, we must approach the problem of a well-organized, nation-wide conspiracy, such as I have described, as realistically as our predecessors faced the trivialities that were being prosecuted until they were checked with a rule of reason. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... bears, mountain lions, coyotes and bobcats also live in the forest. They kill much livestock each year in the mountain regions of the Western States and they also prey on some species of bird life. The Federal and some State governments now employ professional hunters to trap and shoot these marauders. Each year the hunters kill thousands of predatory animals, thus saving the farmers and cattle and sheep owners many thousands ...
— The School Book of Forestry • Charles Lathrop Pack
... the present conflict, it will always be to the lasting discredit of Germany and Austria that they were false to this great duty, and that they precipitated the greatest of all wars in a manner so underhanded as to suggest a trap. They knew, as no one else knew, in those quiet mid-summer days of July, that civilization was about to be suddenly and most cruelly torpedoed. The submarine was Germany and the torpedo, Austria, and the work ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... at once that he had fallen into a trap of some kind. He struggled violently, but it was of no avail. Two persons had slipped up behind him, two pairs of hands ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... Fa-hien, because he was a Sramana, they thought they would please him by saying they were disciples of Buddha. But what had disciples of Buddha to do with hunting and taking life? They were caught in their own trap, and said ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... all comforts I miscarried, When I played the sot and married: 'Tis a trap, there's none need doubt on't; Those that are in would fain get ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... champion of that country clown. Poor fellow! I couldn't bear his discomfited looks, Major, and so, out of old companionship, what could I do less than stand up for him? There won't be anything positively serious, will there, eh? I should be sorry to have it so, inasmuch as he fell into the trap under my father's roof. But don't you think I made a good champion? It was really presumptuous for the fellow to come here, though. These rustic ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... The Prince was friendly, gave Law money, and eagerly welcomed the idea of attacking Bengal, but he was himself practically a prisoner. The Vizir, too, could do nothing, and would give no money. The Marathas amused him with promises, and tried to trap him into fighting their battles. No one seemed to know anything about what had happened in Bengal. He spoke to several of the chief men ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... do you care now for yours? I find my role very modest, very insignificant. Open the trap-door—it is ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... He had scarcely time to go to his front door and examine the situation, when his large stone structure encountered a tremendous blast of wind, and all was over in a moment. He then looked out upon the scene: his barn was entirely demolished, and also all his out-buildings. The trap door of his house was carried off, and all his carriages and farming utensils were gone. The trees near his dwelling, strange to say, were saved, while his orchard was uprooted from one end to the other. I observed one of his large apple trees, not only ...
— A Full Description of the Great Tornado in Chester County, Pa. • Richard Darlington
... be it further enacted, That if any person other than an Indian shall, within the Indian country, purchase or receive of any Indian, in the way of barter, trade, or pledge, a gun, trap, or other article commonly used in hunting, any instrument of husbandry or cooking utensils of the kind commonly obtained by the Indians in their intercourse with the white people, or any other article of ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... began, in tones so amiable that Belasez would instantly have suspected a trap, had she overheard nothing,—for Licorice's character was well known to her—"Belasez, I hear from thy father that thou hast heard some foolish gossip touching one Anegay, that was a kinswoman of thine, and thou art desirous of knowing the truth. Thou shalt know it now. Indeed, there was ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... met his death through the same weakness. It was at Manchester, I think. A carpenter had thrown down his coat with a ham sandwich in the pocket, over an open trap on the stage. Fussie, nosing and nudging after the sandwich, fell through and was killed instantly. When they brought up the dog after the performance, every man took his hat off. Henry was not told until the end of the play. He took it so very quietly that ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... need help, too. Thurston's Disease has riddled the medical profession. Just don't forget that this place can be a death trap. One mistake and you've had it. Naturally, we take every precaution, but with a virus no protection is absolute. If you're careless and make errors in procedure, sooner or later one of those submicroscopic protein molecules will get ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone
... Helbeck? The lad's hand clenched. A clock-face came slowly into view at a wayside station. 8.45. He was now waiting for her at Marsland. For the Squire himself would bring the trap; there was no coachman at Bannisdale. A glow of fierce joy passed through the lad's mind, as he thought of the Squire waiting, the train's arrival, the empty platform, the returning carriage. What would the Squire think? Damn him!—let him think ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a ravine that seemed impossible to cross. As I followed it up, it became evident that some of them had known of this trap, and had cut in ahead of me. I felt that I must soon abandon my horse and slide down the steep sides of the ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... of a cruel kind: to set a trap into which the pair would blindly walk if any secret understanding existed between them of the nature ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... 8th of July. The Marquis la Valette, son of the Duke of Epernon and governor or Metz had been asked to give an asylum to Monsieur in case he decided upon flying from the court, had answered after embarrassed fashion; the cardinal had his enemies in a trap He went to call on Monsieur; it was in Richelieu's own house, and under pretext of demanding hospitality of him, that the conspirators calculated upon striking their blow. "I very much, regret," said the cardinal to Gaston, "that your Highness ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... he topped the breakwater he came upon a sight that made him draw back in disgust. A white mackintosh lay under a handful of stones upon the shingly beach. He surveyed it suspiciously, with the air of a man who fears that he is about to walk into a trap. ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... approval, and never will. Something should be left for the post-nuptial life, and I cannot see how after it has been used as an instrument of courtship a club can take its place as it ought to as an instrument of discipline in the household. My own wives I have invariably caught in a trap, so that later on in life, when I have found it desirable to emphasize my authority in my home by means of a stout stick, that emblem of power has had no glamor about it to weaken its force as an argument.... Then as to the number of wives that a man should ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... but the minister of war cut short his half-pay by putting him on the active list,—a step which might be called a form of discipline. France was no longer safe; Philippe was liable to fall into some trap laid for him by spies,—provocative agents, as they were called, being much ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... play in the meadows and learn the names of flowers and birds. The heritage of childhood is the out-of-doors. I heard of some children in the city who found a mouse and thought it was a rabbit. But when the city-born children come to Mooseheart they come into their own. They trap rabbits and woodchucks, fight bumblebees' nests, wade and fish in the creek and go boating and swimming in the ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... Kincaide as our captors marched us rapidly toward the dais in the center of the huge amphitheater. "They were waiting for us; I imagine we have been watched all the time. And we walked into the trap exactly like a bunch ...
— Priestess of the Flame • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... reluctance of Elizabeth before Mary's scaffold, although he was soon to show that he was himself a master in the science of grimace. For Elizabeth—more than ever disposed to be friends with Spain and Rome, now that war to the knife was made inevitable—was wistfully regarding that trap of negotiation, against which all her best friends were endeavouring to warn her. She was more ill-natured than ever to the Provinces, she turned her back upon the Warnese, she affronted Henry III. by affecting ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... unfortunate boys, young Jack and Harry Girdwood, and he got Boulgaris to take him to the spot where the crosses had been erected over the graves by the pious hand of Theodora, the girl who had unwittingly lured them to the fatal trap. ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... with a company of 110 trappers set out for the Far West by the Platte route. Crossing the Rockies through the South Pass, he made a fortified camp on Green River, whence he for three years explored the country. One of his parties, under Joseph Walker, was sent to trap beavers on Great Salt Lake and to explore it thoroughly, making notes and maps. Bonneville, in his description of the lake to Irving, declared that lofty mountains rose from its bosom, and greatly magnified its extent to the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... look. The shadows of the woods were formidable. He was certain that in this vista there lurked fierce-eyed hosts. The swift thought came to him that the generals did not know what they were about. It was all a trap. Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels. Ironlike brigades would appear in the rear. They were all going to be sacrificed. The generals were stupids. The enemy would presently swallow the whole command. He glared about him, expecting to see the stealthy ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... to. An improvement upon this method, recommended by the Entomologist of the United States Department of Agriculture, is now in use, and gives excellent satisfaction. It consists in poisoning with Paris green the leaves used to trap the worms, so that there is no need to collect and kill the worms by hand. A good way to do this is to spray with Paris green, in the usual way, a patch of young clover, then cut it and scatter it in small bunches over the cauliflower field ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... man! You nearly knocked me down!" cried Hal Harling, amazed by the suddenness of his welcome. "What's the matter with you? Trying to trap a burglar?" Then, glancing at the object about which the household were clustering, he added, "Jove! ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... seems, and with good reason, to be proud of its ruddy back, appears to have no enemy of its kind. While the osprey and the white-bellied sea-eagle fall out and chide and fight, it looks down from some superior height and placidly watches the fish trap, for though knightly it is not above accepting tribute, for it likes ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... horrible scuffling and tapping of feet upon the polished floor, a sound most dreadful. They were murdering her—murdering an old, kind woman silently and methodically in the darkness. The girl strained and twisted against the pillar furiously, like an animal in a trap. But the coils of rope held her; the scarf suffocated her. The scuffling became a spasmodic sound, with intervals between, and then ceased altogether. A voice spoke—a man's voice—Wethermill's. But Celia would never have recognised it—it had ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... independent fighter armed with a long squirrel-rifle of marvelous range and accuracy, pleaded strongly and boldly for a law that would make divorce as free and simple as marriage. Harriet once called marriage a mouse-trap, and thereby sent shivers of surprise and indignation up a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... was not long before there was a clash between Dave and his party on one side and Merwell and his followers on the other. Link Merwell, as usual, did all in his power to injure Dave, and make the outing for the others a failure, but he was caught in his own trap, and it was proved that he had, to a certain extent, aided some horse-thieves in their nefarious work. Mr. Merwell had to pay Mr. Endicott for the animals that were missing, and, in order to hush the matter up, he agreed to sell his ranch ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... charge; he took one of his sisters to look at the hot-bed, showed her a hole where the mice came in, and expressed great hatred against the whole race. He the same day asked his mother for a bait for the mouse-trap; his mother refused to give him one, telling him that she did not wish he should learn to kill animals. How good nature sometimes leads to the opposite feeling! S——'s love for his brother's cucumbers made him imagine and compass the death of the mice. Children should be protected against ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... to see," I said; and I went up to the strangers' quarters and looked in, to find Mrs Dean on duty by the bedside, and Esau seated by the fire, cutting out something which he informed me was part of a trap he had ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... what it was; the priests replied, "It shall be made known to you on the morrow." The morrow came, and the priests made known the great war medicine, whose properties brought certain victory to those possessed of it. In old times, the wild cat had devoured their people; they set a trap for him and caught him in it, burned his bones, and preserved the ashes. These ashes had been carefully kept by the priests, and they now brought them forth. The great old snake, the father of strife, was in the water; the old men gathered together and sang, and he shewed himself; they sang ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... buttered. At any rate he was learned in healing all sick creatures, and in especial falcons, horses, and hounds, by means of whispered spells, the breath of his mouth, potions, and electuaries; and I myself have seen him handle a furious old she-wolf which had been caught in a trap, so that no man dared go nigh her, as though it were a tame little dog. He was taller than his master by a head and a half, and he was ever to be seen in a hood, on which an owl's head with its beak and ears was set. Verily the whole presence of the man minded me of that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... princess, as she walked to the foot of the bed, folded up the screen into its several compartments, and stooped down toward the floor. "Look here," she continued; "stoop down, and lift up this trap-door yourself." ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... anything so common, or hoots! it is some auld-farrant word about which she can tell me nothing. But if in the course of conversation I remark casually, 'Did he find bilbie?' or 'Was that quite silvendy?' (though the sense of the question is vague to me) she falls into the trap, and the words explain themselves in her replies. Or maybe to-day she sees whither I am leading her, and such is her sensitiveness that she is quite hurt. The humour goes out of her face (to find bilbie in some more silvendy spot), and her reproachful eyes - but ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... caress the self-love of those whose suffrages they desire, know quite well that they are not saying the sheer truth as reason sees it, but that they are using a sort of conventional language, or what we call clap-trap, which is essential to the working of representative institutions. And therefore, I suppose, we ought rather to say with Figaro: Qui est-ce qu'on trompe ici? Now, I admit that often, but not always, ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... will presume to point out that the simulation by a policeman of the ordinary character of a friend of the family and fellow-rejoicer, is a rather reprehensible trap to catch a sleeping weasel, since those whose honesty is not invariably above par may be lulled into the false security by his civilian get-up. And I did assure him, privately, that it was totally unnecessary to keep an ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it. Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and often painful process. But whatever the process, the result is wonderful. Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered syllable and the sweep of thought in a ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... should die like a man, And that death, grim death, might himself be sweet, When the red sod rocked to the horses' feet, And the knights went down as they led the van;— But the end that waits like a trap for me, Will come when I fight for my latest breath, With a white face drowned between God and me In the flood that runs by the ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob
... be independent of all clap-trap—should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it; and that is ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... sort," Albeury interrupted. "We've a trap set for the whole crew, more than twenty of them in all, and if you warn that woman she'll tell ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... was sorry she couldn't set me up a cot in the wash-room, but would be compelled to let me have a double front-room over the bar. I told her if the apartment had a practicable trap door I ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... me on my archaeological natural-history side, and I fell into the trap without any thought of where and when I was; so I began on it, while one of the girls, the handsome one, who had been scattering little twigs of lavender and other sweet-smelling herbs about the floor, came ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... time she had been to market since his death, and she knew that folks would stare, so she might as well give them something to stare at. Outside the front door, in the drive, old Stuppeny was holding the head of Foxy, her mare, harnessed to the neat trap that Thomas Godden had bought early the ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... devilish mischance she occupied the seat opposite to mine. And in this trap of Iblis was decoy enough for a poor mouse like me. It is an age since I beheld such an Oriental gem in an American setting; or such a strange Southern beauty in an exotic frame. For one would think her from the South, or further down from Mexico. Nay, of Andalusian, and consequently of Arabian, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... the Battle of Bunker's Hill.—The English in this town affect to laugh at the eagerness with which the Bostonians swallow certain passages of this play. I laugh too, but justice obliges me to confess, that John Bull can swallow a fulsome clap trap as voraciously at any Yankee of them all.] theatre is a stupendous wooden building, that will contain one tenth of the inhabitants ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... Hain't ole man Joshway Blasingame bin sent away off to Albenny? Hain't ole man Cajy Shannon a-sarvin' out his time, humpback an' cripple ez he is? Who took keer them? Who ast anybody to let up on 'em? But don't you fret, honey; ef they hain't no trap sot, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... in 1985. I will propose a new national welfare strategy, a program of welfare reform through State-sponsored, community-based demonstration projects. This is the time to reform this outmoded social dinosaur and finally break the poverty trap. Now, we will never abandon those who, through no fault of their own, must have our help. But let us work to see how many can be freed from the dependency of welfare and made self-supporting, which the great majority of welfare recipients want more than anything else. Next, let ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... same evil, I write for them, although I am not sure that they will pay any attention to it; in case my warning is unheeded, I shall still have derived this benefit from my words in having cured myself, and, like the fox caught in a trap, I shall have devoured my ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... same manner the priests at Delphi, when they were prudent, made of the Pythia's ravings oracles not without elevation of tone and with an obvious political tendency. Occasions for superstition which baser minds would have turned to sheer lunacy or silly fears or necromantic clap-trap were seized by these nobler natures for a good purpose. A benevolent man, not inclined to scepticism, can always argue that the gods must have commanded what he himself knows to be right; and he thinks it religion on his part to interpret the oracle ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... over, fancied he saw them skulking through the fields at Cedar Creek, closing around the house, and behind them a mass of black faces and bloody bayonets. Floy alone, and he here,—like a rat in a trap! "God keep my little girl!" he wrote, unsteadily. "God bless you, Floy!" He gasped for breath, as if he had been writing with his heart's blood. Folding up the paper, he hid it inside his shirt and began his dogged walk, calculating the chances ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... though she could not guess how this pumpkin could make her go to the ball. Her godmother took the pumpkin and hollowed it out, leaving only the rind; she then struck it with her wand, and the pumpkin was immediately changed into a beautiful gilt coach. She next sent Cinderella for the mouse-trap, wherein were found six mice alive. She directed Cinderella to raise the door of the trap, and as each mouse came out she struck it with her wand, and it was immediately changed into a beautiful horse; so that she had now six splendid grays ...
— Little Cinderella • Anonymous
... feelings that Clare Kenwardine got down from the stopping train at a quiet station and waited for the trap to take her home. The trap was not in sight, but this did not surprise her, for nobody in her father's household was punctual. Clare sometimes wondered why the elderly groom-gardener, whose wages were very irregularly paid, ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... murdered. He perceived this as soon as he came to himself, for the violence of the fall had taken away his senses. The salt rubbed into his wounds preserved his life, and he recovered strength by degrees, so as to be able to walk. After two days he opened the trap-door in the night, and finding in the court a place proper to hide himself in, continued there till break of day, when he saw the cursed old woman open the street gate, and go out to seek another victim. He ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... to answer, then closed again dumbly,—for it was then that she saw the boots, then the legs of the road agent slide uncertainly through the open trap, fumble clumsily for the rungs of the ladder, then slip and stumble as the weight of the following body came upon them while the weak fingers strained desperately for a hold. The whole heart and soul and mind of the Girl seemed to be ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... case he needs our help to get away. We've cleared the shrubs away, close to the spot at which I am going to ask you to wait, and taken the spikes off the fence. It's just a thousand to one chance that if he's hard pressed for it and heads this way, they may think that they have him in a trap and take it quietly. That is to say, they'll wait to capture him instead ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that a very nice little trap was laid for me in London, and if I had not been unusually cautious I would have fallen into it. Had that been the case all would have been up with me; though as to you, I don't see how your position would have been affected. For," he added, with ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... laugh. "How steadily have we been coming just to this! I think I knew it long ago. I have in me so much of the ancient Roman that I prize him, now that we are at grips, and think him a fair enemy. If I did not hate him, I would love him. But it is the first, and I'll not forgive this pretty trap he's laid! What does he think will come after these two weeks he has me shackled? Does he think that he can always keep me here?—or only until—until it is too late to go?" He struck his hand against the beech tree. "Well, well, mine enemy, we ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... dear! Oh me! Oh my!