"Jack-in-the-box" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but he winked at Alice, and we saw that he meant to aid us on our way. So we climbed up, and he whipped up the horse and asked us where we were going. He was a kindly old man, with a face like a walnut shell, and white hair and beard like a jack-in-the-box. ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... 'Kind of Jack-in-the-box feeling?' enquired Michael, 'as if all these empty trains might be filled with policemen waiting for a signal? and Sir Charles Warren perched among the girders with a silver whistle to his ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... some concealed disgrace: punishment coming, pede claudo, years after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned the fault." And the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded awhile on his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there. His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... play box and drew out between thumb and finger the topmost toy. It happened to be a wooden box, with a wire hasp for fastening the cover. Half unconsciously she pressed the spring, and a hideous Jack-in-the-box sprang out to confront her with a squeak, a leering smile, and a red nose. Miss Terry eyed ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Rosalie had said, "Do let me just post it for you. Do let me," and had snapped the obstinate letter from his fingers, and posted it and was back again smiling at Mr. Simcox, whom she rather liked and who reminded her very much of a jack-in-the-box. ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... and sometimes in the strangest places—suddenly, abruptly, in the stillness of an Indian temple, or amid the shrillness of an Oriental crowd. He became familiar with it at last; he called it his Jack-in-the-box. Some invisible touch of circumstance would press the spring, and the little image would pop up, staring him in the face and grinning an interrogation. Bernard always clapped down the lid, for he regarded ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... suffered to occupy the foreground. We know all too well, in everyday experience, that tension is not really relaxed by a temporary distraction. The dread of a coming ordeal in the witness-box or on the operating-table may be forcibly crushed down like a child's jack-in-the-box; but we are always conscious of the effort to compress it, and we know that it will spring up again the moment that effort ceases. Sir Arthur Pinero's play, The Profligate, was written at a time when it was the fashion to give each act a sub-title; and one of ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... holiday garments were made, black clothes were being cut for us also, and I remember having my mourning dress fitted. I was pleased because it was a new one. I tried to manufacture a suit for my Berlin Jack-in-the-box from the scraps that fell from the dressmaker's table. Nothing amuses a child so much as to imitate what older people are doing. We were forbidden to laugh, but after a few days our mother no longer checked our mirth. Of our stay at Scheveningen ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... many years had she lived from day to day and nothing had occurred—so long that life had been unconscious, doped, inert. Now it had sprung into vitality again with the sudden frantic impertinence of a Jack-in-the-Box. For twenty years you are dry on the banks, half-asleep, stretching out lazy fingers for food, slumbering, waking, slumbering again. Suddenly a wave comes and you are swept off—swept off ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... "A jack-in-the-box with a frisky eye Suddenly jumped his lid, And a white-rag rabbit that hung close by Squeaked with fright when he did; A dog from London began to bark; The animals in the Noah's ark Struggled and scuffled in the dark, Back in ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... ain't kidnapping cow-punchers to steal my boat," replied Hopalong. "An' you fellers stand still or I'll drop you cold!" he ordered to the assembled and restless crew. "Johnny!" he shouted, and his companion popped up through the hatch like a jack-in-the-box. "Good boy, Johnny. Tie this coyote foreman like you did the others," he ordered. While Johnny obeyed, Hopalong looked around the circle, and his eyes rested on Hogan's face, studying it, and found something there which warmed his heart. "Friend, do you ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... short, black hair cut en brosse, his bronzed face twisted into a grimace of fiery contempt, throwing, with his big and muscular arms, rug after rug to the anxious young peasants who filed before him. They all gazed at his legs in the billowing red trousers; some like children regarding a Jack-in-the-box which had just sprung up into view, others like ignorant, but superstitious, people who had unexpectedly come upon a shrine by the wayside. One or two seemed disposed to laugh nervously, as the very stupid laugh at anything they see for the first time. But fear seized them. They refrained convulsively ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... her balance—where in the world had he come from? She certainly had not heard the slightest sound, and yet there he sat, in the corner, like a veritable Jack-in-the-box, his mild blue eyes staring apologetically at her, his nervous fingers toying with the inevitable ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... bedside shrieked suddenly in the first hint of daylight, and Jim sprang from his pillow with the alertness of a Jack-in-the-box, and grabbed the clock, to stop its further eloquence. He sat down on the edge of his bed, and yawned tremendously. At the other side of the room Harry slept peacefully. Nearer Wally's black eyes twinkled ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... deft movements of the archer. Grimcke could not fire at both in time to save himself, but he instinctively did the very best and indeed the only thing that could be done. Without moving his feet, he dropped to a sitting posture, instantly popping up again like a jack-in-the-box. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... out of the corner of his eye at his reflection in the mirror, red-faced and very much abashed. For with the slipping of the shirt, on his shoulders there had sprung, with the movement of a released jack-in-the-box, two ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... Jack was looking in the direction named, when, with startling suddenness, an Indian shot into sight on the furthest rock, beyond which the canyon made a sweeping curve that shut off further view. His appearance was like the upleaping of a Jack-in-the-box at the touch of the spring, but the explanation was evident: he was making his way down the gorge from above, when his leap from one rock to another brought him thus ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... a small house built from her own plans and standing 2,000 feet above sea level, in a growing shade of trees, lives Marion Ames Taggart, author of the Jack-in-the-Box series—four children's books that renew their popularity ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... tilted back we fell over in as much surprise as if a jack-in-the-box had sprung out at us. Instead of Sahwah's red dressing-gown on top as we had expected there were rows and rows of bottles. We stared stupidly, not knowing whether to believe our eyes ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey |
