"Wormed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sights trained on him had put a wide space of open ground about his natural fort. No Apache ever relished taking chances, and Lewis was able to hold the band off until darkness came. Then he crept forth and wormed his way through the gullies to the San Pedro Valley. Dawn found him ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... we saw later. He wormed his long corpse into "Mon Repos" and sat on Albert Edward's bed laughing like a tickled hyena. "Funniest thing on earth," he spluttered. "A mule strayed into my lines t'other night and refused to leave. It was a rotten beast, a holy terror; it could kick a fly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... she went on, sitting quite erect now on the bed, "your mother thinks she is doing a fine thing to get all her family wormed in here in this ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... commanding the French frigate L'Armide, about three o'clock, seeing the unequal, but unflinching combat we were maintaining, wormed his ship coolly and deliberately through the Turkish inner line, in such a gallant, masterly style, as never for one moment to obstruct the fire of our ship upon our opponents. He then anchored on our starboard-quarter, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... the slim tree above him were never stirred by a wandering wind. Yet now and again there came from the darkness a faintly fetid odor. The evening wore on and still he slept, until at length in the silence of the night a strange huge creature wormed its way steadily out of its lair amid the trees, and drew near the sleeping man to devour him fiercely. But the horse neighed vehemently and beat the ground with his hoofs and waked his master. Then the hideous monster vanished; and the man, aroused from his sleep, ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... been carried on for some years, until a sailor of great physical power, suspecting foul play to some of his pals, went boldly in, was politely asked to take his seat, and assumed a drunken attitude which caused the barber to think he had an easy victim. The barber wormed his way into Jack's confidence, who was very communicative as to the length of his voyage and the amount of money he had been paid off with. He flattered him with loving profusion, and was about to take ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... thought, considering this knotty problem, an idea gently wormed itself into my mind, which I at once threw out again as being absurd and out of the question. This idea was—to hold the river bed and banks on each side of the drift! To give up all idea of command, and, instead of seeking the nearest high ground, which comes as natural ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... perseverance would avail. From Jamaica he sailed to Hispaniola. There his fluent persuasiveness came again into play. He met a very old man, Spaniard or Portuguese, who was said to know where the ship lay, and "by the policy of his address" wormed from him some further information about the treasure-ship. The old man told him that it had been wrecked on a reef of shoals a few leagues from Hispaniola, and just north of Port de la Plata, which place got its name from the landing there of a boat-load of sailors with ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... well as the eighth, were incorporated in the Formula of Concord in order thoroughly to purify the Lutheran Church from Reformed errors concerning the Lord's Supper and the person of Christ, which after Luther's death had wormed their way into some of her schools and churches, especially those of Electoral Saxony, and to make her forever immune against the infection of Calvinism (Crypto-Calvinism)—a term which, during the controversies preceding the Formula of Concord did not, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... speak of disappointed, angry people only—that you have lied and fawned, and wormed yourself through dirty ways into my favour; by such concessions and such crooked deeds, such meannesses and vile endurances, as nothing could repay; no, not the legacy of half the world we live in. You can ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... on the whole, that nothing particular happened while you were away," said Cicely. "I should have wanted so dreadfully to tell somebody, I'm afraid Marjorie Butler might have wormed it out of me. As it is, they none of them know, and we still have the secret ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... wormed to the edge of the couch, and slipped off to the floor on his knees. By means of a chair he drew himself to his feet. Still clinging to the chair, supporting most of his weight on it, he shoved it to the door and ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... on the outskirts of the crowd, unable to push his way further. The wrath of these folk was so noisy that he could catch no word of what went on within. He devoutly hoped that Skipper Bill had kept to his hiding-place despite the suspicious sounds in the cafe. Then he wormed his way to the door and entered. A moment later he had climbed on a barrel and was overlooking the squirming crowd and eagerly listening to the clamour. Above every sound—above the cries and clatter and gabble—rang the fighting English ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... it carefully, then wormed his way through the bushes until he was within reach of the ruined plot. He stretched out his hand and pulled in a handful of the debris, examined it carefully and ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... shows the general opinion entertained of Defoe, and the fact that he was less corruptible than was supposed. There can be little doubt that our astute intriguer would have outwitted the French emissary if he had not been warned in time, pocketed his bribes, and wormed his secrets out of him for ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... nothin'. Then I beginned to worm around. I vound out that Neck Trezidder 'ad tould the passon not to cry the banns at church. Then I got the new cook at Pennington to come to mawther and 'ave 'er fortin tould; then mawther an' me wormed out oal she knawed 'bout the ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... our prow, swam the helmeted Silver-heads; side by side, in uniform ranks, like an army. Then came the Boneetas, with their flashing blue flanks. Then, like a third distinct regiment, wormed and twisted through the water like Archimedean screws, the quivering Wriggle-tails; followed in turn by the rank and file of the Trigger-fish—so called from their quaint dorsal fins being set in their backs with a comical curve, as if at half-cock. Far astern the rear was brought up by endless ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... she no longer cared about Wollaston Lee, that she fairly scorned him. Then, suddenly, something occurred to her. She turned, and ran back as fast as she could, her short fleece of golden hair flying. She wrapped her short skirts about her, and wormed through the barbed-wire fence which skirted the field—the boy had leaped it, but she was not equal to that—and she hastened, leaving a furrow through the white-and-gold herbage, to the boy lying on his face weeping. ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... "but don't you make a fool of yo'self with a good man like Jack Hale." And, wondering, June was silent. The truth was that the old man had wormed out of Hale an admission of the kindly duplicity the latter had practised on him and on June, and he had given his word to Hale that he would not tell June. He did not understand why Hale should have so insisted on that promise, for it was all right that Hale should ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... chevalier was within an ace of reaching it before his friends anticipated; for, very shortly after this conversation, he was guilty of the most detestable piece of knavery I ever heard of. He learned that an unfortunate young man from the country, into whose confidence he had wormed himself, was to receive 15,000 livres on his father's account; he invited him to supper, and, by the aid of two villains like himself, stripped him of his last sous. Not satisfied with this, he wrote the father such an exaggerated account of his ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Egypt, where the superstitions of a dateless past were embalmed in the hearts of the people hardly less effectually than the bodies of cats and crocodiles and the rest of the divine menagerie in their rock-cut tombs. The conception is well illustrated by a story which tells how the subtle Isis wormed his secret name from Ra, the great Egyptian god of the sun. Isis, so runs the tale, was a woman mighty in words, and she was weary of the world of men, and yearned after the world of the gods. And she meditated in her heart, saying, "Cannot I by virtue of the great name of Ra make myself ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... cupboards and gnashing of teeth behind the old oak panelling. Then on the fourth day Burroughs and Welcome disappeared, and the rats swarmed to their own again. The deserters were found a week later; they had wormed through a system of rat-holes into the next dug-out, inhabited by the Atkinses, and had remained ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... but each child sees that the other is of gentle blood, and women's wits be sharp and prying, and the maid will never rest till she has wormed out ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on in a driving rainstorm and through mud and underbrush and wormed our way amid wire entanglements, we came upon a field kitchen and were invited to supper. We gladly accepted and sat down in the rain to potatoes and meat, bread, butter, and coffee, with a dessert of pancakes and syrup. It was a meal fit for a king, and no food ever tasted quite so sweet. It ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... measure of infamy than Captain Warnesford Armstrong, the entrapper and betrayer of the Sheareses. Having obtained an introduction to John, he represented himself as a zealous and hard-working member of the organization, and soon wormed himself completely into the confidence of his victims. He paid daily visits to the house of the Sheareses in Baggot-street, chatted with their families, and fondled the children of Henry Sheares upon his knee. We have it on his own testimony ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... full of water, or overturned, in a moment. Small chance for a swimmer in such maelstroems! All this we saw, but had no time to shudder at. Aided by the urgent stream, we carefully and delicately—for a coarse movement would have been death—wormed our boat off the rock and went fleeting through a labyrinth of new perils, onward with a wild exhilaration, like galloping through prairie on fire. Of all the high distinctive national pleasures of America, chasing buffalo, stump-speaking, and the like, there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... grand Chateau, the only one I detest is probably the most irreproachable of all—Madame de Maintenon. There is something so repulsively sanctimonious in her aspect, something so crafty in the method wherewith, under the cloak of religion, she wormed her way into high places, ousting—always in the name of propriety—those who had helped her. Her stepping-stone to Royal favour was handsome, impetuous Madame de Montespan, who, taking compassion on her widowed poverty, ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... aided by Charmion, I began my last work of hate and vengeance. I wormed myself deep into the secrets of the palace, counselling all things for evil. I bade Cleopatra keep Antony gay, lest he should brood upon his sorrows: and thus she sapped his strength and energy ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... be the ghost of a chance of a lion getting in; but at night, as I looked out, it seemed frail indeed. Some dry grass was piled inside, with blankets spread over it to prevent rustling; and when night came we three, myself and two gunbearers, wormed our way in and then pulled some pieces of brush into the opening after us. The rifles were sighted on the bait while it was still daylight and at a spot where the expected lion ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... They wormed their way forward, often crawling along. Both knew a good deal about traps and how they are set, and their common sense enabled them to see the most likely places for them. They kept to open ground, ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... me in somehow, and, once in you can bet I talked for all I was worth. Kept up a flow of conversation about being misdirected and coming to the wrong house. Went away, and called a few days later. Gradually wormed my way in. Called regularly. Spied on their movements, met 'em at every theatre they went to, and bowed, and finally got away with Millie before her aunt knew what was happening or who I was or what I was doing ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... your men, who couldn't move, poor chap, because of a smashed leg and a broken arm, watched you crawl out of a great heap of stuff. He said that only your head was visible at first; but the way you wormed yourself through the mud was as good ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... Whitey wormed Injun's story from him, in jerky sentences, while Hank Dawes rode up and looked on, and listened indifferently. It seemed that two days before, at the Bar O Ranch Monty had "turned up missing." Injun, who knew Monty's hoofprints as one friend would ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... ever hear the lines, 'Trust me not at all, or all in all?'" I continued to torture him. "It was Tennyson who made Vivien say those words to Merlin. She was deceiving him, and meant to ruin him when she'd wormed out his secret; for that reason, it isn't a very appropriate quotation. But, otherwise, it's particularly so. If you trusted me for yourself, you'd trust me for others, too. It's the same thing—or else it's nothing. I'm not like Vivien. I don't mean to deceive you, or ruin you, ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... boy that is put forth to shame us kings and nobles?' said King Mark, and his hand sought his dagger as he disappeared among the crowd and wormed his way towards where stood young Arthur. But Sir Ector and Sir Kay, seeing the threatening looks of all, had quickly ranged themselves beside young Arthur, and with them went Sir Bedevere, Sir Baudwin and Sir Ulfius, ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... while we were saying goodbye to our master and mistress. Then I saw you pass twice again through the street and look up at our windows. This morning I find you at our garden gate and now—you will pardon me if I tell the exact truth—now you have wormed yourself in here under false pretenses because you have no right whatever to force an entrance into this house. And I ask you again, what do ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... wealth? That too must be left uncertain, though it was more than probable he had seen the advertisement in the newspapers, and, like Mrs. Peckover, had based conclusions thereupon. Another possibility was, that Kirkwood had wormed himself into Michael's complete confidence. From Joseph's point of view, subtle machinations were naturally attributed to the young man—whose appearance proved him anything but a commonplace person. The situation was full of obscurities and dangers. From Scawthorne ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... making very long legs of it in places, which must have been colossal strides for the owners. The higher I clambered, the flimsier the structure got. However, I arrived, not without unnecessary trepidation, wormed my way into the basket and crouched down in some uneasiness of mind. The way the thing swayed and wriggled gave me to believe that the next moment we should all be shot catapultwise into the sea. To call it topheavy will do for a word, but nothing but ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... beating about the bush. Other people than Grell had written to me in the old days, and I had my own methods of forcing them to keep me silent. In plain words, a great part of my living was by blackmail, but I naturally acted very delicately. Harry Goldenburg wormed his way into my confidence, and it occurred to me that such a man would be an ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... had wormed his way into the ballroom with the pretext of having to carry Miss Ann's shawl. Quietly he slipped up the stairs into the balcony and, hiding behind the festooned bunting, he peeped down on his beloved mistress as she stood, ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... where to turn or whither to go. Such was the statement made to us. Our forty were miserable enough in the first place, and they lay about the decks seasick all the voyage, which about completed their misery, I take it. However, one or two young men remained upright, and by constant persecution we wormed out of them some little information. They gave it reluctantly and in a very fragmentary condition, for, having been shamefully humbugged by their prophet, they felt humiliated and unhappy. In such circumstances people ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... perceived that while his eyes had been turned on Hanky, two burly vergers had wormed their way through the crowd and taken their stand close to his two brothers. Then he understood, and understood also how ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... wrapped up in an old sock. Presently there resounded in the still air a pleasant bubbling sound indicative of liquid being poured out of a glass receptacle, then a deep sigh, followed by a profound silence. Inch by inch I crawled over our barricade and slowly wormed my way along the ditch. At last I reached the Turkish barricade and cautiously slid my hand over the top until my fingers encountered Ibrahim's toque. Then I gave a gentle tug. Horror! he had the flap down under his chin. Unmanned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... on the patriotism of the senora until you wormed from her the treasure secret. Evidently rumors of it had spread from Mexican Indians to Japanese visitors. And then, Otaka, all jealousy over one whom she, no doubt, justly considered a rival, completed your work by sending ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... where the soft jobs were, and stay there; and then he'd put himself out no end to be useful to the pals. He'd get up at three o'clock in the morning to make the juice, go and fetch the water while the others were getting their grub. At last, he'd wormed himself in everywhere, he came to be one of the family, the rotter, the carrion. He did it so he wouldn't have to do it. He seemed to me like an individual that would have earned five quid honestly with the same work and bother ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... but she let him lead her whither he would. And they came breathless to the rocky outcropping through which the pack trail wormed its way farther down the hill. There he let her stop, for he knew that they had passed around the upper edge of the fire, and were safe unless the wind changed. He helped her upon a high, flat-topped boulder that overlooked the balsam thicket ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... yet gladly welcomed the aid which might prove so useful to the prince's cause, and attributed the sudden change of front to some recent rupture between Charles and his cousin, promising himself that he would make capital out of his resentment. Be that as it might, Charles wormed himself into Andre's heart, and after a few days one of them could hardly be seen without the other. If Andre went out hunting, his greatest pleasure in life, Charles was eager to put his pack or ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... had resolved, in order to win the affections of my people, and to promote unison among the heritors, to be of as little expense to the parish as possible; but by this time the manse had fallen into a sore state of decay—the doors were wormed on the hinges—the casements of the windows chattered all the winter, like the teeth of a person perishing with cold, so that we had no comfort in the house; by which, at the urgent instigations of Mrs Balwhidder, I was obligated to represent our situation ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... let me not make mischief. Poor lad! Why, girl, Fancy will not be bridled, Bless you, I wormed it out of him ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... what I was after. I wormed myself into your brother's affections, to entice him to Paris. I wanted Dare to learn that her instinct about him was right; her instinct was always defending him against what she thought was her reason and common sense. Now, she sees ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... practiced squirrel that she was, up from one stub to another to the top of the branch. She was still below the edge of the pit there, but Betsy lay flat down on the snow and held out her hands. Molly took hold hard, and, digging her toes into the snow, slowly wormed her way up to the ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... listen for aught that might menace her—herself the personification of a hunted deer. Now she moved silently down upon the chosen spot. What luck! A beautiful buck stood drinking in the stream. The woman wormed her way closer. Now she lay upon her belly behind a small bush within throwing distance of the quarry. She must rise to her full height and throw her spear almost in the same instant and she must ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and the Mexicans had wormed their way through one of the small windows of the office the new bookkeeper was ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... had wormed his way to the great tree that overhung the palisade at one end of the village, and from his point of vantage looked down upon the savage horde beneath. He counted fifty Arabs and estimated that there were five times as many Manyuema. The latter were gorging themselves ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... before my daughter's fair hand had affixed her own honourable name beneath that of a cheat and a traitor. . . . Yes! M. de Marmont," he reiterated with virile force, breaking in on the hot protests which had risen to the young man's lips, "no one but a cheat and a traitor could thus have wormed himself into the confidence of an old man and of a young girl! No one but a villainous blackguard could have contemplated the abominable deceptions which you have planned against me ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... go to get one?' 'To the Sarebus river.' I mention these particulars in detail, as I think, had their practice extended to taking the head of any defenseless traveler, or any Malay surprised in his dwelling or boat, I should have wormed the secret out ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... city the detective trailed his man to a cheap little hotel on a back street, to a rear room on the top floor, where a second man appeared to be awaiting him. By climbing out a hall window onto the fire-escape McCorquodale had reached the flat gravelled roof and wormed himself along into a position where he could hear what transpired in the room. He had not listened long before he was satisfied that Weiler had been sent on this spying expedition by the man in the back bedroom and ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... presented at Christmas with great form. The aged sibyls blessed the bridal bed of the Laird when he married, and the cradle of the heir when born. The men repaired her ladyship's cracked china, and assisted the Laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies. The children gathered nuts in the woods, and cranberries in the moss, and mushrooms on the pastures, for tribute to the Place. These acts of voluntary service, and acknowledgments of dependence, were rewarded by protection ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Jack wormed his way to the rear and when he considered he must be in Tom Bodine's neighborhood he began whispering in a tone that could not be heard ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... white-tiled lunch rooms. I stitched boys' pants in a Polish sweatshop, and lived for two days in New York's most rococo hotel. I took a graduate course in Anglo Saxon at Columbia University, and one in lamp-shade making at Wanamaker's: wormed into a Broadway musical show as wardrobe girl, and went out on a self-appointed newspaper assignment to interview the mother of the richest baby ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... his due. He had wormed his way into the Rastall-Retford home-circle by grossly deceitful means. The moment he heard that Eve had gone to live with Mrs. Rastall-Retford, and had ascertained that the Rastall-Retford with whom he had been at Cambridge and whom he still met occasionally at his club when ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... opposite directions. For a moment or more nothing happened. Then all at once something gave, and Raffles swore an oath as soft as any prayer. And for the minute after that his hand went round and round with the gimlet, as though he were grinding a piano-organ, while the end wormed slowly out on its delicate thread of fine ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... his coffee deliberately, unsmiling, his gaze over the valley where the railroad track wormed its way ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... How she wormed herself into the confidence of the Cardinal de Rohan, a man of the world and of education, would seem wholly unaccountable but for one fact. The Prince Primate had faith in Cagliostro and his nostrums, and when an individual has recourse to astrologers and fortune-tellers, we are quite in ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... by two bad traits. In the first place, he's so dreadfully conscious of the fact that he has risen from a lower position; and then, again, he's so engrossingly and pervadingly mathematical. X square seems to have seized upon him bodily, and to have wormed its fatal way into his ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... And Sundown wormed his length between the wires and straightened up, extending a tanned and hairy paw. "Shake, pardner! Say, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... the eternal populace knows that if the outside rim of a crowd stirs ever so slightly it means that there is madness in the heart and core of the mob. It soon became evident that something really important had happened in the centre of this excitement. We wormed our way to the front, with the cunning which is known only to cockneys, and once there we soon learned the nature of the difficulty. There had been a brawl concerned with some six men, and one of them lay almost dead ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... upon the terrace, and came home at eight: Mr. Secretary came soon after, and we were engaging in deep discourse, and I was endeavouring to settle some points of the greatest consequence, and had wormed myself pretty well into him, when his Under Secretary came in (who lodges in the same house with us) and interrupted all my scheme. I have just left ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... occupants and striving to locate Sipsu. Evidently there were many in the tent, and from the sounds they were in high excitement. At last he heard the girl's voice, and crawled around so that only the moose-hide divided them. Then burrowing in the snow, he slowly wormed his head and shoulders underneath. When the warm inner air smote his face, he stopped and waited, his legs and the greater part of his body still on the outside. He could see nothing, nor did he dare lift his head. On one side ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... the ring-side began to whisper. Time and again it seemed as if he were cornered, but in a marvellous way he wormed himself free. I held my breath as he evaded blow after blow, some of which seemed to miss him by a mere hair's breadth. He was taking chances, I thought, so narrowly did he permit the blows to miss him. I ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... was tedious, involved, but a stalemate. Lying on his belly, Denver wormed as close as he dared to the break of slope outside the door. There, he fired snap shots at everything that moved on the slopes. Everything that moved on the slopes made a point of returning the gesture. Some shots came from places he had ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... the fog. Once, she opened her mouth as if to call. Half-rising, she started as if to run to the house. But, presently, curiosity apparently overruled her fear, and, throwing herself flat on the ground she wormed her way back to the brink of the river-bank. Cautiously, without making a sound, she peered through the tall grass and weeds that fringed ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... gaudy colors; and men pushed up behind her, mostly men of swarthy countenance, who wore circlets of gold in their ears; and, brushing her skirts, seeking vantage points, ragged, ill-clad children wriggled and wormed their way deeper into the press. It was a crowd composed almost entirely of the foreign element which inhabited that quarter—and the crowd chattered and gesticulated with ever-increasing violence. She ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... let the others depart; Rogron walked home with the Chargeboeufs, and when Vinet was alone with the old maid he wormed the ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... wormed his way into your confidence!" said Mrs. Pitkin bitterly. "After acting so badly that Mr. Pitkin was obliged to discharge him, he ran to you ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... for a seat on the judicial bench of Upper Canada, to which he was vain and ambitious enough to aspire. He at length got access to the Governor-General, Sir James Craig, into whose confidence he so wormed himself as to obtain a letter of recognition and recommendation to visit Massachusetts and other eastern States to ascertain and report upon the state of feeling there in regard to the sympathy of those States with England in case of war with England; but neither ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... remembered Fay—a slim fellow with a gentle, dreamy face and starry eyes. He had seen him occasionally during the past eighteen years, though rarely. As a matter of fact, Fay's greenhouses lay on that part of the shore of Thorley's Pond most out of the way of the pedestrian. Only of late had new roads wormed themselves up the steep northern bank of the pond, bringing from the city well-to-do, country-loving souls who desired space and sunshine. It was a satisfaction to Thor's father, Archie Masterman, that only the best type of suburban residence ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... be satisfied till he had wormed out of me (he took much pride in his ingenuity) an absolutely imaginary love-affair, attended with the proper soupcon of scandal, which had kept me all this time in the peaceful regions of the Tyrol. In return for this narrative, ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... Bert remained perfectly motionless. There had been no barking of dogs, and, after listening intently, he became convinced that no living thing was out of doors in the vicinity of the shack. With infinite caution he wormed his way along the ground and, reaching a window in the rear of the house, drew himself to the sill and peered ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... rest, though it is excessively modern. Anyhow he is dead. You tell me he saw you behind the screen in his wife's rooms at midnight, and felt no need of an explanation. How like an Italian. But he is dead. And you forced your love on another man's wife, though you own she did not return it, wormed yourself into her rooms at night, and then—then—yes, I begin to see a grain of truth among these heaps of lies—then when by an evil chance, an extraordinary stroke of bad luck, there was danger of your being ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... whatever lies hidden within the folds of the heart of childhood. He knew children through and through because he studied them from themselves and not from books. He associated with them on terms of the most intimate comradeship and wormed his way into their confidence with assiduous sympathy. Thus he became possessed of the inmost secrets of their childish joys and griefs and so became a literary philosopher ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... mind came the Avalon case, When a man, left at post, without hope of a place, First had suffered in patience, then had wormed his way up, Then had come with fine judgment, and just won ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... vaquero, and after an hour's argument got his way. The man, who had wormed the secret out of Tomaso, had only a general idea of the situation of the cave; but he confessed to a certain familiarity with the mountains. He was not persuaded to go until Sturges had promised to send not only himself but ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... splendour of the Long Serpent. Their discourse was most friendly at all times, nor did Olaf for a moment suspect the treachery that underlay the earl's soft speeches and his seeming goodwill. Deep into the king's open heart Sigvaldi wormed his way, until they were as brothers one with the other. When Olaf hinted that he would be going back to Norway, that the weather was fair for sailing, and that his men were homesick and weary of lying at anchor, Sigvaldi ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... was deserted, it was the desertion of a ruling class, not of a people or its army. German treachery wormed its way in at the top, and so destroyed a great race ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... information. 'It is easy to conjecture how he could have obtained it. Walsh and Le Fevre were absent from their rooms, for a considerable part of the nights of Saturday and Wednesday, October 12 and 16. Bedloe's suspicions must have been aroused, and, either by threats or cajolery, he wormed part of the secret out of his friends. He obtained a general idea of the way in which the murder had been committed and of the persons concerned in it. One of these was a frequenter of the Queen's chapel whom he knew by sight. He thought him to be a ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... and white, with flags flying from her masts, and the deck swarming with smart bonnets and bodices. Her name was the Royal Adelaide, from which the sagacious reader will infer that this excursion was made during the late reign. The Yorkshireman and Tommy Sly having wormed their way among the boats, were at length brought up within one of the vessels, and after lying on their oars a few seconds, they were attracted by, "Now, sir, are you going to sleep there?" addressed to a rival nautical whose boat obstructed the way, and on ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... eager to make up for lost time, he overran and missed his tackle entirely and the second's back came speeding up the field near the side-line, a hastily-formed interference guarding him well. Ten yards, fifteen, twenty, and then Carmine wormed through and brought the runner ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... at the house now. Come on." But that didn't suit him. He explained that she wouldn't look at him when the others were around, and that she slid off and wormed out of his way, so he couldn't get at her, anyhow. Just like a girl, wasn't it—not to face the music? Well, anyway, he'd cooked up a plan that he wanted me to do, and I promised I would. He wanted me to get Peggy to go up the river to their former spooning-resort ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... the little wall of rocks that supported the porch, and with a lighted torch on a stick he wormed his way in to ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... mandible, short, devoid of notches, scooped into a sharp-edged spoon, it digs the opening of its tunnel. The piece cut out is a mouthful which, as it enters the stomach, yields its scanty juices and accumulates behind the worker in heaps of wormed wood. The refuse leaves room in front by passing through the worker. A labour at once of nutrition and of road-making, the path is devoured while constructed; it is blocked behind as it makes way ahead. That, however, is how all the borers who look to wood for ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... The going was not very hard at first as the trees lay scattered on the edge of the windfall. But, as he wormed into the labyrinth, the heaped up logs gave more and more resistance to progress, and it soon became apparent that he could never win through to the higher slopes which were free ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... my good fortune rather than my merit. It might well have been with me as it is with you; but, as a rule, I think that where there is a secret it had better be kept. No one, at any rate, should allow it to be wormed out of him by the impertinent assiduity of others. If there be anything affecting your wife which you do not wish all the world on this side of the water to know, do not tell it to any one on this side of ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... joy. Life was hard; she had more work to do already than she was able to perform; try as she would she could not get her mental consent. Why must she have this undesired child? When the thought first wormed its way into her head, Elizabeth passed from disappointment to self-accusation. By every law of God and man a mother should want her child; if she did not, then she stood accused at ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... his ideal. Ninon, herself was captivated by his pleasant conversation, agreeable manners and seductive traits. She knew that he had had a love affair with Champmele, the actress, and when she began to obtain an ascendency over his mind, she wormed out of him all the letters he had ever received from the comedienne. Some say it was jealousy on Ninon's part, but any one who reads her letters to de Sevigne will see between the lines a disposition on his part to wander away after a new charmer. Others, however, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... remnant of the battalion crawled back to camp in a sunken road a mile in the rear. One or two found bivouacs left by the Rutlands, but the majority dropped where they halted. My friend Patrick found a bivouac, wormed into it and went to sleep. The next thing he remembers was the roof of his abode caving in with the weight of two men struggling violently. Patrick extricated himself somehow and rolled out into the grey dawn to find the sunken road filled with grey figures, ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... interrupted firmly, "we are out here to enjoy ourselves, and we don't propose to be interfered with. We have a right to be here, and no one else has. We've wormed it out of you that Fred Ripley and some other fellows have come out here to torment us. Fred Ripley has no right to come here and play mean tricks ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... the man who looks out of the window and tries to understand the world. Keep clear of the man who looks in at the window and tries to understand you. When poor old Adam had gone out gardening (Arthur will go out gardening), the other sort came along and wormed himself in, ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... was not required, and they retreated precipitately, taking different exits. One swam to the grassy edge of the islet, poked his head above water under the covert of some drooping weeds, listened motionless for some minutes, then wormed himself out among the long grasses and lay basking, hidden from all the world but the whirling hawk overhead. The other, of a more industrious mould, swam off toward the upper end of the pond where, as he knew, there ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... morning from the Rectory did not tend to assuage her fears. The poor dairymaid had died in the night, and another servant, one of the men, was sickening. Even Lord Hartledon looked grave: and the countess-dowager wormed a half promise from him, in the softened feelings of the moment, that he would not visit the ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... suddenly, she sat bolt upright in bed. For an Idea concerning Mr. Bennet, no longer prefixed the Wonderful, had wormed itself into her brain without her having the slightest conception how it had got there, and now it presented itself to her, ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... it? Falkenberg is a man possessed of one idea—to upset the relations between France and England. For that purpose he has been paying secret visits to Paris for the last year. He has corrupted the Press here. He has wormed his way into the confidence of one or two of the Ministers. The thing is a perfect mania with him. He has taken it into his head that the articles which Kendricks has made me promise to write, and the first one of which appeared in Le Grand Journal yesterday—the one you ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shortly after this that Finn became conscious of a curious grinding small sound at the back of his cage. Presently a sharp, bright point of steel entered the cage from behind, just above the level of Finn's head, as he sat on his haunches. The steel wormed its way into the cage to a length of fully six inches, and then it reached the side of Killer's cage, pointing diagonally, and bored slowly through that. The auger was well greased, and made only a very slight sound, so slight indeed that Killer was not aware of it. He was ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... a knowing look, and Piang wandered off, apparently seeking new pleasures, but furtively watching the three men. He wormed his way through the crowd intent on a game of chess, played by two venerable old Chinamen. A sudden "Sssshhh" from Sicto interrupted Alverez's excited whisper, but not before Piang had caught a few ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... examined it all very carefully, pried underneath with his jack knife, discovered the spot where the wire connected, speculated as to where it tapped the main line, prospected a bit about the place and then on hands and knees wormed himself through the thick growth of the mountain till he came out to the huckleberry clump, and recovering his bicycle walked innocently up to the station as if it were the first time that day and enquired of the surly freight man whether a box had ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... four hundred yards away were the goats, two of them, lying on the edge of small cliffs. We could see them very plainly, but they were too far for a sure shot. After examining them to our satisfaction we wormed our way back. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... Into the herd he wormed his way on Blaze, dodging here and there, but with his eyes ever on the calf he hoped to cut out so it could be branded. Nort leaned forward in his saddle, and then his cousin and brother, eagerly watching from outside the herd, saw the ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... slightly sidewise twist of the body which overtakes him in his occasional moments of embarrassment, for it was plain that he stood averse to any undue display of emotion before his playmates. He merely said, "Hello, Mummy" and smiled awkwardly. But after he had climbed up into the car and wormed down between Pauline Augusta and me, and after I had tucked the old bear-robe about them and called out to Gershom that I'd carry my kiddies home, I could feel Dinkie's arm push shyly in behind my back and work its way as far around my waist as it was able to reach. He didn't speak. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... in the direction of Fort Edward to learn the movements of the enemy and prevent surprise, they loitered about the camp and in the trenches, or amused themselves by firing at the fort from behind stumps and logs. Some, in imitation of the French, dug little trenches for themselves, in which they wormed their way towards the rampart, and now and then picked off an artillery-man, not without loss on their own side. On the afternoon of the fifth, Montcalm invited them to a council, gave them belts of wampum, and mildly remonstrated ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... were tied. Frontal attack was useless. To drive Jimmy from the castle would be out of the question. All that could be done was to watch him while he was there. For he had never been more convinced of anything in his life than that Jimmy had wormed his way into the house-party with felonious intent. The appearance of Lady Julia at dinner, wearing the famous rope of diamonds, supplied an obvious motive. The necklace had an international reputation. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... nerve records the flash and before the ear has caught the explosion. All this I considered as I flattened myself against the wall—for I was by no means braver than my fellows—and presently, yard by yard, wormed myself along it until ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... personally to examine, or to direct one of the Officers Commanding a Division to examine, ascertain and report that the necessary preparations are made and precautions taken to avoid accidents. The guns, if loaded, are to be drawn, wormed, sponged and reloaded. They are, nevertheless, to be so laid as to prevent the possibility of mischief, even in the contingency of a shot or wad being left in any of them. Hard wads are not to be used in firing salutes, ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... force they wormed their way through the crowd, until they were close enough to read the bulletin board. Then Jack uttered an ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... wormed their way over the dry sticks which choked the entrance to the cave. Then Smith ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... talked with father that morning a piece of news had come to me which had only succeeded in strengthening my belief in the meaning of the Spanish Woman's actions. This was brought me by Hallie, my envoy extraordinary, who had wormed it out of her mother who had got ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... Romans by chopping the heads off statues from the arch of Constantine and other monuments; for which act of vandalism Molsa impeached him in the Roman Academy, and a price was set upon his head. Having returned to Florence, he proceeded to court Duke Alessandro, into whose confidence he wormed himself, pretending to play the spy upon the exiles, and affecting a personal timidity which put the Prince off his guard. Alessandro called him 'the philosopher,' because he conversed in solitude with his own thoughts and seemed indifferent to wealth and office. But all this while Lorenzino ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... The two wormed their way out of the lift, which was becoming more congested at each stopping place, the legitimate hour for luncheon now being over. The floor chosen by Ena had a series of "Ideal Rooms," furnished ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... the deck-boards, and wormed his way slowly and ludicrously aft. He did not bring those uncouth vermiculations to a stop until he was well back in the shelter of a rusty capstan, cut off from the light by a lifeboat swinging on its davits. As he clambered to his feet again he saw this light suddenly go out and then reappear. ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... therefore, wormed himself up the staircase, and Mr Blandois followed close. They ascended to the great garret bed-room which Arthur had occupied on the night of his return. 'There, Mr Blandois!' said Jeremiah, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... was a slow business, as it was being evacuated. Our little procession proceeded very slowly. Most of us walked. Jo drove with two of the Stobarts, watching from a seat of vantage the packed masses of people who wormed their way in and out between the ox carts. The road was blocked by some gigantic baking ovens on wheels. Hundreds of boys, big seventeen-year-old boys with guns, and little limping fellows from thirteen to ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... forward until she came again in sight of the sentinel. Skipping Rabbit followed her trail like a little shadow. Keeping as far from the man as possible without coming under the observation of the next sentinel, they sank into the long grass, and slowly wormed their way forward so noiselessly that they were soon past the lines, and able to rise ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... we wormed our way along a tunnel that had been roughly dug out of the shifting sand, and was shored up clumsily by means of wooden pillars and posts. Any moment, it seemed to me, we might be buried alive. We could not see an inch before our eyes, but had to grope our way feeling ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... as his sting is deadly. I loathe you from instinct. I felt this dislike and distrust for you from the first moment that I saw you. I know not how, or why, or in what manner, you are a villain, but I feel you to be one! I am convinced of it as thoroughly as if I knew it. You have wormed yourself into the bosom of my family. You have expelled me from the affections of my parents; and not content with this, you have stolen to the heart of the woman to whom my life was devoted, to have me driven thence also. Can I do less than hate you? Can I desire less than your destruction? ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... Cautiously Garin wormed his way through the thick underbrush until, at last, he looked out into a clearing and at its edge the entrance of the Black Ones' Caves. Two tall pillars, carved into the likeness of foul monsters, guarded a rough-edged hole. ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... agreeably to their general spirit of intrigue, they had made advances to Ali Pacha, and to all other independent powers in or about Epirus. Amongst other states, in an evil hour for that ill-fated city, they wormed themselves into an alliance with Prevesa; and in the following year their own quarrel with Ali Pacha gave that crafty robber a pretence, which he had long courted in vain, for attacking the place with his overwhelming cavalry, before ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey |