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I've fallen into a trap! That's what those thorns were for—so I would have to walk toward the trap instead of ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... will, of course, directed everything. At a time when I should have been in London taking wise counsel and calmly considering the hideous trap in which I had allowed myself to be caught—the booby trap, as your father calls it to the present day—you insisted on my taking you to Monte Carlo, of all revolting places on God's earth, that all day and all night as well, you might gamble as long ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... hundred yards when they heard a mighty crashing of underbrush behind them. Glancing back, they saw tooth-studded jaws gaping cavernously at the end of a thirty-foot neck—little, dead-looking eyes glaring at them—a hundred-foot body smashing its way over the trap-bushes and through tangles of vines and ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... a very good chance,' the man went on, 'for I think she likes you more than common. I have never known her send the pony-carriage to meet one before; 'tis always the trap, but this time she said, in a very particular ladylike tone, "Roobert, gaow with the pony-kerriage."... There, 'tis true, pony and carriage too are getten rather shabby now,' he added, looking round upon the vehicle as if to keep Cytherea's ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... to that!" said John. He'd been caught in the same trap, it seemed. "What's the use of butting in? If anything has gone wrong with ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... craftsmanship in Luis de Leon's poems. He is, indeed, always sound and competent in these respects; but artistry is not his supreme virtue as a poet. He is ever prone to be a little rugged in his manner, and this ruggedness has proved something of a trap to the unwary. Luis de Leon has no real mannerisms, and is no more to be parodied than is Shakespeare. Yet it is sometimes difficult to distinguish him at his worst from his imitators at their best. Though withheld so long from the public, Luis de Leon's poems, while still ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... into the trap at once. He was standing at 'is gate in the dark, next day, smoking a pipe, when Peter Gubbins passed, and Peter, arter stopping and asking 'im for a light, spoke about 'is luck in getting the hamper, and told 'im he didn't bear no malice ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... feats in their strong, active life. Here, if she had only known it, were stories better than any in Margaret's books. How Brother Jim hunted the white wolf for three days in the mountains; how Hugh set the trap for the young grizzly, and more wonderful, how he tamed him and made him his friend and servant; how Father Montfort saved the three men who were snowed up in Desolation Gulch, and brought them out one by one on his shoulders, just as their last biscuit was ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... Stemaw's dark visage, for one of his traps is set in that place, and he knows that something is caught. Quickly descending the slope, he enters the bushes whence the sound proceeds, and pauses when within a yard or two of his trap, to peer through the gloom. A cloud passes off the moon, and a faint ray reveals, it may be, a beautiful black fox caught in the snare. A slight blow on the snout from Stemaw's axe-handle kills the unfortunate animal; in ten minutes more it is tied to his sledge, the trap is reset ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... heaven, but all was useless. The Pope sat silent or muttering his anathemas with bated breath. The Guises had work enough on hand at home to heed the Irish wolf, whom the English, having in vain attempted to trap or poison, were driving to bay with more lawful weapons.' His own people, divided and dispirited, began now to desert the failing cause. In May, by a concerted movement, the deputy with the light horse of the Pale overran Tyrone, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... startled me! [MARTA sets down the tray.] Oh! To be off and out of this old rat-trap. [He wipes his forehead with his black-bordered handkerchief.] I mean—our loss comes home to us so keenly here where we ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... now stepped forward, and said, "Ye'll just let me carry the laddie to the village, doctor. I'll start the noo, and I'll carry him easier like than any kind o' trap, ye ken." ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of this play, the king, who did not know the trap which was laid for him, was present, with his queen and the whole court: Hamlet sitting attentively near him to observe his looks. The play began with a conversation between Gonzago and his wife, in which the lady made many protestations of love, and of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and, as B. had not started much before sunset, darkness soon overtook him on the road. As he had no syce with him he got down to light the trap-lamps and jumped in and drove on again very cheerily. He was not far from where he must turn off the main road to the narrow one leading to his friend's estate, when the pony suddenly took fright at something and bolted. At first B. tried to pull the animal up; but its erect ears and ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... caught in such a trap as this! Body of Satan! It was a madness to have met in a hut ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. I give one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose some ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... some days' hesitation, during which Sulla pressed him to betray Jugurtha, and Jugurtha pressed him to betray Sulla, the Moorish king at last decided on which side his interests lay. The Roman devised a trap. The arch-traitor was ensnared, and was carried in chains to Rome, where he was led in his royal robes by the triumphal car of Marius, and, it is said, lost his senses as he walked along. One wonders with what relish Scaurus and his tribe, after gazing at the spectacle, sat down ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... looks would do the rest. This was all his plan, and Etienne Lousteau, who had confided so much to him, knew his secret, knew how to deal a deathblow to the poet of Angouleme. That very night, as Lucien and Merlin went to the Vaudeville, Etienne had laid a terrible trap, into which an inexperienced boy could not ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... officer in command took it into his head to save a few ship-lengths in distance by hugging the shore, in direct disobedience to the captain's parting orders. The best-ventilated mine in Colorado was turned into a death trap for half a hundred miners because one of the number entered with a lighted lamp the gallery he had been warned against. Nobody survived to explain the explosion of the dynamite-cartridge factory in Pennsylvania, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... a fine time. We found a little mouse in the trap." (b) "Walter had a fine time on his vacation. He went fishing every day." (c) "We will go out for a long walk. Please give me my ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... of Elise, and Jacques Dupont. After that Thiebout was very much afraid of Dupont. I have my own suspicion. Now that Thiebout is dead it is not wrong for me to say what it is. I think Thiebout killed the halfbreed Bedore who was found dead on his trap-line five years ago. There was a feud between them. And Dupont, discovering Thiebout's secret—well, you can understand how easy it would be after that, m'sieu. Thiebout's winter trapping was in that Burntwood country, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... measures are given by Apicius in some instances. But just such figures can be used artfully to conceal a trap. Any mediocre cook, gaining possession of a choice collection of detailed and itemized recipes would have been placed in an enviable position. Experimenting for some time (at his master's expense) he would soon reach that perfection when he could ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... gratifying interview at Cervesato, A. Chamois Chaucer Children, good company neglected in war-time China, fatal morality of pre-Tartar period Ciminian forest Cineto Romano Circe, nymph Cisterna, a death-trap Civilization, its characteristic Civitella Coal-supply, a sore subject in Italy Coliseum, flora and fauna of Collepardo Conscience, national versus individual Consumption on Riviera; at Olevano Conterano, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... palisade we found the English in sufficiently good case. Of the score or more Indians cut off by us from their mates and penned within that death trap, half at least were already dead, run through with sword and pike, shot down with the muskets that there was now time to load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, were fast meeting with ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... the king how he would trap the hero. Let all men evermore avoid such foul treason. When the false man had contrived his death, they told all the others. Giselher and Gernot were not hunting with the rest. I know not for what grudge they warned him not. But they paid dear ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... "Play your joke on him!" exclaimed Peter, "and when my time comes, I'll play mine." "When he sent the bundle here yesterday morning I could have returned it straight to her. I locked it in that closet! 'You'll never go to the ball with her,' I said, 'if I have to keep her away.' I set my trap. To-day I hunted up Joseph Holden. 'Come by the office, as you are on your way to the party to-night,' I said. 'I want to talk to you about a piece of land. Come early; then we can go together.' When he came—just before you did—I said, 'Look here, did you know that Amy ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... the woman for whom he had planned this trap was busy with a scheme of her own. Her object was to form an alliance with Sheriff Crown. That gentleman, to use his expressive phrase, had been "putting her over the jumps" for the past forty minutes, bringing to the work of cross-questioning her ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... down into the deepening gloom of the river valley. The mountains, densely wooded from base to summit, shut in the view on every hand. They cut in from the right and from the left, one ahead of the other, matching like the teeth of an enormous trap; the river was caught and bent, but not long detained, by them. Presently I saw the rain creeping slowly over them in my rear, for the wind had changed; but I apprehended nothing but a moderate sundown drizzle, such as we often get from the tail end of a shower, and drew up in the eddy of a big ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... charge! 'My son and daughter, me ye see no more; The happy hunting-grounds await me, green With change of spring and summer through the year: But, for remembrance, after I am gone, Be kind to little Sheemah for my sake: Weakling he is and young, and knows not yet To set the trap, or draw the seasoned bow; 10 Therefore of both your loves he hath more need, And he, who needeth love, to love hath right; It is not like our furs and stores of corn, Whereto we claim sole title by our toil, But the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... "You keep your trap closed," rasped Lander, "or I'll knock your block off! If you utter another peep during this game, I'll button up both your blinkers so tight it'll take a doctor to ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... Cheshire. We found Colonel Rossiter had followed us at a distance ever since the business at Melton Mowbray, but never cared to attack us, and we found he did the like still. Our general would fain have been doing with him again, but we found him too shy. Once we laid a trap for him at Dovebridge, between Derby and Burton-upon-Trent, the body being marched two days before. Three hundred dragoons were left to guard the bridge, as if we were afraid he should fall upon us. Upon this we marched, as I said, on to Burton, and ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... care!" cried Sam. "There may be a trap-hatch where you stand, and these boards are rotten through and through. Ten minutes ago you were mournful," he added, in wonder at her ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... everything, but yet there was an enlightenment even in the haze. She saw in her little way, as Hamlet saw the falsehood of his courtiers, his gallant young companions, and the schemes of Polonius, and even Ophelia in the plot to trap him. She saw how false all these people were in their civilities, in their extravagant thanks and compliments to her as they went away; for the Easter recess was just over, and everybody was going. The mother and her daughters said to her, "Such a delightful visit, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... half suffocated by smoke, raised the lid of a very heavy trapdoor, and stumbled down some steps into a place, half storehouse half cellar, under the mess room. How I knew about it being there I don't know. The trap closed over my head with a bang. That is all ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... with a smile, "you may shoot deer from your own door; or trap wolves and wild-cats at the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... etiquette for any one to draw attention to the movements of a couple by a laugh, a nod, or a wink which, though not intended to reach them, gives frequent rise to unpleasant situations. Her friends should guard against anything savouring of a husband-trap; his friends should avoid any indication that they look upon her as ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... by Abraham of a young woman looking forward to her first confinement. From a place in the floor of the house a subterranean canal leads directly into the water (parturition path, amniotic liquor). She lifts up a trap in the floor, and there immediately appears a creature dressed in a brownish fur, which almost resembles a seal. This creature changes into the younger brother of the dreamer, to whom she has always stood ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... state of things is due to "omnipotent design," the omnipotent designer must be concluded, so far as reason can infer, to be non-beneficent. And this it is not difficult to show. When I see a rabbit panting in the iron jaws of a spring-trap, I abhor the devilish nature of the being who, with full powers of realising what pain means, can deliberately employ his noble faculties of invention in contriving a thing so hideously cruel. But if I could believe that there is a being who, with yet higher faculties ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... here. If I took the dough what's coming I'd go back to the old hell, and I'd go down and out again. Say, it ain't worth it, there's nothing in it. I ain't throwing you, Doc—I just blows out of here with me trap closed. Say, look at me, Doc—don't you get what ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... I found to be elevated only 1563 feet above the sea, and consisting, as already stated, of fine open grassy downs, sprinkled with Acacia pendula and other shrubs. One or two knolls projected, however, and resembled islands in a sea of grass. I rode to one and found it consisted wholly of trap-rock in nodules. This was the first trap I had seen during the journey beyond the Barwan, and from their aspect I thought that other minor features of the mountains Bindango and Bindyego, which I had not leisure to examine ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... sensation to be driven in a smart pony-trap along pretty country roads, it was very pleasant too (which is not always the case with new sensations), quite apart from the beautiful plans of spending the money which each child made as they went along, silently of course and quite to itself, for they felt it would ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... felspar known as the Bladder Stone, a name derived, it is supposed, from Scandinavian mythology; whilst at a short distance is the Ravens' Bowl, a basin in the hard rock, always containing water. On its sides are stratified rocks which the trap has pierced in its ascent; and which, by the action of heat, have been changed into a white crystalline substance. At the northern termination is an entrenched fortification called Heaven Gate, supposed to be of British origin; and ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... four or five deep, with the loose earth banked up a few inches high on the exposed sides. All the pits bore names, more or less felicitous, by which they were known to their transient tenants. One was called "The Pepper-Box," another "Uncle Sam's Well," another "The Reb-Trap," and another, I am constrained to say, was named after a not-to-be-mentioned tropical locality. Though this rude sort of nomenclature predominated, there was no lack of softer titles, such as "Fortress Matilda" and ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... not making sure work to have a fahnlein [a regiment or company] of riders on the other road, by the left side of the inn, which might trap them if they ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... affords them the meanest opportunities; there is not a man who has issued from the Ecoles who does not bitterly regret, when he gets to be fifty or sixty years of age, that he ever fell into the trap set for him by the promises of the State. Does it seek to obtain men of genius? What man of genius, what great talent have the schools produced since 1790? If it had not been for Napoleon would Cachin, ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... magnificent martyrdom, and turn in, subdued and wondering. By and by the thought occurs to me, Brebeuf, with his good, great heart would spare even that poor humble mousie—and for his sake so will I—I will throw the trap in the fire—jump out of bed, reach under, fetch out the trap, and find him throttled there and not ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a royalist. The political part played by this diplomatist at the court of Louis Capet, and afterward continued by him, is only too well known. He now tries to dazzle us by his kindness merely for the purpose of laying a trap for ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... grave with a frightened look, as if she had stepped into a net, or caught herself in a trap. ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... with him. Partial fulfilment of the prophecy convinces him that all will be fulfilled. The belief that the veil over the future has been lifted for him gives him the recklessness of one bound in the knots of fate. So often, the thought that the soul is in a trap, playing out something planned of old, makes man take the frantic way, when the smallest belief in life would lead to peace. This thought passes through his mind. Then fear that it is all a contriving of the devils makes him put it manfully from his mind. The talk about ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... that first; it's not a great sight, I warn you—only a whitewashed, thatched cottage in a by-street. When we've seen that, we'll take a trap and drive to the ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... then, won't it be in self-defense? I ain't no law-breaker, Haw-Haw. It ain't any good bein' a law-breaker. Them lawyers can talk a man right into a grave. They's worse nor poison. I'd rather be caught in a bear trap a hundred miles from my shack than have a lawyer fasten onto my leg right in the middle of Brownsville. No, Haw-Haw, I ain't going to break any law. But I'm going to fix the wolf so's he'll know me; and when he gets well he'll hit my trail, and when he hits my trail he'll have Barry ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... The terror-stricken women lifted him up, screaming "he's killed." As they did so, the voice which had been heard before called out to them through the ventilator to give up the keys. One of the women then took them from the pocket of the dying policeman, and handed them out through the trap. The door was at once unlocked, the terrified women rushed out, and Brett, weltering in blood, rolled out heavily upon the road. Then a pale-faced young man, wearing a light overcoat, a blue tie, and a tall brown hat, ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... of the large Ottoman house already mentioned is a trap-door. One is let down over a rickety ladder about four feet to the top of four high stone steps, which descend on the left to a platform about three and one-half feet square which projects without railing over the water. Thence fourteen steps, also without ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... to be anything else, mother. I never made you cry, did I? I ain't going to, either. I can take care of you, and I will, too. If I can't get work to do, I can hunt and trap small game, you know; and if I only had a rifle, I am sure I could kill at least one deer every week. That, reckoning venison worth six cents a pound, would bring us in about thirty dollars a month. Who says we couldn't live and save money ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... they were laid on light. Old Dave didn't beg and squall like Rube did. He j-e-s-t did whip old man Dave. Like the old preacher who caught the bear on Sunday. They had him up before the church, agreed to let him off if he did not again set his trap. "Well," he said, "brethren, ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... a narrow rope ladder. The opening of the trap-door framed a piece of leaden sky. It was daylight, but the autumn weather was ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... The trap door dropped into place, a heavy object fell upon it with a thud, and they were in inky darkness. There was no sound save the sobs of the two boys, and later the steady tread of a man who paced the floor overhead,—a man who ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... uncomfortable in her present place and would like to change her hospital.' It would have been no sooner said than done. But now—now there is the black book against you, and God knows if ... In fact, somebody has laid a trap for you, Glory, intending to get rid of you at the first opportunity, and you seem to ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... at dylight. and sent out three hunters. some of the men who were much in want of legings and mockersons I suffered to dress some skins. the others I employed in repacking the baggage, making pack saddles &c. we took up the net this morning but caugt no fish. one beaver was caught in a trap. the frost which perfectly whitened the grass this morning had a singular appearance to me at this season. this evening I made a few of the men construct a sein of willow brush which we hawled and caught a large number of fine trout and a kind of ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... fresh delivery of trusses since she first saw it. But while she was prowling about the sweet-scented stable, much disappointed at the result of her investigations, she stumbled against a ladder which led to an open trap-door. Mary mounted the ladder, and found herself amidst the dusty atmosphere of a large hayloft, half in shadow, half in the hot bright sunlight. A large shutter was open in the sloping roof, the roof that sloped towards the quadrangle, an open patch admitting light ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... that he was at liberty by explicit orders, because the Department of Justice did not care to trap a werewolf before ascertaining where the pack was and what the kill, he proceeded leisurely to the corner, turned, and broke into a run, which carried him to a drug store in Eightieth Street. Here he was joined by two men, apparently coal heavers by ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... You got drunk, and she trapped you. I'm here to get you out of the trap. It's a matter of money, isn't it? Well, then, don't let's allow sentiment to creep in." Addressing himself to Lorelei, he said: "You probably counted on five times the sum I offer, but ten thousand dollars will buy a lot of clothes, and the publicity ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... soon understood that I had been caught in the simplest sort of a blackmailer's trap. But I had betrayed my father's trust in me and had gambled away his money, and—what was as crushing to my vanity as this other was to my sense of honor—I had been duped in a way that any greenhorn ought to have seen through. ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... tones of voice they used at the obsequies. Then sooner or later some neighbour is sure to see some man walk home from church with her, or hear some masculine voice in her front garden. Mr. Blake gave Mrs. Caruther's little Jessie a ride in his trap and helped her out at her mother's gate just before last Christmas, and if the poor widow hadn't acted quickly the town would have noticed them to death before he proposed to her. They were married ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess |
