"Flop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hear you have been doing your influenza also. It's a beastly thing, as I have it, no symptoms except going flop. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... you, and he is tired out, and you think you never saw such a nice bass, and that it weighs at least six pounds, and just as you are reaching out with the landing net, to take him in, he gives one kick, chews off the line, you fall over backwards, and the bass disappears with a parting flop of the tail, and a man who is fishing a little ways off asks you what you had on your hook, and you say that it was nothing but a confounded dogfish, anyway, and you wind up your reel and go home, and you are so mad and hot that the leaves on the trees curl up and ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... I go on and on to you, I who, whenever now and then pulled, by the head and hair, into letter-writing, get sorrowfully on for a line or two, as the cognate creature urged on by stick and string, and then come down 'flop' upon the sweet haven of page one, line last, as serene as the sleep of the virtuous! You will never more, I hope, talk of 'the honour of my acquaintance,' but I will joyfully wait for the delight of your friendship, and the spring, and my ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... had; and he used to try to leap out of the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower came on; but somehow he never could manage it. He liked most, though, to see them rising at the flies, as they sailed round and round under the shadow of the great oak, where the beetles fell flop into the water, and the green caterpillars let themselves down from the boughs by silk ropes for no reason at all; and then changed their foolish minds for no reason at all, either; and hauled themselves ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... confronted her. "No, it ain't much of a fire yet, but our hired girl she joined a movin'-picture outfit, so us two he-things are doin' the best we can chasin' a breakfast." And the tramp, Overland Red, ragged, unkempt, jocular, rose from his knees beside a tiny blaze. He pulled a bleak flop of felt from his tangled hair in an over-accentuated bow ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... no shame to fight the lame When they deserve to cop it. So do not try to pipe your eye, Or with my flip I'll flop it.' ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... business, you know, but a sort of shock to the feelings and finances of the community all the same. Not that it affects me, or that many know of it, but the inner circle is disturbed—and, mind, I'm leading up to Edgington's flop." ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... a Bridge Fiend in our midst, too! She weighed something like twenty stone, slept all forenoon, played bridge and ate chocolates all afternoon, and talked constantly of reducing. One day she went for a ride on a flop-eared mule; he got tired and lay down and rolled over and over in the sand. They had some trouble rescuing her before she got smashed. I told her the mule believed in rolling to help reduce. She didn't see the joke, ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... night an' a clear run—you saw it—across the Theatre into the park, and I prayed she'd rise before she hit high timber. I set her all I dared for a quick lift. I told Mankeltow that if I gave her too much nose she'd be liable to up-end and flop. He didn't want another inquest on his estate. No, sir! So I had to fix her up in the ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... this broad land are of heroic mould as are its men. Sons of the open, deep-chested, tall and straight, they ride like conquerors and walk—like bears. Slow to anger and quick to act, they carry their strength and health easily and with a dignity which no worn trappings, faded shirt, or flop-brimmed hat may obscure. Speak to one of them and his level gaze will travel to your feet and back again to your eyes. He may not know what you are, but he assuredly knows what you are not. He will answer you quietly and to the point. If you have been fortunate enough to ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... at Wallace that was full of meaning, he retired to the hearth, planted his shoulders against the mantel at Tottie's favorite vantage point, and surveyed Clare. "We thought you were gone," he remarked good-naturedly. He bobbed at her, with a flop of the big hat ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... cannot readjust their nerves to the prospect of a violent end by powder and ball from unseen sources. Under other circumstances any one of the five might face a peril greater than that which now confronts him. Conceivably he might flop into a swollen river to save a drowning puppy; might dive into a burning building after some stranger's pet tabby cat. But this prospect which lies before him of ambling across a field with death singing about his ears, is a thing which tears with clawing fingers at the tuggs and toggles ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... fraction of a second. The effect of the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm. "Sit down," he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the Leas I sat—scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the band rushed together into a blast of music, the promenaders put their feet down ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... entrance the old doorman with his look of sea dog recognized her, admitting her with a nod. The titter of music came back through the wings and quick, loud thumps of a tumbling act in progress. The smell of grease paint, like the flop of a cold, wet hand to her face, smote her with a familiarity out of all proportion to her limited ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... Forsytes, favouring herself, with the exception, perhaps, of Imogen. Her brother's "little girl" Fleur frankly puzzled Winifred. The child was as restless as any of these modern young women—"She's a small flame in a draught," Prosper Profond had said one day after dinner—but she did not flop, or talk at the top of her voice. The steady Forsyteism in Winifred's own character instinctively resented the feeling in the air, the modern girl's habits and her motto: "All's much of a muchness! Spend, to-morrow we shall be poor!" She found ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... went down with a flop! Was she being told that she could not study? Had the end come so swiftly? She had a hard time not to cry out with the pain of this horrible fear, and the kind eyes of the experienced ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... again last night. I just fell flop over in the bathroom where I was washing my hands and was led to bed when I recovered, by a nurse. I lost. consciousness just as I got there again. I felt horribly faint until 12 o'clock, ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... him up the drive—"hat in one hand, and Squire in the other," as the patter-song had it. At the moment of assisted entry his paternal dignity was always at its stateliest, and it was not till he had gravely hung his cocked hat upon an imaginary door-peg in the middle of the hall and seen it flop floorward that he lost his calm. "Blood and 'ouns, ye've the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... said. "I reckon ez how that settles it. Old Eph Yeates'll share fair, powder and lead, parched corn and pan-meat with the man that can flop him that-away. Whilst ye're a-needing a friend in the big woods—a raw-meat-eating Injun-skinner that can jest or'narily whop his weight in wildcats—why, old Eph's your man; from now on, if not sooner." And in this wise began an alliance the like of which, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Brer Buzzard! Don't flop yo' wings w'en you laff, kaze den if you duz, sump'n 'ill drap fum up yer, en my gol'-mine won't do you no good, en needer will yone ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... muncher Of heaps of "vacant chaff well-meant for grain," If, like the pious spouse of Jerry Cruncher, You "flop," and, camel-wise, won't rise again To bear big burdens that strength staggers under, On fodder ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... of your argument, you flop-eared son of a tramp with half a tail," replied The O'Shannon. "You come and take it, if you think ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... days' mourning for his lost Scotty, is consoling himself, as other men do, with a substitute. Last Friday he Brought home a flop-eared pup with a drooping tail and an indefinite ancestry, explaining that he had come into possession of the aforementioned animal by the duly delivered purchase-price of ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... the alleys to the terminus of the Edinburgh trams (one saved twopence by not taking the Leith trams and had a sense of recovering the cost of the expedition), and were half-way down a silent street when they heard behind them flippety-flop, flippety-flop, stealthy and wicked as the human foot may be. They turned and saw a great black figure, humped but still high, keeping step with them a yard or so behind. Several times they turned, terrified by that tread, and could make ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... everlastingly bothering the Almighty with his silly troubles. It seems such cheek. Anyhow, this morning I—I have never done any harm to any God's creature knowingly—I prayed. A sudden impulse—I went flop on my knees; so ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... he began to flop about in the wildest and most unreasonable manner. I threw him a board, but he did not seem to have sense enough to grasp it. I saw that he would be drowned in a moment more, unless he received more efficient help. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... glimpse of the corner after Chappell made one cap. To make matters more binding, I came up and lost $1,200. Then the ball opened, and it was not more than half and hour before we had downed the party. Then the devil was to pay. One of the party said: "Look here; I must have my money back, or h—l will flop around here mighty quick." Then they all joined in and made a big kick; and as I saw fun brewing, I slipped into the baggage-car, changed hats and coats with the baggage-master, got his badge and my double-barrelled ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... everything from flop tents to locating agents boarded trains en route, trying to persuade the seekers to register at their respective towns. And all of them were bitter against the railroads, which were furnishing return accommodations ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... the window, saw him stagger and then flop down all of a heap over the kidney-beans, whose props, giving way as he descended, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... bronchial tubes may be opened widely or almost closed, and in this way, to quote from Mr. Thompson, "the bird is enabled to measure in the nicest manner the amount of air thrown from the lungs into the trachea." In producing a staccato, for example, the valves flop up and down, doling out the air at the proper intervals and ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... what slippery stalks they had. Aunt Emma held Milly, and father held Olly, while they dived their hands under the water and pulled hard. And some of the lilies came out with such short bits of stalk you could scarcely hold them, and sometimes, flop! out came a long green stalk, like a long green snake curling and twisting about in the boat. The children dabbled, and splashed, and pulled, to their hearts' content, till at last Mr. Norton told them they had got enough and now they must sit quite still while he rowed them in ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to have a great crowd of friends, do you? It is only weak-minded people like myself who flop on any stranger's neck with protestations of undying affection. It is the easiest thing in the world for any Douglas that ever was to make friends: I think because we are always willing to laugh at the feeblest jest. Nothing endears one so ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... a threat to fire, rang out sharply—and Jimmie Dale flung himself flat in the bottom of the boat. The wharf edge seemed to open in little, crackling jets of flame, came the roar of reports like a miniature battery in action, then the FLOP, FLOP, FLOP, as the lead tore up the water around him, the duller thud as a bullet buried its nose in the boat's side, and the curious rip and squeak as a splinter flew. Then Mittel's voice, high-pitched, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Louise ran towards her. But it wasn't her friend the Mermaid Princess. No, she was a strange little mermaid, who gave a frightful scream and with a flop of her graceful tail, glided into the water. Just as she was about to dive down out of sight, she saw her pretty pearl ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... in one hand, and the harness in the other, you single out the cur you are after, make proper advances, and when he comes sniffling and snuffling and all the time keeping at a safe distance, you drop the sheet-iron on the snow, the brute makes a dive, and you make a flop, you grab the nearest thing grabable—ear, leg, or bunch of hair—and do your best to catch his throat, after which, everything is easy. Slip the harness over the head, push the fore-paws through, and there you are, one dog hooked up and harnessed. After licking the bites and sucking the ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... first flop I'd nail down all the coin that was handy, and then I'd buy me a flock of automobiles—and have a table reserved for me at the Knickerbocker for dinner every night—and...." Imagination flagged. "Well," he concluded defensively, "I can tell you ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... letters setting forth on their journey from our floor. To start life with so many flipperties might lead to anything. Each time that we send a letter off we listen in a tremble of excitement for the final FLOP, and when it comes I think we both feel vaguely that we are still waiting for something. We are waiting to hear some magic letter go flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty ... and behold! there is no FLOP ... and still ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... heavily braced, and well upholstered. It had to be; Mike the Angel liked to flop into chairs, and his two hundred and sixty pounds gave chairs ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... had told me frankly what you wanted in the first place, Mr. Coulter," he said after an exasperating episode in which Coulter's Pharisaic sensitiveness had resulted in Malcolm's having to "flop" the paper both editorially and in its news columns twice in three days, "we would not have made ourselves ridiculous and contemptible. The public is an ass, but it is an ass with a memory at least three days long. Your stealthiness ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... other a dry bath in the shape of a shower of sand. There was a monotonous clank of chains, and an occasional deep abdominal rumble like distant thunder. All over the camp there was a confused subdued medley of sound. A hum from the argumentative villagers, a lazy flop in the tank as a raho rose to the surface, an occasional outburst from the ducks, an angry clamour from the water-hens and blue-fowl. My dogs were lying round me blinking and winking, and making ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... hereafter hop, fly, or flop into this field during the absence of Jimmy Scarecrow, and therefrom purloin, steal, or abstract corn, shall be instantly, in a twinkling and a trice, turned snow-white, and be ever after a disgrace, a byword and a reproach ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... the spirited reply—"Faith, kind uncle, when men abandon jealousy, forsake taking of tobacco, and cease to wear their beards so rudely long. Oh, to have a husband with a mouth continually smoking, with a bush of furs on the ridge of his chin, readie still to flop into his foaming chops, 'tis more than most intolerable;" and similar indications of dislike to smoking could be quoted ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... engaging in prayer), in season and out of season. "Shall we engage?" the Evangelical Pietist, whether a clergyman or a layman, would say at the end of some buttered-toast-and-pound-cake tea-party, and then everyone would be expected to flop down on their knees and listen to an extemporary ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... he flew over to the Round Pond to have a drink. He stooped, and dipped his beak in the pond; he thought it was his beak, but, of course, it was only his nose, and, therefore, very little water came up, and that not so refreshing as usual, so next he tried a puddle, and he fell flop into it. When a real bird falls in flop, he spreads out his feathers and pecks them dry, but Peter could not remember what was the thing to do, and he decided, rather sulkily, to go to sleep on the weeping beech ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... thing, and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... lab that spawned a dud. Their necks to Truman's ax uncurled Lo, the embattled savants stood, and fired the flop ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum
... brought; too short and too narrow. A spoon; better, but still inadequate. An outsider suggested that all hands lay hold of the thing on one side and flop it over suddenly. But the jealous proprietors demurred, fearing that the movement might not be simultaneous and that thus a flap-jack rupture might ensue, followed by possible skedaddling of the shrewd operators bearing off the spoil. Meanwhile the smoke was alarmingly ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... is piped, and we go below and flop into our hammocks, to sleep as soundly and dreamlessly as babies. A sailor will sleep like a dead man through all kinds of noises and calls, but the minute his own watch is called he is wide awake in an instant, from sheer ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... right over and gosh, how he did flop around! It was a fit all right. I bet he died, too, because he went limp all at once. He acted like he'd seen a ghost. He yelled, 'What did you give him?' to the other fellow. What did he call him?" he asked Beany. "I heard him call ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... when it wants to listen it raises a flipper to its ear. I never saw one doing so, but we do not see everything that happens in the world. The sea-lion, with its stouter limbs, can lift its forepart, raise its head and look about it, and even flop about the ice-fields at a respectable rate. And there is no doubt that one of these is as much above an earless seal as fifty years of Europe are better than a cycle of Cathay. When performing seals are exhibited at a circus sitting on chairs, catching balls ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... Isham! Sing on, da'kies! But I flop my wings an' go Fu' de sheltah of de ve'y highest tree, Fu' dey 's too much close ertention—an' dey's too much fallin' snow— An' it's too nigh ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... doing so, but the bird rose just beyond reach of his jaws. I lifted my gun and fired, as did Robin. Neither Martin nor Alick, on account of the tree, could take aim. With a loud cry the swan flew off, its white body glittering in the sun; but it had not gone far when down it came with a heavy flop on the reeds. Bouncer dashed forward to seize it. We, finding that the water was deep enough to allow us to make our way through the reeds, pushed the canoe in between them, thoughtless of any snags or branches which might tear a hole in her ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... Sunday I saw three tiny old females stumble forward, three very formerly and even once bonnets perched upon three wizened skulls, and flop clumsily before the priest, and take the wafer hungrily ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... then, by——!" comes a savage growl from within the tent. "Where is the old man? Give me a look at him!" and the scowling face of Rix makes its sudden appearance at the tent-flop, ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... discovered us. Then for the first time, I suppose, they understood the nature of their disaster. We could not hear their cries, but we saw arms stretched out to us, fists frantically shaken, hands lifted in prayer. We saw Mr. Tubbs flop down upon his unaccustomed knees—it was ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... feel the cool, powdery dust running between their hot little toes. With their strong bent for copying, they lay on their sides like their mother and scratched with their tiny feet and flopped with their wings, though they had no wings to flop with, only a little tag among the down on each side, to show where the wings would come. That night she took them to a dry thicket near by, and there among the crisp, dead leaves that would prevent an enemy's silent approach on foot, and under the interlacing ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... no mistake about that, my lad. There it goes again, double one. It's as plain as if you can see it, a big fish springing out of the water, turning over, and falling in again with a flop. You don't think there's no fish in ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... got to think about it any more, thank goodness," Jane exclaimed, rising from the grass and laying a hand on the bag. "Let's put an end to the whole thing now and go home. Take a holt of the other end, and we'll flop ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... anything—and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... took our time. Ran across geese this A.M. I went ashore and George and Wallace chased them close by. Shot leader with rifle. Then two young ones head close in shore. I killed one with pistol and two others started to flop away on top of water. Missed one with pistol, and killed other. While exploring a bay to N.W., we landed to climb ridge. George found three partridges. I shot one, wounded another, pistol. Camped to- night cheerful but desperate. All firm for progress to Michikamau. All willing to ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... was too much encumbered for a curtsey, she pretended not to see him and his friend at all, and so passed, flip-flop, within three yards of them, onward down towards the village. The Vicar watched her slow transit in silence, and ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... alternately; and when we saw him do this, we presently began also to knock our heads against the wall, keeping time with him and with each other, till the priest said, 'Peter! it's dragon-time now,' whereat the roof flew off, and a great yellow dragon came down on the chapel-floor with a flop, and danced about clumsily, wriggling his fat tail, and saying to a sort of tune, 'O the Devil, the Devil, the Devil, O the Devil,' so I went up to him, and put my hand on his breast, meaning to slay him, and so awoke, ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... him off. Then all my strength seemed to go. He was laughing himself, but it frightened me a little to see his pupils so big that his eyes looked black. I felt like a lamb in a lion's jaw, Dinky-Dunk is so much stronger than I am. I lay there quite still, with my eyes closed. I went flop. I knew I ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... he has taken to going around with a couple of yeomen, and the first thing I know he will be getting on a special detail where the liberty is soft. I put nothing past that dog since he lost his head to some flop-eared huzzy with a black ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... wuz er sho' 'nuff vision! I wuz er feelin' bad all day yistiddy. Soon in de mawnin', ez I wuz gwine 'long de road, I see a big black bird er settin' on de fence. He flop his wings, look right at me en say, 'Corpse! Corpse! Corpse!'"—Aleck's voice dropped to a whisper—"'en las' night de Ku Kluxes come ter ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... think so—just yet. They look too mad. I gave 'em the harpoon in good shape, as is usual, but I didn't expect they'd run here so soon. Thought they would flop a ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... to get a running start. Then they usually flop along and sail up into a tree. Once they are in a tree, they can float off into space easily. They seem to fly slowly, but they can disappear fast enough. The ranger seems ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... runs it in fifty,' says Joe, careless. 'I takes hold of him 'cause he's bad in front, 'n' he's likely to do a flop when he gets tired. So long, Bud!' Joe says to me, 'n' I takes ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... way round and you will have what daddy is doing with space. He does it by shoving fifty or a hundred pounds of lead right out of space; the sudden flattening out of the tensors causes a section of space to flop around, and two portions of space change places. The first time he tried it, his desk disappeared, and we've never seen it again. We've thought it was somewhere out in hyperspace; but this terrible story of yours about disappearing safes, and the fact that ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... did'nt suppose when I cum down here to New York that I wuz a goin to flop right into the middle of high toned society, but I guess that's jist about what I done. You see I had an old friend a livin' down here named Henry Higgins, and I wanted to see Henry mighty bad. Henry and me, we wuz ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... tighter than those cakes adhered to that griddle; she worked carefully, she insinuated her knife under just the outer edge of the cake, then gradually approached the centre, but when the final flop came, they went into little sticky hopeless heaps. "They are too thin," she ejaculated. "Joanna, bring flour. Now we shall have it all right." Then another set took their places on the griddle; these held ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops: flop, slop, slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It flows purling, widely flowing, floating ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the other side. Shorty daubed his rope and made a fair catch, but when his hoss set back the rope busted plumb in two. Now, Shorty, he had an idea that he could ease the work of his hoss a whole pile if he laid holts on the rope whenever his hoss set down to flop a cow. So Shorty, he had holt on this rope and was pulling back hard when the rope busted, and Shorty, he spilled backwards out'n that saddle like he'd ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... bathers who would be drownable, and translation into unaccustomed situations—with the peril of a week's notice. Wherefore let the seal perpetuate his race—his obstacle race, as one might say, seeing him flounder and flop. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... "Why, he sleeps just outside father's bed-room door, and sometimes in the night he walks up and down the corridor, and his tail goes flop up against the door. Once father thought it ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... nodded Walter without resentment. "My mind does flop about like a kite. I think of everything but what I ought to. ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... Charley went to fussing with the cover of the wheel, putting it on again, so she couldn't get at him to shake hands for good-bye. He said afterwards he felt that weak, when he fairly was shut of her, all he could do was to flop down into a chair anyway and sing out to Blister Mike to come and get the sheets off the bar quick and give him his own bottle of Bourbon and a tumbler. And he said he never took so many drinks, one right on top of another, since he ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... always re—" She stopped short suddenly, her attention arrested by the scraping of chairs within the parlour, and concluded in a very different tone, "The girls are coming! For pity's sake don't let Tom find us sentimentalising here! Fly, Rhoda, fly!" and off she ran along the corridor, flop, flop, flop, on her flat-soled shoes, as much in fear of the scrutiny of the head girl as the ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... exhilarating motion Janet had ever known. Even the dipping paddles made no noise, though sometimes there was a gurgle, as though a fish had broken the water behind them; sometimes, in the shining pools ahead, she saw the trout leap out. At every startling flop Delphin would exclaim: "Un gros!" From an upper branch of a spruce a kingfisher darted like an arrow into the water, making a splash like a falling stone. Once, after they had passed through the breach ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... by the big toe. 'Hands up, Hans'! I said, and he didn't argue, all that he did was to swear like one of ourselves and flop down. 'Why don't ye bury yer sausages, Hans?' I asked (p. 079) him. 'I smelt yer, me bucko, by what ye couldn't eat. Why didn't ye have something better than water in yer bottle?' I says to him. Dang a Christian word would he answer, only ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... an' told that woman that her undyin' love for Dick was holy an' godly an' a thing to be kept in a glass case an' looked at every hour in the day—I say when you throwed all that guff at her you sealed yore doom. Them words kicked every prop from under her, an' down she come with a flop that knocked the breath out of all her calculations. She looks fresh and rosy this morning, but she rolled and tumbled the most of the night. I don't sleep sound, an' I heard her. I wondered what step she'd take, ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... enchanted land. The sullen trout yields. In all gentleness you float him within reach of your net. Quietly, breathlessly you walk ashore, and over the beach, and yet an unnecessary hundred feet from the water lest he retain still a flop. Then you lay him upon the stones and lift up ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... dancing gnats and flies. She could see them rush upward through the brown water. Sometimes they leapt clear of it, exposing their silver bellies, pink-spotted sides, and the olive-green of their backs. They dropped again with a flop, and rings circled outward from the place ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... stone, saddle and bridle. That's right, down goes my pipe; flop! crash falls the tumbler into the fender! Break away, my boy, and remember, whoever breaks a glass here pays ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... day, Brer Dan'l he usen fur ter hop outn his bed and git down on his knees; and soon's eber de horn hit blowed fur de hans ter come outn de field fur dinner, Brer Dan'l he went in his house, he did, and he flop right back on 'is knees. And wen de sun set, den dar he wuz agin er prayin' and er strivin' ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... to sixteen feet away (the distance depends on the size of the players and the space to play in, the larger each are the greater the distance may be) watching the parade for a short time, then begins to flop his wings (moves arms in imitation of flying) and calls out, "How many chicks have you?" The "hen" replies, "four and twenty, shoo! shoo!" The "hawk" shouts, "That's too many. I'll take a few," and then runs after the children trying to touch or "tag" them. The ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... like folks!" she said, holding it off and looking at it in high derision. "Look at that thing, Miss Gibbie, peart as the first crocus and proud as cuffy when the weather was good, and at the first touch of dampness or discouragement flop it goes, and no more spirit than a convict in court! It certainly is strange how many things in nature is like human beings. Now this here rooster and this here duck"—she smoothed the breast and ran ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... Flop, flop, a great foolish-looking kangaroo comes through the house and peers round him. The cockatoo addresses a few remarks to him, which he takes no notice of, but goes blundering out into the garden, right over the contemplative magpie, who gives him two or three ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... Get up, Ginger!" Peter called lustily, but Ginger only seemed to flop in deeper, through his efforts ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... all those things," he denied meekly. "It's you that keeps on mentioning. I wish yuh wouldn't. I like to hear you talk, all right, and flop all those big words easy as roping a calf; but I wish you'd let me choose your subject for yuh. I could easy name one where you could use words just as high and wide and handsome, and a heap more pleasant than the brand ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... "he's bound to make a mistake sooner or later." So we try again, and at the same moment that the fly floats down over the monster's nose he moves a foot to the right and takes a live may-fly with a big roll and a flop. ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... dresses, the heavy flop of the side Cloister door as it closed behind them, and then silence once more and the thin angry voice of Canon Foster, "Let ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... be a boy; it was too large to be Duke, Penrod's little old dog, and, besides, Duke wouldn't act like that. It crept rapidly out into the upper hall, and then, as she recovered the use of her voice and began to scream, the animated cape abandoned its creeping for a quicker gait—"a weird, heaving flop," she ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... sum exceeds the capacity of the Accumulator Register, the overflow flip-flop will be set (see Skip ...
— Preliminary Specifications: Programmed Data Processor Model Three (PDP-3) - October, 1960 • Digital Equipment Corporation
... custom for the mayors to call by the way on the Keeper of Newgate, and there partake on horseback of a "cool tankard" of wine, spiced with nutmeg and sweetened with sugar. In receiving the tankard Sir John let the lid flop down, his horse started, he was thrown violently, and died the next day. This custom ceased in the second mayoralty of Sir Matthew Wood, 1817. Sir John was maternal grandfather of Horace Walpole. Sir John Houblon (Grocer), ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... adopt the phrase of the London shopkeeper, 'I have had no complaints.' And even the ice, the very emblem of purity, has not escaped the touch of the dinner-table decorator. Only a few days ago I helped myself with my fingers to what looked like a lovely peach, and let it flop down into the lap of a bishop who was sitting next to me. This was the ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... of us had to keep four or five votes all ready for use, for competition was pretty swift and there were a tremendous number of co-eds in school. You never saw such a job as it was. No sooner would I have Miss A. entirely friendly to my candidate for the editorship of the Weekly than Miss B. would flop over and show marked signs of frost—and then I would have to drop everything and walk over from chapel with her three mornings hand-running, and take her to a play, and make a wild pass about not knowing whether any one would go to the prom with me or not. And then just as she would begin to smile ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... FLOP. A correspondent from the University of Vermont writes: "Any 'cute' performance by which a man is sold [deceived] is a good flop, and, by a phrase borrowed from the ball ground, is 'rightly played.' The discomfited individual declares that ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... some wives, are artists at achieving and momentarily living up to romantic settings, but quickly flop down to the lower levels of decent fairness between the high spots of their sentimental flare-ups. Others cannot utter a poetic phrase, make a romantic gesture, or let their eyes show the quick intensity ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... head and imparting, at the same time, a pendulous motion to his double chin; in short, he passed for one of those people who, being plunged into the Thames, would make no vain efforts to set it afire, but would straightway flop down to the bottom with a deal of gravity, and be highly respected in ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... he clumbed on our back'fence An' flop his arms an' nen commence To crow, like he's a hen; But when he failed off, like he done, He didn't fool us childern none, Ner didn't crow again. An' our Hired Man, as he come by, Says, "Tom can't crow, but he ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... forelock again, kicked out his left leg, and as he bobbed his head, his pigtail went up and came down again flop between his shoulders as if it were ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... went at him rapidly, one after another. In spite of the volley the man still crawled upwards, but as he reached the top of the low house and passed his legs over he gave a feeble moan and then.... flopper-ti flop, flopper-ti flop, he crashed down the other side and ended with a dull thud on the ground. On the other side there he was dead as a door-nail and all covered with blood. It was our first proper work. But he was not a soldier, he was a Boxer; ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... he'll worry himself to death! What's more he will provide me with a mathematical proof—if I only give him long enough interval.... And he'll keep circling round me, getting nearer and nearer and then—flop! He'll fly straight into my mouth and I'll swallow him, and that will be very amusing, he-he-he! You don't ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... before? Of course. I remember now; you started as an ultra-Calvinist, and came over with a flop. Whittenden of Saint Luke's told me. He always claimed he was the man ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... he is; but let's be moving on. If Peg takes another flop and splashes in this puddle again, he'll have to swim for it, or else depend on his own guides to yank him out. No more for me. I'm wet to the knees; and did you hear him thank me for it? ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... the shady side of the bunk-house staring absently at the skyline, "There's a word uh praise I've been aiming to give yuh. I've seen riding, and I've done a trifle in that line myself, and learned some uh the tricks. But I want to say I never did see a man flop his horse any neater than you done that morning. I'll bet there ain't another man in the outfit got next your play. I couldn't uh done it better myself. Where did you learn that? ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... we're tied up at the dock and we hear Mac's been talkin' we'll just spread the word that he was so soused he jumped overboard an' swum ashore without waitin' to see if we could back off. Lordy, Gib, don't work me to death. I'm that weary I could flop on this wet deck an' be off to sleep in ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... Flippity-flop! Flippity-flop! Here comes the butcher to bring us a chop Cantering, cantering down the wide street On his little bay mare with the funny white feet; Cantering, cantering out to the farm, Stripes on his apron ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... same moment a loud flop was heard on the quarter-deck. It was the forgotten mermaid, who, emerging from her stateroom, and ascending the companion-way at that moment, had fainted at the spectacle. The Pirate Prodigy rushed to her side with a ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Peggy returned confidently. "He knows I'm his friend, don't you, poor old fellow?" Hobo, realizing that the loved voice was addressing him, even though the trend of the question was beyond his comprehension, gave a feeble flop of his tail, and raised to Peggy's face eyes full of ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... After, and sometimes before, the process of slow motions, rolling over loosely on one side should be practised,—remaining there until the weight all seems near the floor, and then giving way so that the force of gravity seems to "flop" it back (I use "flop" advisedly); so again resting on the other side. But one must go over by regular motions, raising the leg first heavily and letting it fall with its full weight over the other leg, so that the ankles are crossed. The arm on the same side ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... retreat, withdrawal, retirement, remigration^; recession &c (motion from) 287; recess; crab-like motion. refluence^, reflux; backwater, regurgitation, ebb, return; resilience reflection, reflexion [Brit.] (recoil) 277; flip-flop, volte-face [Fr.]. counter motion, retrograde motion, backward movement, motion in reverse, counter movement, counter march; veering, tergiversation, recidivation^, backsliding, fall; deterioration &c 659; recidivism, recidivity^. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... time to write a real letter. All hands, including your husband, are so dead tired when off watch that there is nothing to do but flop down on your bunk—or on the deck sometimes—and sleep. The captain and I take watch on the bridge day and night, and outside of this I do my own navigating and other duties, so time does not go a-begging with me. However, we ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... would like to flop m'lip over one of her biscuits right now," he said aloud. "If I do strike it, I wonder will she git too high-toned ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... kernel? No, not for JEAMES, if he is quite aweer of it! It's just infernal, The Vulgar Mix that calls itself Society. All shoddy slyness, And moneybags; a "blend" as might kontamernate a Ryal 'Igness, Or infry-dig a Hemperor. It won't nick JEAMES though, not percisely; Better to flop in solitude than to demean one's self unwisely. Won't ketch me selling myself off. I must confess my 'art it 'arrers To see the Strorberry-Leaves go cheap—like strorberries on low coster's barrers! Tuppence a pound! Yes, that's the cry. It's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... a colour and length of flowering season to be used in jungle-like masses for summer colour? Second—has it fragrance or decorative quality for house decoration? Thirdly, has it the backbone to stand alone or will the plant flop and flatten shapelessly at the first hard shower and so render an array of conspicuous stakes necessary? Stakes, next to unsightly insecticides and malodorous fertilizers, are the bane of gardening, but that subject is big enough for ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... not he a dear? I'll let you hold him,' and she attempted to deposit the fat, curly, satiny creature in Dolores's arms, which instantly hung down stiff, as she answered, half in fright, 'I hate dogs!' The puppy fell down with a flop, and began to squeak, while the girls, crying, 'Oh! Dolly, how could you!' and 'Poor little pup!' all crowded round in pity and indignation, and Wilfred observed, 'I ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at it that Martin was almost lifted off the ground. He screamed and gave a jump; but it was nothing to the jump the ostrich gave when he discovered that the button belonged to a living boy. He jumped six feet high into the air and came down with a great flop; then feeling rather ashamed of himself for being frightened at such an insignificant thing as Martin, he stalked majestically away, glancing back, first over one shoulder then the other, and kicking up his heels behind him in a ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... men as Ram—Shackle trotted up over the hill, stopping once to flop down on the grass to gaze at the cutter, lying a mile out now from the shore, and thinking how different she was with her trim rigging and white sails to the rough lugger of his father, and the dirty three-masted vessels that ran to ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... sheep that he had killed; and as he worked mechanically, shredding the flesh into long strips, he watched the lower trail. Ten days had gone by since he had fled across the Valley, but the danger of pursuit had not passed and, as he saw a great owl that was nesting down below rise up blindly and flop away he paused ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... talons of an eagle; and Fritz would very likely have lost one of his eyes, or perhaps both of them, had it not been for an arrow springing from the bow of the shikaree; which, transfixing the great bird right through the gizzard, brought it down with a "flop" upon the surface ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... circumstances are circumstances. The daily lives of all of us are shaped differently—yours as well as mine—here in this pudding-faced civilization and in the iron conventions of London town; and we must adapt ourselves accordingly. We used to flop down on our Louis Quinze furniture on the Vaal with our muddy boots on—in our front drawing-room. We don't do it in Thamesfontein, my noble buccaneer—not even in Barry Whalen's mansion in Ladbroke Square, where Barry Whalen, Esq., puts his silk hat on the hall table, and— and, 'If you please, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hole as his friend fired and saw the Indian flop down and crawl aimlessly about on hands and knees. ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... cried another, "and the red one picked on the main push. He was looking for a fight, an' he ought to get it; but these fancy fights don't suit me. Flop ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... June night can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence. It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the windows, and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their foreheads and called ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... and blotting-paper. A small drawer, filled with postage stamps and bright steel pens, has crawled out on the desk. Packages of folded missives are tucked in the pigeon-holes, winking at us from the back of the desk, and scores of half-opened letters, mixed with seedy brown envelopes, flop lazily about the table. Old papers lie gashed and mangled about his chair, the debris of a literary battle field. A clean towel hangs on a rack to his right. A bound copy of The Tribune Almanac, from 1838 to 1868, swings from a small chain fastened ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... not know what to do with him. He cannot be put on a shelf. He cannot be hung on a nail. He will not go out of the house. There is no escape from him, and he is always the same. A smile of a certain dimension, moustaches of this inevitable measurement, hands that waggle and flop like those of automata—these are his. He eats this way and he drinks that way, and he will continue to do so until he stiffens into the ultimate quietude. He snores on this note, he laughs on that, dissonant, unescapeable, unchanging. This is the way he walks, and he does not know how to run. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... Lady Wetherby, melting completely, 'when you get that yearning note in your voice I just flop and take ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... way of flying drawbridge, joined it to the shore. And it was a dreary moment for Jimson when he pulled this after him and found himself alone on this unwholesome fortress. He could hear the rats scuttle and flop in the abhorred interior; the key cried among the wards like a thing in pain; the sitting-room was deep in dust, and smelt strong of bilge-water. It could not be called a cheerful spot, even for a composer absorbed in beloved ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... accident, such as being upset in the big waves from steamboats," remarked Nick, shaking his head dubiously at several recollections that did not seem to give him much happiness. "My! you don't know just how we wallow, and nearly flop over on our beam ends at such times. I think I lose six ounces of flesh every narrow escape we have from swamping; and I keep wishing ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... and lonely cries. A long file of pelicans, their wings outspread, sailed close to the surface of the ocean, undulating over the waves and into the hollows exactly paralleling, at a height of only a few feet, the restless contour of the sea. Occasionally they would all flop their wings two or three ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... contrarily everything happened! Grisha will keep up his character, too. Although he is a blockhead, he has some sense. Now he'll flop down on the hay and he'll lie there on his belly ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... Texas, fingering the wound as roughly as if it had been in the flesh of a beast. "Reckon he'll flop round. May do mischief, if we ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... to put on brakes. According to the radar, its original speed was close to mach 3, thirty-nine miles a minute. Then it checked swiftly. It came to a complete stop. Then it hurtled backward along the line it had followed. It wabbled momentarily as if it had done a flip-flop four miles above the ground. It dived. It stopped dead in mid-air for a full second and abruptly began to rise once more in an insane, corkscrew course which ended abruptly in a headlong fall toward ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... gave a sob which sounded exactly like a wave going flop into the mouth of a cave ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... watched, they could see the whale every now and then heave himself out of the water, half the length of his long dark body, and fall "flop" down again, with a concussion that sent up the water around him in white surf, like breakers. After this little diversion, he amused himself with swimming backwards and forwards past the ship, as if just showing what he could do, at a great rate; exposing only a thin streak ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... retorted at the full capacity of his lungs and with an absolute disregard for Luck's position as director of the company. "Who's leadin' this here burro—you er me? Fer two cents I'd come back and knock the tar outa you, Luck! Stand up there on a rock and flop your wings and crow like a danged banty rooster—'n' I was leadin' burros 'fore you was born! I'd like to know ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... Mrs Widger out of her chair, whisked her across the room. "There!" he said, setting her down flop. "'En't her a perty ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds |
