"Flop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... compartment of the row of huts opening into one another. The whimsical Cacosotte had named the several rooms "Hell," "Purgatory," and "Heaven." Sheldrake sought a sleeping couch in "Purgatory," whither Honest Moses had preceded him to "flop" in a corner. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... the telegram. It was a pitchy black night, as stifling as a 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, ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... replied 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 don't ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Rendel. "I am not sure that it is quite an easy thing to have an ardent hold on life. Some people keep letting it down with a flop. But I feel as if I could hold it tight this morning at any rate. I do not believe there is a creature in the wide world that I would change places with at this moment," he went on, the force of his ardent hope and purpose breaking ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... the watch" 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, ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... if they did," said Sue sleepily to Bunny when they were talking about this, as they lay close to the big dog in their blankets, "even if any fish did flop up, Bunny, Splash would catch ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... 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
... recoil. A plank, by 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 toil; how much less ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sitting one afternoon—it was in the first days of September, and within less than a week of the time when they might begin to expect Cornelia—upon the little rustic bench beside the fountain. Their conversation had filtered softly into silence, and only the flop-flop of the weak-backed little spout continued ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... 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 briers that kept ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... thought I could, but now I ain't so sure. I could make 'em whirl 'round and 'round like a mill or a set of sailor paddles, but to make 'em flap is different. They've got to be put on strong enough so they won't flop off. You see," he added, solemnly, "if they kept floppin' off they wouldn't keep flappin' on. There's all the difference in the world between ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... street, flickered and went out. In the blackness which followed, each stage of the Phoenix's descent could be heard as clearly as cannon shots: the twanging and snapping as it tumbled through the wires, a drawn-out squawk and the flop of wings in the air below, the crash into the hedge, the jarring thud against the ground. Broken wires began to sputter ominously and fire out sparks. A smell of singed feathers and burning rubber ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... 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 the bird to ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... 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 ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... hand to a stump of willow, caught up a stick lying on the bank with the other, and, hanging over the stream, tried to head back the truant. All that happened was that her foot slipping on a pebble went flop into the shallow water, and part of her dress ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... said Miss Jemima. "I wish I could play it and the piano both. You have to run round and round, and then, when the music stops, you flop down on the nearest chair, and there's always one left out, and the last one wins the game. ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Flop! The canoe's port rail was under water. She filled and sank, carrying a lot of excited high school boys down at ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... TO CROWS Whichever crow shall 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 to his whole race. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... harm. I get to thinking that if the Declaration of Independence isn't going to hold out that I'll change my politics and then see what will happen. When a fellow who is as set in his ways as I am changes his politics, reform must be coming, for I would probably be the last man to flop." ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... certain, because I saw him flop over," replied the other; "and that yelp meant sudden pain, as sure as it stood for anything. But he managed to get off, though possibly he will ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... violently agitated. Marion was turning over with a movement that, in one less gracefully slim, might be called a flop. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... indescribably weird 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
... tree top, When the shell comes the runners all flop, When the shell busts, good-bye to our station, We're up in a tree, bound ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... some flapjacks for breakfast and El Sawyer (he's a Raven) hung one of them around his neck for a souvenir. He's a fresh kid. Maybe you think it's easy to flop flapjacks—I should worry. ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... 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 ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... ferocious snarling roar, the charge song, as the tiger rushed forward and leaped against the side of the house with a heavy jarring thud. A shriek from all the seven throats went up on the instant, and then came a scratching, tearing sound, followed by a soft, dull flop, as the tiger, failing to effect a landing on the low roof, fell back to earth. The men started to their feet, clutching their weapons convulsively, and, led by Che' Seman, they raised, above the shrieks of the frightened women, a lamentable ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... angle-worms on a hook, and froth at the mouth, and look, as they stand there, like a pile driver that has been run into by an engine. They teeter up and down a little, and then fly off on a tangent, and they flop around in unexpected places among the other dancers, jump like a box car, bump against other couples, and at every bump they are driven closer together, until they are so near that it does seem as though they will have to be pried apart with a handspike; they look into ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... fair match," 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 him, ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... minute, and I'll show you an eagle flop his wings," promised Mr. Vandeford, and he was surprised that he seemed for the first time to feel the actual glory of the electric signs on his great Broadway, which is as much of an all-American institution as the ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... pistol and I wasnt going to fire them off before the 4th. but ole Max Dinkelheim was walking kind of slow in front of me and I thot I wood try the pistol just once to see if it workt, so I walkt a little faster and shot it off bingo and you shood have seen ole Max jump! He give one flop in the air and hollered, A bom! A bom! I guess he thot I was a submareen, and when he saw it was me beat it after me and we run all the way home, and Max he run rite into dad and sed, Where is that boy I will teech him to molest a peaceful citizen. And dad sed, What has he done? And ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... simply add one dimension all the 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 ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... 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.
... was so thick that Phyllis could not possibly see what she was approaching. When she was within a short distance of it the little creature collapsed and dropped with a soft flop on the ground at her feet. It was ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... they can't do that—but it makes a man feel sorry for them the way they lose their heads. Big, burly drummers and farmers and ex-soldiers and high-collared dudes and sports that, a few moments before, were filling the car with noise and bragging, get so scared that their ears flop. ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... having their "man" to feed. I had several men to feed. My "gang" was still looking for work and not finding any. Times were desperate. For five cents a man could get a glass of beer and floor room to sleep on in a lodging-house for homeless men. This was called a "Five Cent Flop" house. My pals were not able at times to raise the five cents a day to buy sleeping quarters. It was late fall and too cold to sleep in the "jungle" down by the levee. The poor fellows were able to stave off starvation by visiting various free lunches during ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... would be wrong. I think I love you in my own way; but I thought I loved you in their way, and it is the only way that counts in this world of theirs. It does not seem to be my world. I was given wings, I think, but I am never to know that I have left the earth until I come flop upon it with an arrow through them. I crawl and wriggle here, and yet"—he laughed harshly—"I believe I am rather a fine fellow ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... always brushed straight up, his eyes were always very wide open,—and he usually carried a big letter-book with him, keeping in it a certain place with his finger. This book was almost too much for his strength, and he would flop it down, now on this man's desk and now on that man's, and in along career of such floppings had made himself to be very much hated. On the score of some old grudge he and Mr Love did not speak to each other; and for ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... when Sanderson saw a puff of smoke burst from behind a rock held by one of his men; he heard the crash of a pistol, and saw one of Dale's men flop into view from behind a ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Applehead 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 who ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... must not go too far. One may regret Adam, and his extinction may start fissures in many genealogical trees, but to such of us as only "came over in the Mayflower," or "with the Conqueror," his flop into oblivion may entail no serious damage to existing rights. Upon Moses I always looked as a person of doubtful parentage, and a leader who, had he lived in recent centuries, would have been sacrificed by his own men within a month at most. His only title ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... Uncle, when men abandon jealousy, forsake taking tobacco, and cease to wear their beards so rudely long. Oh! to have a husband with a mouth continually smoking, with a bush of furze on the ridge of his chin, ready still to flop into his foaming chaps; ah! 't is ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... his rapid, head-first and head-on slide down the slanting wire by grasping it in his gloved hands, gave a "flip-flop" and stood up, bowing to the loud applause. Jim Tracy and some of the other circus ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... out, I whirled my cap and yelled to wake the marsh. The startled hawk jerked, keeled, lifted with a violent struggle, and let go her hold. Down fell the writhing, twisting fish at my feet. It was a splendid striped bass, weighing at least four pounds, and still live enough to flop. ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... down. They stood on end again once or twice in the afternoon, when we'd some more repairin' under fire to do; an' then to wind up the day they turned a maxim on just as we was comin' away from the post, an' we had to flop on our faces with the bullets zizz-izz-ipping just over us. We took a trench, I hear; an' the Jocks in front of us had thirty casualties, and the Guards on our left 'ad some more, 'cos I seed 'em comin' back ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... 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 ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... anchor flop overboard," she announced, springing up from a deck chair. "I think I ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... stood up and carefully headed my fish toward the shore, and slid his head and shoulders out on the lily-pads. One moment he lay there, glowing like mother-of-pearl, a rare fish, fresh from the sea. Then, as Attalano warily reached for the leader, he gave a gasp, a flop that deluged us with muddy water, and a ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... their eternal repose. His companions take up the parable in turn, "and the echoes, huddling in affright, like Odin's hounds," go baying down the valleys and clamouring amongst the pines, like a legion of invisible fiends after a strange cat. Then again all is hush, and tramp, and sanctity, and flop, and holy meditation! And so the ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... yells, jumpin' to my feet an' blushin' clear to my ears. "I ain't neither one o' your parents an' I ain't your teacher. If you want to know things you ask Melisse. If you don't put a curb on yourself I'm goin' to flop myself on Starlight an' streak for the Lion Head this very minute, an' I won't stop before ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... ground on brick pillars. The roofs of these are rather steep, and are mostly tiled, and have deep eaves, but do not as elsewhere form the cover of the veranda. While I was looking through the cactus screen of one of these houses, a man came out with a number of low caste, leggy, flop-eared, mangy dogs, who attacked me in a cowardly bullying fashion, yelping, barking, and making surreptitious snaps at my feet. Their owner called them off, however, and pelted them so successfully that some ran away whimpering, and two pretended ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... lads and tie two long hop-poles together with which to poke down the swallows' nests under the chapel eaves. The Book inside, of which they almost make an idol, seemed to think the life of a sparrow—and possibly of a swallow—was of value; still it is good fun to see the callow young come down flop ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... is! I say I saw the Devil himself fly off Drachenfels, and flop into Cologne. Fritz here, and Frankenbauch, saw him too. They'll swear to him: so 'll I. Hell's thunder! will we. Yonder fellows will have it 'twas a flash o' lightning, as if I didn't see him, horns, tail, and claws, and a mighty sight 'twas, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... soon's I've got The hang o' the thing, ez likely's not, I'll astonish the nation, And all creation, By flyin' over the celebration! Over their heads I'll sail like an eagle; I'll balance myself on my wings like a sea-gull; I'll dance on the chimbleys; I'll stan' on the steeple; I'll flop up to winders an' scare the people! I'll light on the libbe'ty-pole, an' crow; An' I'll say to the gawpin' fools below, 'What world's this 'ere That I've come near?' Fer I'll make 'em believe I'm a ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... Flop! and close beside him, he saw the frog. 'Why are you weeping?' she said. Then he told her his difficulty, and that he did not know to whom he should ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... was 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 ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... clattering behind—making a beast of a row. Shouting wasn't any earthly. So I rushed in and grabbed him. 'Verney—drop it! What are you doing?' I said sternly; and he looked up at me like a sainted cherub. 'Flop, don't hinder me. I'm walkin' froo the valley of the shadow, an' goodness an' mercy are following me all the days of my life.' That's the fruits of ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... lab that spawned a dud. Their necks to Truman's ax uncurled Lo, the embattled savants stood, and fired the flop heard round the world.[4] ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum
... 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
... bite me," 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
... looking creatures in oilskins. As one of them was the ancient mariner I made up my mind he had failed in his mission. But the other stared at me for an instant, quietly stepped on the few planks we call the porch, and began to shed his outer skin, which fell with a flop. ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... had him 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 ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... 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, but the mule and I did. Grand ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... was that without any warning Landy was seen to be dragged out of the stern of the skiff, struggle to clasp his writhing legs about the pushpole that stood at an oblique angle, caught firmly in the tenacious mud, and then releasing his hold, flop with a great splash into the dark-colored water of ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... them with the blade or teeth of the tool. All weeds and trash should be covered during the operation. A common fault of beginners is to put the spade in the soil on a slant and only about half the length of the blade, and then flop the soil over in the hole from which it came, often covering the edge of the unspaded soil. The good spader works from side to side across his piece of ground, keeping a narrow trench or furrow between the spaded and unspaded soil, into which ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... 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 ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... 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 turn ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... anything to fish for. The ponds have their own fascination; not, perhaps, at meal-times, when the water is lashed to froth by the darting, gleaming bodies—that is too greedy a business. But when a passer-by on a spring morning sees a pound fish fall back into the water with a meditative flop, he may pay the pond the compliment of wishing himself elsewhere. One accompaniment of a trout farm he may hope to escape—the sight of a dead kingfisher. Without wire netting, kingfishers find out the young fry only too quickly, and a dead kingfisher spoils all pleasure ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... bottle of alicumpane; Here Jack, take a little of my flip flop, Pour it down thy tip top; ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... boilin' mad," added Terry, "because he lost his gun that now that he has also lost his knife he may get so much madder that he'll flop ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... 