"Prodding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fair-headed peasant seated on the prostrate form of the young fellow from Penza, and methodically, gruntingly delivering blow after blow upon the young fellow's ears with his ponderous fists, while counting the blows as he does so. Vainly, at the same time, the woman from Riazan is prodding the assailant in the back, whilst her female companion is shrieking, and the crowd at large has leapt to its feet, and, collected into a knot, is shouting gleefully, "THAT'S ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... Margaret opened her lips to cry aloud, but kept silence, for the next moment she comprehended that the young man (he was evidently young, though his back was turned to her) knew well enough what he was about. He had a long pole in his hand, and with this he was poking and prodding about in the black depths beneath him. Now he sounded carefully a little way ahead of him, and then, placing his pole carefully on another firm spot, leaped to it lightly. The black bog water gurgled ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... surmounted by a flaming row of picture advertisements, regarding them and listening with a curious abstraction, which almost gave the impression of stupidity. This man had lived boy and man in one groove of the grocer business, until he needed prodding to shift him momentarily into ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... not certain that a rib had been broken after all. When Jessup came to examine him he found the flesh terribly bruised and refrained from any unnecessary prodding. It was still somewhat painful to the touch, but from the ease with which he could get about, Buck had a notion that at the worst the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... gave no sign of hearing. He had turned to hail Brother Warboise, who came along the river path with eyes fastened on the ground, and staff viciously prodding in time ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... said Mr. Hall, shifting uncomfortably to his other leg, and prodding the floor with the ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... made a ferocious leap up toward his throat, and had the satisfaction of seeing him whirl headlong. It was only a temporary backset, however, for as soon as the animal recovered his feet he made another mad rush, so that the boy was kept busy prodding him, using his club right and left as an Irishman might his shillalah, and in every way possible trying to beat ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... go and have it out, even if there was a whole agricultural show of prize and honourable-mention fighting-cocks in Page's yard. He got down from the wood-heap and started off across the ploughed field, his head down, his elbows out, and his thick awkward legs prodding away at the furrows behind for all they ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... tread the beaten and commonplace highway toward riches. The spirit of the West gripped him in its great, enveloping hands, picked him out of the slough and set him down again, plump upon his two feet, high and dry, prodding him violently all the while with a spur that would not permit him to stop or to take a step backward, with the natural result that he moved forward—slowly, dazedly at first, and then ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... as to the strength of this arrangement before Tristan was at comparative peace. Dr. Grosnoff effected an examination by slacking off the ropes until Tristan lay a couple of feet clear of the bed, then himself lay on the mattress face up, prodding the patient over. ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... left to play when Yale brought up on Harvard's three-yard line for a first down. Behind the battered and tottering Crimson wall a figure raved and ranted and roared, entreating his teammates to stave off the Bulldog's advance. He stamped from end to end in the churned up sod, prodding each player in a vicious manner. But there was no visible stiffening of the Harvard defense at the savage barking of its quarterback. The team was crushed after having done its best ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... specimen in which they were just then interested continued his course entirely unconcerned. Soon, however, he seemed to feel fatigue, for he drew his feet and head within his shell, which he tightly closed, and after that no poking or prodding had the ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... swung his umbrella, then began prodding the ground with it. "Hullo, Eudora," he said again; then he added: "How are you, anyway? ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... one way ter do hit, suh, en dat's ter dung hit," replied Uncle Boaz, and he remarked a minute afterwards, as he put down the lowered handles of the wheel barrow, and stood prodding the ashes in his pipe, "I'se gwinter vote fur you, Marse Abel, I ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... vainly endeavoring to start his oarsmen with words, took up an extra oar and began vigorously prodding them with it. Cleggett had not seen this man look towards the Jasper B., but he nevertheless had the feeling that the man had missed little of what had been going on there. He seemed to be that kind ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... pinned him in a corner, and was prodding him with the half-butt. The Admiral's Secretary entered, and saw the scuffle ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... Abd-el-Kader, and a truce had been arranged, a great number of natives spread themselves over the ruins of the town, to search for the iron molotes, which are generally concealed in the earth, beneath the floor of the huts. The natives were all prodding the smoking ground with the iron-tipped butt-ends of their ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... eight miles an hour and the steepest declivity was yet to come. Further, the dropping of the left-hand shafts jerked the van to the left, and Denry dropped the other pair only just in time to avoid the sudden uprooting of a lamp-post. The four points of the shafts digging and prodding into the surface of the road gave the pantechnicon something to think about for a few seconds. But unfortunately the precipitousness of the street encouraged its head-strong caprices, and a few seconds later all four shafts were broken, and the pantechnicon seemed to scent ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... that set, stolid look of prodding ahead that characterized all Abner's movements he ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... situation. Next morning was the time fixed, and Billy, in cowboy costume, carrying his own trusty saddle and a quirt, sauntered over to the spot careless-like, and not knowing the insignia of rank very well, walked up to an Imperial officer in gold lace, and prodding him jocularly with the quirt, said, "Where is the black son of a gun that you say can't be rid?" The officer looked amazed at being so accosted, but, like a good sport, laughed and ordered the horse to be turned loose. Billy's friends promptly lassoed ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... young and callow yet. You'll live to know better. Why, I shall hear you saying a good word soon even for such unclean spawn as this," prodding the prostrate friar with the handle ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... resultant of many forces which go to make a pressure mightier than he, and which moulds him in the predestined shape. But, with sound legs under him, he may run away, and meet with a new pressure. He may continue running, each new pressure prodding him as he goes, until he dies and his final form will be that predestined of the many pressures. An exchange of cradle-babes, and the base-born slave may wear the purple imperially, and the royal infant begs an alms as wheedlingly or cringe ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... I knew that I dreamed, for this figure exactly resembled Brother John. There was his long, snowy beard. There in his hand was his butterfly net, with the handle of which he seemed to be prodding the ox. Only he was wound about with wreaths of flowers as were the great horns of the ox, and on either side of him and before and behind him ran girls, also wreathed with flowers. It was a vision, nothing else, and I shut my eyes ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... hovered above them. Beyond the border of lilies-of-the-valley she saw the squat pinkish tower of the church, and beneath it, in the narrow churchyard, rose the gleaming shaft above the grave of the Confederate soldier. On her right, in the centre of the crooked path, three negro infants were prodding earnestly at roots of wire-grass and dandelion; and brushing carelessly their huddled figures, her gaze descended the twelve steps of the almost obliterated terrace, and followed the steep street down which a mulatto vegetable vendor was urging ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... "Bye-bye, Radley. Reg'lar meals, no smoke, and you may grow into a fine lad yet," carried himself off with the awkward leg-work of a heavy-bodied man, cheerily acknowledging the greetings of the little Sucker boys, and prodding the fattest of them in the ribs. Radley strolled away, followed by the wondering looks of boys who were told that this big man was S.T. Radley, of Middlesex. Freedham, quite recovered, returned to his day-boy roof among the endless roofs of ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... In the very spot where Dan had stood as Puck they saw a 6 small, brown, broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person with a snub nose, slanting blue eyes, and a grin that ran right across his freckled face. 'There's where you meet hunters, and trappers for the 152 Circuses, prodding along chained bears and muzzled wolves.' 'Hoity-toity!' he cried. 'Here's Pride in purple 212 feathers! Here's wrathy contempt and the Pomps of the Flesh!'... And he doffed his cap to the ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... could think at all, and I was quite certain that they never tried. "You were looking at me, sir?" "Was I, 'faith? Well, if I care to look at you I shall look at you." And then away they would go at it, prodding at each other's bellies until somebody's flesh swallowed a foot of steel. "Sir, I do not like the colour of your coat!" Clash! "Sir, red hair always offends me." Cling! "Sir, your fondness for rabbit-pie ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... you have no head-dress, so kiss my hand," and she stretched it out towards him, at the same time prodding the man whom Jackie had said was her husband, in the back with her foot, apparently to make him ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... like boule for absorbing the mind. It was some time before George became aware that a hand was prodding him in the ribs. He turned, irritated. Immediately behind him, filling the landscape, were two stout Frenchmen. But, even as he searched his brain for words that would convey to them in their native tongue his disapproval of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... very large—and very obedient young toughs stumbled in, followed by an angry officer. In addition to the marks of the fight, both had a lumbering, off-balance walk that showed that the policeman had been prodding them with his riot club. It was called an "electronic persuader"; it also doubled as a carbine. ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick
... Nebbie also knew that presently that same master of his would return again to make the circuit of the garden in the company of Bainton, according to custom,—and as he stretched his four hairy paws out comfortably, and blinked his brown eyes at a portly blackbird prodding in the turf for a worm within a stone's throw of him, he was evidently considering whether it would be worth his while, as an epicurean animal, to escort these two men on their usual round on such a warm pleasant morning. For it was a dog's real lazy day,—a day when merely to lie on ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... the clumsy thing up that steep bank, and so had been sent back for it. The young guard who accompanied him was already exhilarated by a cup of fire-water, and in such haste to return for more that he found great delight in compelling his charge to run by prodding him from ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... o'clock with darkness still four hours off. Simmons and Brumley were unarmed. There was no use in running for it. So they surrendered with what grace they could. There was the usual verdamning, growling and prodding but no really bad treatment. For this they were sentenced to two weeks cells and six weeks ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... a deep and abiding conviction that Scotland was the only country in the world for a self-respecting human being to dwell in, and that everything outside of the Established Church was foredoomed to flames and sulphur and the perpetual prodding of red-hot pitchforks. And last, but not least by any means, he found Mr. Michael Bawdrey just what he had been told he would find him, namely, a dear, lovable, sunny-tempered old man, who fairly idolised ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... ready waiting orders. Most of the men were lying down, many sleeping, myself among the latter number. To get some shade and to be out of the way I had crawled under a caisson, and was busy making up many lost hours of rest. Suddenly I was rudely awakened by a comrade, prodding me with a sponge-staff as I had failed to be aroused by his call, and was told to get up and come out, that some one wished to see me. Half-awake I staggered out, and found myself face to face with General Lee and his staff. Their fresh uniforms, bright equipments, and well-groomed ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... other end of the smoking-room I ran into a group of men bunched excitedly and angrily around Bertie Messener. And Bertie was stirring them up and prodding them in his cool, cynical way. Bertie didn't care about the strike. He didn't care much about anything. He was blase—at least in all the clean things of life; the nasty things had no attraction for him. He was worth twenty millions, all of it in safe investments, and he had never ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... wanted to go on sleeping. It was so hateful to have to get a new grip on his own bowels, a new hard recklessness into his heart, a new and responsible consciousness into his mind and soul. He felt some finger prodding, prodding, prodding him awake out of the sleep of pathos and tragedy and spasmodic passion, and he wriggled, unwilling, oh, most unwilling to undertake the ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... at the Horse Guards, oblivious of all beauty, he passed irresolute along the water, making for their usual seat; already, in fancy, he was sitting there, prodding at the gravel, a nervous twittering in his heart, and that eternal question: Dare I speak? asking itself within him. And suddenly he saw that she was before him, sitting there already. His heart gave a jump. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... whip was a real whip by letting Tom Bryan do the whipping for him. Tom Bryan was a rough fellow, who ought to have been driving a plough; a ploughman's life was too peaceful an occupation for him—a drover's life would have suited him best, prodding his cattle along the road with a goad; it was said that was how he maintained his authority in the parish. The remembrance of the day he bared his back to that fellow was still a bitter one. With a gentle smile ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... their voices the gryf had bellowed terrifically and started in pursuit even though a river intervened, but by dint of much prodding and beating, Tarzan had succeeded in heading the animal back into the path though thereafter for a long time it was sullen and ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Tish rushed over and threw open the door. On the top step, huddled and shivering, with streams of water running off his hair down over his celluloid collar, pouring out of his sleeves and cascading down the stairs from his trousers legs, was Tufik. The policeman on the beat was prodding at him with his foot, trying to make him get up. When he saw us ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... impregnated fibers, my real scheme. Then it was the best device of all I could think of, for it set up a local irritation of the sort most calculated to make a person clean his finger nails. The average man and woman is not very neat, Walter. I was not sure but a scientific prodding was necessary to transfer my evidence to some object I could borrow and ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... at last, where the stones were plentiful and of proper size. There he paused; the thing was still angry and prodding within him; Gral could not have known that this "thing-that-prodded" was not anger but a churning impatience, a burning nameless need—that he was in very truth a prototype, the first in the realm ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... was indeed making his way through the crowd towards them. He shook hands with a bishop as he elbowed a path across the room, and did it with the pious face of a self-respecting curate. The next minute he was prodding a sporting baronet in the ribs at the precise moment when that nobleman reached the point of his little story and on the precise rib where he expected to be prodded. It is always ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... you be, Peter!" said the old man suddenly, prodding me softly with his stick, "bewitched as ever was," and ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... through the village of Ballyfuchsia, was an eventful one, but by dint of prodding, poking, and belting, Benella had accomplished half the distance in three-quarters of an hour, when the donkey suddenly lay down 'on her,' according to Peter's prediction. This was luckily at the town cross, where ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to him! How? When? Where? Bring it to him! The ghastly irony of it! Jimmie Dale tried to think—prodding, spurring desperately that keen, lightning brain of his that had never failed him yet. How bridge the gulf between Larry the Bat and Jimmie Dale in Jason's eyes—not just for the replenishing of funds now, but with a ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the bed in Fred's tent, and then Kazimoto came to us, hugely troubled about something, stirring the embers of the fire before the tent and arranging the lantern so that its rays would betray any eavesdropper. He searched all the shadows thoroughly, prodding into them with a stick, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... completely covered with snow. In bright weather it was often possible to detect them by a slight depression in the surface or by a faint, shadowy difference in tint, but in the half-light of cloudy and misty weather these signs failed, and there was no safety but in the ceaseless prodding of the pole. The ice-axe will not serve—one cannot reach far enough forward with it for safety, and the incessant stooping ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... reflection, "Perish the kings! always the murderers of the people." This sentiment is so much to the taste of the gamins of the paraiso that they vociferously demand an encore; but the Roman soldiers come in and commence the pleasing task of prodding the dolls in the arms ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... be passing, and him they nearly killed. He was removed in an insensible and very dangerous condition to the George Hotel. Meanwhile, an attack was made with iron bars, used battering-ram fashion, upon the doors of many of the shops, the rioters "prodding" them with all their might. Messrs. Bourne's shop, at the corner of Moor Street, was the first to give way, and the men quickly gained admittance. A large number of loaves of sugar were piled near the windows, and these were passed ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... obeyed orders, for the islanders was all shook up. They jabbered and hurrahed like a parrot-house for ten minutes or so. Then they untied the feet of their Sunday dinners, got 'em into line, and marched 'em off across country, prodding 'em with their spears, either to see which was the tenderest or to make 'em step livelier, I ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and the fire was nearly out, yet Dr. Silence saw in a moment that the cat was in an excited state. It kneaded with its front paws into his chest, shifting from one to the other. He felt them prodding against him. It lifted a leg very carefully and patted his cheek gingerly. Its fur, he saw, was standing ridgewise upon its back; the ears were flattened back somewhat; the tail was switching sharply. The cat, of course, had wakened him with a purpose, and the instant he realized this, ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... force you to," said the Indian, shifting his rifle and prodding Rhoda ever so gently ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... way. In "A Traveler at Forty" Dreiser is surely frank enough in his vivisections; he seldom forgets a vanity or a wart. In "A Hoosier Holiday" he goes even further; he speculates heavily about all his dramatis personae, prodding into the motives behind their acts, wondering what they would do in this or that situation, forcing them painfully into laboratory jars. They become, in the end, not unlike characters in a novel; one misses only the neatness of a plot. Strangely enough, the one personage of the chronicle ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... twenty feet or so with the help of a regiment or two of infantry. That was his idea. In the end we managed to convince him that this was foolish, and that there must be places which his soldiers could not reach even by prodding down with their bayonets and spades to great depths. Secret chambers cannot be easily discovered even in this way, we said. That made L—— very angry, for no reason apparently but that the affair seemed a huge bother and trouble. He said in reply ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... a smile. "You are much better, though you didn't know it. The wishbone is broken. You broke it by flying against the trees. And you ought not to have any more trouble. But let me examine you!" she said, prodding him in the ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... stroking the silky ears, patting the head, and prodding contentedly into the thick fur of the neck when suddenly with a mighty heart-quaking roar the tiger leapt up and back, and then hurled himself at ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... boring, prodding, and getting a chair to stand on to find the right place, he at length made some cracks a few inches long with a knife, and we saw day light through the bath, towels, clothes-pegs, and a large cane settee or sofa. ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... prodding the deputy sheriff in the ribs with cold steel, and warning him to silence. Above the pool stood a little wood, thick with tangled wildwood. Into this ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... fingers were prodding Leithgow's head like that of any dumb animal chosen as subject ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore |
