"Hornet's nest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down there—once we start," he said. "Business for men; and you're a better man than most of us, girl; but you surely didn't reckon that Cal and me would let you go careening down in gunshot of that hornet's nest." ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... politics in a country store in Horsford in a day than I've heard here in Eupolia in a year—and we've got ten thousand people here, too. I moved here last year, and am doing well. I wouldn't go back and live in that d—d hornet's nest that I felt so bad about leaving—not for the whole State, with a slice of the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... characteristic pose of the great Corsican, according to his history. For a moment he found relief by slipping them, English fashion, into his coat pockets; but at the thought of being detected thus by the Tennessee Shad he withdrew them as though he had struck a hornet's nest. ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... me,' as she would express it, on this subject, and I'm bitterly mortified to say she partly succeeded. She suggested an entanglement between Leopold and the girl. I replied that Leopold wasn't the man to pull down a hornet's nest of gossip around the ears of a young woman who had saved his life. No matter what his inclinations might be, I insisted that he would pay her no repeated visits. This thrust the fair Mechtilde parried—as if repeating a ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... himself would have made the Baptists happy with a half an acre, long since, and so, in his belief, scotched a hornet's nest. But he had never breathed any suggestion of the kind to ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to sway toward the door like a heavily freighted side-wheeler. "I get to feeling sometimes as if I'd kicked over a hornet's nest and wasn't certain whether it was a last year's one or this year's. In one case you can hold your ground, in the other you best take to your heels. Well, I'm going to leave you, Polly, for your date with your young man. Don't forget the fire and ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... row in Silver Street—the regiments was out, They called us "Delhi Rebels", an' we answered "Threes about!" That drew them like a hornet's nest—we met them good an' large, The English at the double an' the Irish at ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... soothed Nickey, "don't you worry about it occurrin' again. You don't suppose I did it on purpose, do you? Gosh no! I wouldn't get onto Charley's back again, with my clothes off, any more than I'd sit on a hornet's nest. How'd you like to ride through the town with nothin' on but your swimmin' trunks and drippin' with bluin ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... the other man on the shoulder with a heartiness which was almost painful. "Well, we'll have the hornet's nest about our ears in no time now; but at least we've got you back safe and sound, and with a bit of luck we'll hold out grandly till ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... that time Ruben Hendricks skeered a skunk out of a holler log. Si Pettingill stirred up a hornet's nest, Deacon Witherspoon sot down in a huckleberry pie and Aunt Nancy Smith got a spider on her, and she started in to yellin' and jumpin' like she had a fit, and two dogs got to fitin', and old Jim Lawson he tried ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... an anomalous social position, that Gwen could not decide, nominally omnipotent as she was in her parents' absence, on telling the servants to serve her dinner in the room Mrs. Picture occupied. Had it not been for her suspicion of a hornet's nest at hand, she might have dared to ordain that Mrs. Picture should be her sole guest in her own section of the Towers, or at least that she herself should become the table-guest of the old lady in Francis Quarles; ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... ut would be betther not to slip your boots. How do I know that? By the light av pure reason. Here are three companies av us ever so far inside av the enemy's flank an' a crowd av roarin', tarin', squealin' cavalry gone on just to turn out the whole hornet's nest av them. Av course the enemy will pursue, by brigades like as not, an' thin we'll have to run for ut. Mark my words. I am av the opinion av Polonius whin he said, 'Don't fight wid ivry scutt for the pure joy av fightin', but if you do, knock the nose av him first an' frequint.'. We ought ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... that he had raised a hornet's nest about his ears, deemed it the part of discretion to shrug his shoulders after the manner of one who, "convinced against his will is of the same ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... of a rapt saint as he told this story, but my contemplation of his countenance was suddenly arrested by Toddie, who, disapproving of the unexciting nature of his brother's recital, had strayed into the garden, investigated a hornet's nest, been stung, and set up a piercing shriek. He ran in to me, and as I hastily ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... has set this hornet's nest of theirs abuzz so suddenly?" I whispered, when the smoke-choke gave us liberty to speak without coughing ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... more than I'll answer for. I know little about Ap Gauvon: it's a place I never was at—nor ever will be, please God. Why should any man go and thrust his hand into a hornet's nest, where there's nothing ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... "Who does this here hornet's nest put you fellers in mind of—this gray color all over it, and all these here fine lines runnin' back and forth and every which-a-way like wrinkles? Think, now—it's somebody you ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... around with the idea of barging in on the main office of the company but I figured that might be too much like poking my head into a hornet's nest. ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith |