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 ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... it's quite enough," returned Kaliko earnestly. "On the other hand, no one can hurt a dragon, because he's the toughest creature alive. One flop of his huge tail could smash a hundred nomes to pancakes, and with teeth and claws he could tear even you or me into small bits, so that it would be almost impossible to put us together again. Once, a ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Hart appeared to need time for reflection. "Oh, yes! He sent in his card on the 'first night' of my show that opened in January.... It was a flop—lasted only five weeks.... We chatted of the Forsyte girls who are now in Hamilton, most of whom I went to school with or have met ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... plodded on the tattered soldier continued to talk. "Besides, if I died, I wouldn't die th' way that feller did. That was th' funniest thing. I'd jest flop down, I would. I never seen a feller die ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... "and the nigger outrode Grogan, if anybody should ask you. He had a chance—if he hadn't let that horse's head flop to go ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... done there," said Quinlan, letting himself flop down into a chair across the desk from Drayton. "Go ahead and get through. I've got nowhere to come but in, and nowhere to go ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... wearing my overcoat, and snuggling up to my friend Cook. All four lay as close as possible facing in the same direction. The night wears slowly away. When the floor seemed intolerably hard, one of us would say aloud, "Spoon!" and all four would flop over, and rest on the other side. So we vibrated back and forth from nine o'clock till dawn. We were not comfortable, but in far better circumstances than most of the prisoners. Indeed Captain Cook repeatedly declared he owed his life to ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... 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 against ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... flop in the water, and when Bumper turned he saw a queer looking fish swimming toward the shore, using his hind legs instead of fins to propel him along. He had big, staring eyes, and a green head, with white under ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... 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 experience ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... about it. With his feet gone quite stiff, the patient didn't help me a bit. Then at last the legs of it—they'd been pulled about so—came unstuck at the knees, and his breeks tore away, and all the lot came, flop! There was me, all of a sudden, with a full boot in each fist. The legs and feet had ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... gave a flop and flopped right out of the boat into the water. Cap'n Bill caught a gleam of pink scales as his little friend went overboard, and the next moment there was Trot's face in the water among those of the mermaids. She ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... which would tire first. He was evidently getting cramped already, for the branches were cracking quite loudly, but she would not look up or show that she was in the least aware of him. And then suddenly a heavy body fell with a flop on the open book in her lap—and she realised with terror that it was no spy she had to deal with, but an infinitely more formidable enemy. It was a huge serpent that had coiled itself swiftly on her knees, which quivered under the intolerable weight, while its tail twisted round her ankles, ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... hole as his friend fired and saw the Indian flop down and crawl aimlessly about on hands and knees. "What's ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... said Molly, in rabbit, and 'flop' she went into the pond and struck out for the sunken log in the middle. Rag flinched but plunged with a little 'ouch,' gasping and wobbling his nose very fast but still copying his mother. The same movements as on land sent him through the water, and thus he found he could swim, On ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... turn them—sticking plaster never stuck 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 together, they turned—triumph at last! but ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... feller'd ort 'o jes' to-day Git down and roll and waller, don't you know, In that-air stubble, and flop up and crow, Seein' sich craps! I'll undertake to say There're no wheat's ever turned out thataway Afore this season!—Folks is keerless tho', And too fergitful—'caze we'd ort 'o show More thankfulness!—Jes' looky hyonder, hey?— ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... even begin to run the action of the drug had ceased. It was the business of a minute 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 ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... exclaimed, "I have been so naughty," for she had decided to take up this line. "We ran over a cat. Charles told me not to jump out, but I would, and look!" She held out her bandaged hand. "Your poor Meg went such a flop." ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... patted his back. That was the price he had always to pay for bread or butter or jam. Finally, she gave him the bread and let him go. Down the back steps he came, running eagerly and calling Frank. Once more in the kitchen began the flop of the churn, once more rose the wail of ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... idea and its true application. 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. ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... bannock bake — how restful is the air! You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty-three, Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care. The man-size mountains palisade us round on every side; The river is a-flop with fish, and ripples silver-clear; The midnight sunshine brims yon cleft — we think it's the Divide; We'll get there in a month, maybe, or maybe in ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... being armed with a pillow, down whose front a ghastly slit soon showed itself; but Philip fought well, and Harry was getting worsted and driven into the corner amongst the boots, where the footing was rather bad for bare feet "Flop!" Harry caught it then and staggered back. "Flop" again, for Philip was surpassing himself, and Harry having received the last blow full upon the top of his head went down upon one knee; but he rallied again, ducked to ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... pond. At once the workman in charge took up a steel bar not unlike a metal yardstick and began pressing down the mass to a uniform thickness. This done he ran the bar deftly beneath and turned the vast piece over just as one would flop over some gigantic griddle-cake. He continued to change it from side to side, pressing it down in any spot where it was too thick, but never once touching it with his hands. He then cut off a long narrow strip and fed it into a machine ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... "I think it will work. But after that—" He stared, glaring, at the heavy tungsten dome with its heavy tungsten contacts, across which the flame of released atomic energy was supposed to have leapt. "That was probably the flattest flop any ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... 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 defined it. ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... coupled with 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, as though ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... knowed better'n that! Here I was under this ruf all the time. It come over on to me like a great bird, knocked me down with a flop of its wing,—mos' broke my shoulder, I believe; an' when I come to myself, and peeked through a crack, there was a crew knockin' the ruf o' the house to flinders. I was too weak to call very loud, but, if you'd cared much, I should think ye might 'a' heard me. Look a' that house, now! look ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... started to run Stopper was already passing him, turning sharply to the right again so that the rope raked the horse's front legs. Two jumps and Stopper had stopped, faced the horse and stood braced again, his ears perked knowingly while he waited for the flop. ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... "Ah, have a heart! Think how handy I'd be if someone did another flop, or if Miss ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... up, Ginger!" Peter called lustily, but Ginger only seemed to flop in deeper, through ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... have hurt you. None of these flop-over Janes for me!... An' I'll give you a hunch, Pretty Eyes. You might have run acrost a fellar ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... clear that she was there to see all she could. She radiated her appetite to see. He carried a fur stole for her over his arm and flicked the way up the hill. Flip, flap, flop. She followed demurely. ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... loosen and lift in front, flop uncertainly, and then go sailing away into the sage-brush, and he noted where it fell, that he might find it, later. Then he was close enough to see her face, and wondered that there was so little fear written there. Beatrice was plucky, and she rode well, her weight upon the bit; but her ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... missed one; you would have thought the fish ran along a wire up to him and down his throat. And I saw the penguin swim under water, and the sea lions sit up, four of them on four wooden chairs, and catch fish also; but they missed sometimes and had to flop off their chairs into the water and then flop out again ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... pity and a cold interior sensation very unlike triumph, they 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 all ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... women, too, but I rather think God expects men to be more self-reliant. I don't hold with a man 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 you ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Gentlemen!" cried Herbert, just like a real ringmaster in a real circus, "the next trick will be when my Monkey does a flip-flap-flop!" ...
— The Story of a Monkey on a Stick • Laura Lee Hope
... 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 it a saving ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "Down!" We let it sag quickly to Clancy and Parsons, who were at the rail. "Hi-o!" they called cheerfully, and turned the dip-net inside out. Out and down it went again, "He-yew!" and up and in it came again. "Oy-hoo!" "Hi-o!" and flop! it was turned upside down and another barrel of fat, lusty fish flipped their length against the hard deck. Head and tail they flipped, each head and tail ten times a second seemingly, until it sounded—they ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... Cow Brand Soda cap on, stealthily closed the gate. Johnny didn't know he had on a Cow Brand Soda cap, and he didn't know that the gate was shut, but he did know that that kind of a yell meant business. He wasn't afraid. Pshaw! He'd give young Mr. Flop-Ears a run for his money. Come on, kid—r-r-r-r-r! Johnny ran straight to the gate with a rabbit's unerring instinct, and hurled himself against it in vain. The flop-eared boy screamed with laughter. ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... butterine," said another guest negligently and swore, softly and intensely, at a shoulder strap. "Oh, damn the thing! . . . Well—flop if you want to. I've ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... point, however, gravity, which he had successfully defied, wreaked vengeance upon him; it suddenly reached forth and made him its vindictive toy. He pawed, he fought, he appeared to be climbing an invisible rope. With a mighty flop he landed flat upon his back, uttering a loud and dismayed grunt as his breath left him. When he had dug himself out he found that the girl, too, was breathless. She was rocking in silent ecstasy, she hugged herself gleefully, and there were ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... in the situation. They say, chuckling to themselves, 'that villain's got his dose at last, and serve him right too.' They want to enjoy his struggles, while the heroine stands grimly at the door taking care that he doesn't get away. Then when my fist comes down flop on the stage and they realise that I am indeed done for, the yell of triumph that goes up is something ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... remarkable vitality and perseverance, but he braced himself for the combat, and at the proper moment chopped viciously at the bear's forearm and felt the blade sink into the bone. This time he got in three good hard lunges under the arm, and when the bear fell "ker-flop" he had no doubt ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... 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 have ridden ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... not swim, and 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. I was fearfully alarmed for ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... 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 ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... runs along beside them and pivots and gives them a quick chop. Mike and Mitzi flop theirs over first and behead them on their backs. And Mamma takes a swipe at their legs first. But beheading and breaking the ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... of the window, she saw Microby Dandeline approaching the cabin, her dejected old Indian pony, ears a-flop, placing one foot before the other with the extreme deliberation that characterized his every movement. Patty smiled as her eyes took in the details of the grotesque figure; the old harness bridle with patched reins and one blinder dangling, the faded gingham sunbonnet ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... Jeremy's coat; then he would lie dead for a moment, suddenly springing, with his head up, in the hope that the surprise would free him; then he would turn into a snake, twisting his body under Jeremy's arm, and dropping with a flop on to the floor. All these manoeuvres to-day availed him nothing; Jeremy held his neck in a vice, and dug his fingers well into the skin. Hamlet whined, then lay still, and, in the midst of indignant reflections against the imbecile tyrannies of ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... 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 to be a ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... being called a shell-fish, because tortoises are not fish at all, and they feel insulted if you call them so. However, he was so glad to get a wife at last, that he said nothing, only presented his back for the Jackal to jump on. Flop! came the Jackal, so heavy by this time that it was all the Tortoise could do to get him across safely. If he was tired before, he was nearly dead now. But he swam across at last; and the Jackal ran off into the forest, chuckling at the ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... toe it!" growled the now irate farmer. "And don't whimper if I break a bone or two when I flop ye!" ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... and the hills, and the River. Slowly you creep from that strange 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
... by erratic leaps, and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat, and apparently dying a la Forrest; a gasp—a squirm—a flop, and so on, till the street was well blocked up, the drivers all swearing like demons in bad hats, and the chief actor's circulation decidedly quickened by every variety of kick, cuff, jerk, and haul. When the last breath seemed to have left ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... I can appreciate a thoughtful cook. What's that, Honeyman? No, indeed, you can't ride my night horse. Love me, love my dog; my horse shares this snap. Now, I don't want to be under the necessity of speaking to any of you first guard, but flop into your saddles ready to take the herd. My turnip says it's eight ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... the Widow at Windsor, It's safest to let 'er alone: For 'er sentries we stand by the sea an' the land Wherever the bugles are blown. (Poor beggars! — an' don't we get blown!) Take 'old o' the Wings o' the Mornin', An' flop round the earth till you're dead; But you won't get away from the tune that they play To the bloomin' old rag over'ead. (Poor beggars! — it's 'ot over'ead!) Then 'ere's to the sons o' the Widow, Wherever, 'owever they roam. 'Ere's all they desire, ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... oh, sad! oh, dire to tell!" (Said BAINES). "Be good enough to stop." And senseless on the floor he fell, With unpremeditated flop! ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... 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 ripened a ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... and look at the bicycle, he pays me a ceremonious visit at the chapar-khana half an hour later. In this visit he is preceded by his farrash, and he walks with a magnificent peacock strut that causes the skirts of his faultless roundabout to flop up and down, up and down, in rhythmic accompaniment to his steps. Apart from his insufferable conceit, however, he tries to make himself as agreeable as possible, and after tea and cigarettes, I give him and the people a tomasha, at the conclusion of which he asks ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... house right enough," said Ansell, rather uneasily. "Only take care you pick out a decent one. I can't think why you flop about so helplessly, like a bit of seaweed. In four years you've taken as ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... kinder—" 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 ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... marshmallows, and a scoutmasters' meeting-place with a drain-pipe you can climb up to the roof on, 'n everything," said Hervey in a spirit of fairness toward the camp and its attractions. "They've got messboards you can do hand-springs on when the cook isn't around. I bet you can't do the double flop, Hoody." ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... prevents you proving yourself; you remember about the poem which dealt with proving your soul?—how you spouted it. I know that you are gifted, child, but the world doesn't. If we fail, you at least can, after you pay proper respects to my remains, go back to that adorable aunt of yours and flop in the lap of luxury—but make the ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... for him and leaned back so far that he almost fell flop off the elephant's back. Tody caught him just in time or ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... 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 ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... finally ceases; but if it should run down with the notched side downward, the friction of the point against the table will reduce this final whirr to half its ordinary length, and the coin will finally go down with a sort of "flop." The difference of sound is not sufficiently marked to attract the notice of the spectators, but is perfectly distinguishable by an attentive ear. If, therefore, you have notched the coin on the "tail" side, and it runs down slowly, you will ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... 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 indignant ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... the fire, and Roy to the cooking. And I might mention on the side that if you should happen to be marooned in a disused boat on a blustering night, and are ingenious enough (as Roy was) to contrive the cooking facilities, you cannot do better than flop a few rice cakes, watching carefully that they don't burn. You can flop them with a shoe horn if you've nothing ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... 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 of their tender emotions if they must die for it. This difference is one of make-up ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... Flop went our towels, and down went Miss Vespertila behind the bed crying. Polly crept up to her; and caught her in a towel. What black beads of eyes had Miss Vespertila from Servia, where her grandfather, General Vampire, still commands a brigade of rascals! Her teeth were sharp, and white ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... go,' and I pulled my umbrella into shape, opened it with a flop, and stepped from the shelter of the doorway into the ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith |
