"Scruff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... toward this new speaker, to behold a very well-built young man urging a resisting captive toward them by the scruff ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stated, Mrs. Ferrari,' he said. 'You build up your sentences well; you clinch your conclusions in a workmanlike manner. If you had been a man, you would have made a good lawyer—you would have taken juries by the scruff of their necks. Complete the case, my good lady—complete the case. Tell us next who sent you this letter, enclosing the bank-note. The "two wretches" who murdered Mr. Ferrari would hardly put their hands in their pockets and send you a thousand pounds. Who is it—eh? ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... an' on, an' niver makin' headway excipt through the eyes, that a little drummer-boy grinned in me face whin I had admonished him wid the buckle av my belt for riotin' all over the place. "An' I'm not the only wan that doesn't kape to barricks," sez he. I tuk him by the scruff av his neck,—my heart was hung on a hair- thrigger those days, you will onderstand—an' "Out wid ut," sez I, "or I'll lave no bone av you unbreakable."—"Speak to Dempsey," sez he howlin'. "Dempsey which?" ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... general fav'ritc. Everybody's slopped out his perfoomcry, an' Dan Boggs is jest sayin': 'Yere's lookin' at you, Crawfish,' when that crazy-boss shepherd sorter swarms 'round inside his shirt with his hand, an' lugs out Julius Cesar be the scruff of his neck, a- squirmin' an' a-blowin', an' madder'n a drunken squaw. Once he gets Julius out, he spreads him 'round profuse on the Red Light bar an' sorter herds him with his hand to keep him from chargin' ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... warned her to be careful and take no notice of men who tried to speak to her, Louise only laughed. When Klaus Brock came up one day to visit them, and made great play with his eyes while he talked to her, Peer felt much inclined to take him by the scruff of the neck and throw ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... if I said a word. I suppose he saw that I was only a very frightened boy; for his clutch upon me relaxed, after a few awful, gasping moments. When he loosed his hold, his great hand pawed over my throat till he had me by the scruff of the neck. He drew me over towards the spring, as one would draw a puppy. Then, still crouching in the fern, he hurried me to a single stunted sloe-bush which grew there. "Go down, you," he said, giving me a shove towards the ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... fits. He hopped in front of me, mopping and mowing, and I cannot tell why—perhaps it was because some of Crequy's red Joue—I supped with him over-night—was still ringing a chime in my head, but a sudden feeling of irritation came upon me at his antics. I seized the little beast by the scruff of his neck and dropped him out of the window on to the balcony beneath, where he remained, content enough with a plum that I took the liberty of lifting from the table and flinging after him. Then, leaning out of the window, I watched ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... old, blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it no yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat the scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course aristocrats, then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. Raw pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in the sea to keep up the price. Cheap no-one ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... both boys became guilty of serious breaches against time-honoured school etiquette. Bauer struck the defenceless Keith square in the face with his clenched fist, and Keith burst into tears. Quick as a flash one of the older boys grabbed Bauer by the scruff of his neck and hurled him halfway across the yard, while another one plucked Keith from the ground and shoved him toward ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... the old foxes took to flight, they surrounded them and beat them with the stick, so that they ran away as fast as their legs could carry them; but two of the boys held down the cub, and, seizing it by the scruff of the neck, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... leaped forward. I took Nick Tresidder by the scruff of the neck, while George gripped Buddle like a ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... extraordinary thing,' remarked the Minor Canon in the same tone as before, 'that these philanthropists are so given to seizing their fellow-creatures by the scruff of the neck, and (as one may say) bumping them into the paths of peace.—I beg your pardon, Ma ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... it," cried Frank, his eyes fired with enthusiasm. "Thank heaven, there's not one among us we can call a slacker. We've all enlisted without waiting to be hauled into it by the scruff of the neck—we—we——," his eyes happened to fall upon Will as he sat regarding him steadily from a chair near the window, and as though at a signal, his enthusiasm died and he ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... all centering around this little old ex-aqueduct," George said. "In about five minutes the two sheriffs'll be crawling into this old drain and taking the train robbers by the scruff ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... quickly. "I seen him take Tom Pike by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his pants and pitch him in the horse-trough for askin' of him who his tailor ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... with the wild, and they're bitter fighters. Right at the toe of my moccasin lay a big brute, and by the heel another. I doubled the first one's tail, quick, till it snapped in my grip. As his jaws clipped together where my hand should have been, I threw the second one by the scruff straight into his mouth. ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... boisterous manner of the well-meaning foolish creatures of her type, she sprang upon the bed. Nicky ran forward as Archelaus uttered another cry, but unlike the first. This was of pure high terror. Nicky seized the dog by the scruff of the neck, so that she hung suspended for a moment in his grasp above the bed, before he bore her to the door. Archelaus stared as though he saw a ghost; his old mouth fell open, showing slack and curved ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Burton, lugging himself into the game by the scruff of his pants, showed more real man than I did. Yet, he couldn't accomplish anything; so there you are, if ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... swain as he loitered about the prison for glimpses of his dear. Tip asserted the family gentility, and his own, by coming out in the character of the aristocratic brother, and loftily swaggering in the little skittle ground respecting seizures by the scruff of the neck, which there were looming probabilities of some gentleman unknown executing on some little puppy not mentioned. These were not the only members of the Dorrit family ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... said the big New Zealander, and catching the man by the scruff of the neck, gave him a tremendous push which sent him flying over into the trench. Roy sprang down after him, and a moment later, Dave and Ken hurled themselves ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... yet. There's Russia and Japan now: you couldn't 'a' stopped them fightin' no more'n two boys that had got at it. All them Russians and them little Japs—we couldn't 'a' stopped 'em fightin'—the whole of us couldn't hev stopped 'em—not unless we'd 'a' took 'em by the scruff o' the neck and thrown 'em down and set on 'em—one apiece. And I dunno's that'd be much better'n fightin'—settin' on 'em ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... will hew the way of his own will through religions and governments and plutocracies and all the other devices of the kingdom of the fears of the unheroic. As fast as Mimmy makes swords, Siegfried Bakoonin smashes them, and then takes the poor old swordsmith by the scruff of the neck and chastises him wrathfully. The particular day on which the curtain rises begins with one of these trying domestic incidents. Mimmy has just done his best with a new sword of surpassing ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... ungentlemanly—or unladylike—manner. Twice Mary-'Gusta had attempted to make David more complacent by bringing the kittens also to the surrey, but their parent had promptly and consecutively seized them by the scruff of their necks and laboriously lugged them up to the ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... is what she did. Her tongue hit him between the eyes, and knocked him down and trampled on him. It curled round and round him like a whip, and then it uncurled and wound the other way. It seized him by the scruff of his neck, and tossed him up into the air, and caught him as he descended, and flung him to the ground, and rolled him on it. It played around him like forked lightning, and blinded him. It danced and shrieked about him like a host of whirling ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... end of the veranda; and with a final spring, a tall man in silk pyjamas, his gray beard flying over either shoulder, hurled himself upon both bushrangers at once. With outspread fingers he clutched the scruff of each neck at the self-same second, crash came the two heads together, and over went the table with the three men ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... again I'll take you by the scruff of the neck and make you go down instead. I say, let's send the pauper down to swallow ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... got up, he was immediately surrounded by them, taken by the scruff of the neck and so violently shaken, that he tumbled on his knees. Gunfire was roaring from the mountains, shadows of soldiers flitted past him, the wounded Cossacks groaned in the snow. Young, well-nourished looking ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... Enough, enough! Soo-Ti's screaming; seize his scruff. Soo-Ti's having fearful fits; Duke is tearing us to bits. One will trip us, one will throw us— But, the darlings, don't ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... paradise. It measured three decimeters long. Its head was comparatively small, and its eyes, placed near the opening of its beak, were also small. But it offered a wonderful mixture of hues: a yellow beak, brown feet and claws, hazel wings with purple tips, pale yellow head and scruff of the neck, emerald throat, the belly and chest maroon to brown. Two strands, made of a horn substance covered with down, rose over its tail, which was lengthened by long, very light feathers of wonderful fineness, and they completed the costume of this ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... teeth. The dog was slowly being carried past one of the sloping gangways that led down to the river. All at once Tyeglev without saying a word ran down this gangway and over the thin ice, sinking in and leaping out again, reached the dog, seized it by the scruff of the neck and getting safely back to the bank, put it down on the pavement. The danger to which Tyeglev had exposed himself was so great, his action was so unexpected, that his companions were dumbfoundered—and only spoke all at once, when he had called a cab to drive home: his uniform was ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... a neat little brown paw, gripped Toad firmly by the scruff of the neck, and gave a great hoist and a pull; and the water-logged Toad came up slowly but surely over the edge of the hole, till at last he stood safe and sound in the hall, streaked with mud and weed, to be sure, and ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... more than enough;— Twenty impatient hands and rough, By arm, and leg, and neck, and scruff, Apron, 'kerchief, gown of stuff— Cap, and pinner, sleeve, and cuff— Are clutching the Witch wherever they can, With the spite of Woman and fury of Man; And then—but first they kill her cat, And murder her dog on the very mat— And crush the infernal Trumpet ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... amounts to a virtue, under certain circumstances, with all these African savages; and I must confess that I have noticed one or two little things that, to me, seemed to bear rather a sinister significance. But what can we do? We cannot take 'Msusa by the scruff of the neck and insist upon his becoming ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... large flat plate of cast iron placed on its edge against the front of the furnace, with a stone cut sloping and placed on the inside. This plate has a notch on the top for the cinder or scruff to run off, and a place at the side to ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... jerk, thus liberating the dog, who began to prance about his master. A second pull revealed Nugget's legs thrashing wildly about on the grass. The dog immediately made a dart at them, but the farmer caught him by the scruff of the ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... and had jumped squarely upon one soft, outstretched paw. The dog sprang up with a howl of pain, the school stopped its singing, and the angry teacher left the rostrum and advanced toward the little girl. The next moment he dragged the dog from under the bench by the scruff of the neck and hurled him out of the door; the next, he shook an admonishing finger in the very face of ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... for the best," said the other, "and I s'pose the right and proper thing to do is to take him by the scruff of his neck and run him along ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... to the door, Nada with her bundle and Roger with his pack. Suddenly he felt Peter at his side, and reaching down he fastened his fingers in the scruff of his ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... cap firmly with the one hand and him by the scruff of the neck with the other; and says I to him, 'Little man, ye'll not be getting this back till ye've fetched me a dinner fit for a tinker.' 'Well, and good,' says he, 'but ye can't find that this side of the King's Hotel, Dublin; and that will take time.' 'Take the time,' says I, 'but get ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... could. I tried twice or thrice, but could only squash a tenth of the juice of the fruit into my mouth. She had glorious white teeth. Her grin clearly frightened the leopard, as well as a pinch she gave him in the 'scruff' of the neck with one of her hands, while with the other she caught hold of his tail and made him yell. How he roared! He fell off the branch on to another; but soon, like all the cats, recovered his ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... They remain in the memory. And it was a thrilling scene they fitted into. One must never forge that: The little hospital transport lying in the Channel in a choppy sea that ran streaks of foam; the grim turret and the long whaleback of a U-boat in the foam scruff; and the sun lying on the scrubbed ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... figuratively he seized Michael Lanyard by the scruff of his neck and shook him with a savage hand. What insensate folly was ever his, what want of wit and strength to keep out of temptation's ways! Why must he have fallen in so readily with her suggestion? Why this infatuate thirst ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... more than enough; - Twenty impatient hands and rough, By arm and leg, and neck and scruff, Apron, 'kerchief, gown of stuff - Cap and pinner, sleeve and cuff - Are clutching the Witch wherever they can, With the spite of woman and fury of man; And then—but first they kill her cat, And murder her dog on the very mat - And crush ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... from sheer surprise). For three months this winsome game went undetected until one day her mother—Kia-oopoo—discovered her creeping in at her grandmother's door with a basket full of "ouliaries." Catching her daughter by the scruff of the neck she proceeded to administer several sharp slaps with great precision—the while murmuring "Ah! Ah!" in tones of rebuke. And thus, we are informed, was originated a name that was destined to be handed down to every reigning queen of the ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... had more of a struggle than ever to wash and dress her. Indeed at one time nothing but holding her by the scruff prevented her from getting away from him, but at last he achieved his object and she was washed, brushed, scented and dressed, although to be sure this left him better pleased than her, for she regarded her ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... shall be able to show him a law-abiding country. I have missed you, Bones, but had you been near on more occasion than one, I should not have missed you. Bones, were you ever kicked as a boy? Did any good fellow ever get you by the scruff of your neck and the seat of your trousers and chuck you into an evil-smelling pond? Try to think and send me the name of the man who did this, that I may send ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... far above the heads of those who heard it. They breathlessly followed the movements of the "Great Power"; they had come completely out of shelter. In Pelle an irrational impulse sprang into being. He made a leap forward, but was seized by the scruff of the neck. "One is enough," said Bergendal, and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... an age of communication; we can send a bit of news half way round the world in a few seconds, we can make it known to a whole city in a few hours. And so it was with this "prophet fresh from God"; in spite of himself, he was seized by the scruff of the neck and flung up to the pinnacle of fame! He had all the marvels of a lifetime crowded into one day—enough to fill a whole ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... to me, Mary! Do you mean to deny that James Parsons is infantry, or that his father was infantry before him? But he shall marry you now. By George! he shall marry you if I have to lead him to the altar by the scruff ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... with, you'd better say. He's been taken to the hospital, your Mishka; his foot was crushed by an iron bar. Go away, mate, while you're asked to civilly, go away, or I'll chuck you out by the scruff of ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... head Chief, "he kin come in, but that don't spile my claim to that left half of his scalp down to that tuft of yellow moss on the scruff of his neck where the collar has wore off the dirt. I'm liable to call for it any time, an' the ear goes ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... you it was no laughing matter," said the other, angrily, "I nearly took the little whippersnapper by the scruff of the neck and ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... lad, with my hind legs tied in a knot round a big bough; and I keep on trying to get hold of you by the scruff, but I ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... the fog contemptuously with the edge of his palm. "You can't talk that stuff to me!" She understood the futility of appeal; he turned from her and she looked for a moment on the bulging scruff of his ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... pleasure to witness the dismay in Mr. Close's face when Aubrey returned, bringing him, mentally, by the scruff of the neck. I have seen terriers yanked back to look at things they have "worried" in much the same manner that Mr. Close ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... children off the same last, and they're goin' to stay the same!' Why, Miss Hands, she wouldn't so much as allow they could think different. If they got to scrappin', same as all boys do, y'know, Ma would take 'em by the scruff of their necks and haul 'em up to the looking-glass. 'Look at there!' she'd say. 'Do you see them boys? do you see the way they look? Now I give you to understand that your souls inside is just as much alike as your bodies outside. I ain't sure but ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... angry growls they turned from Tibo upon the ape-man, as, with a smile upon his lips, he ran toward them. For an instant one of the animals stood its ground; but the ape-man did not deign even to draw his hunting knife against despised Dango. Rushing in upon the brute he grasped it by the scruff of the neck, just as it attempted to dodge past him, and hurled it across the cavern after its fellow which already was slinking into ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... front of the king's palace. This time no nobles and great lords and courtiers were waiting for his coming; but instead of that the town hangman—a great ugly fellow, clad in black from head to foot. Up he came to the beggar, and, catching him by the scruff of his neck, dragged him up the palace steps and from room to room until at last he flung him down ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... Words: nape, cervical, scruff, atlas, axis, palea, dewlap, scrag, gula, nucha, auchenium, decollete, jugular, jugulum, wattle, wimple, wryneck, torticollis, Adam's apple, splenius, ruche, colliform, fichu, withers, gorget, carotid, goiter, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... young man," Cap'n Abe said, with sternness, "and belay that sort o' talk afore Cap'n Am'zon when he does come. He's lived a rough sort o' life. He's nobody's tame cat. Doubt his word and he's jest as like as not to take ye by the scruff of the neck and duck ye ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... said lightly, "is going to the Plateau if I have to drag him there by the scruff ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... and inquire if anything was the matter, and I civilly asked them to go and ask the leopard in the bush, but they firmly refused. We found the dog had got her shoulder slit open as if by a blow from a cutlass, and the leopard had evidently seized the dog by the scruff of her neck, but owing to the loose folds of skin no bones were broken and she got round all right after much ointment from me, which she paid me for with several bites. Do not mistake this for a sporting adventure. I no more thought it ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... "I see! And is she then so very strong?" "She'd take your honour's scruff," said he "And pitch you over to Bolong!" "I pardon you," the Captain said, "The ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... 'a' let me. I fair tried to scrag 'un. But Mr. Dale he druv at me wi' 's fist, and kep' a bunching me off wi' 's knees, and then when all the wind and the wickedness was gone out o' me, he tuk me behind th' scruff a' the neck and just paddled me along like ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... about that until all of a sudden he heard a little bark and looked behind, and there on the red runner, hanging on for dear life, was little Wienerwurst. Marmaduke reached down, and picked him up by the scruff of his neck, and set him on his lap, under the robe, so that ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... of rain," said the Boy, whereupon the Tenor seized him by the scruff of the neck and shook him incontinently. For a moment after he was released, the Boy seemed to be overcome by astonishment; but this was rapidly succeeded by an attack of the malady he had declared to be congenital, apparently brought on by the shock of the chastisement, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... quite fruitless. Staff calmly counted out the right amount, put it in the man's hand, listened with critical appreciation to the resultant flow of profanity until it verged upon personality, then deliberately dragged the man by the scruff of his neck, choking and cursing, from his seat ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... all have been beseeching him not to till now, if I had not taken him by the scruff of the neck and dropped him ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... advancing the great Cause. And Short, shivering discontentedly at the cold, or swearing amid much perspiration at the heat, would smoke his pipe and eat his unattractive pastry, whilst crawling into his rugs and banners, until Beppe, in an outburst of indignation, drags him out by the scruff of the neck and compels him to ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... that," said the baker. "We a' ken what Gourlay is. He would have flung Gilmour out by the scruff o' the neck if he had daured to ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... did not baffle our William. He approached from a flank, deftly twitched the infant out of its cradle by the scruff of its neck, and commenced to plaster it with tender kisses. However the red man tailed it as it went past and hung on, kissing any bits he could reach. When the mother reappeared they were worrying the baby between them as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... the gentry up for'ard are bussed up comfortably like fowls for cooking. No one has been hurt; Malie's men simply picked the mongrels up by the scruff of their necks and then tied them up. The ship ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... fetch him, and it did. He comes at me wide open, with a guard like a soft-shell crab. I slips down the state-room passage, out of sight of Sir Peter, catches Danvers by the scruff, chucks him into a berth, and ties him up with the sheets, as careful as if he ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... [impatiently.] He is surely, and leaving me lonesome on the scruff of the hill. (She gets up and puts envelope on dresser, then winds clock.) Isn't it long the nights are now, Shawn Keogh, to be leaving a poor girl with her own self counting the hours to the dawn ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... to the plank, having slipped on it. We managed to rescue him from a watery grave. I must tell you that all of this was out in the open within 200 yards of the German trenches, as we were crossing from company to company. My escort also fell at this bridge, but I caught him by the scruff of the neck, thereby preventing him getting into the water. I suppose Oakfield, my old home in Nova Scotia, taught me a bit about roughing it, so, elderly man that I am, I can keep fairly steady ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... back by the scruff of the neck. Ere you have reached the station you will have brought it back about forty times. Do not despair. Continue. Keep it up. You will succeed. You cannot by any chance fail if you persevere. ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... Lord cared He could take Black Jock by the scruff o' the neck an' fling him into hell oot o' the road. It's Black Jock that's at the bottom o' this, an' I could twist his dirty neck ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... all young calves had been branded and had rejoined their mothers. There still remained about thirty unbranded steers which were too big to scruff. One or two of them were nearly four years old, wild creatures which had refused to be mustered year after year until now. The ropes were brought into use for these cattle. The big cleanskins were driven ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... said, 'I went to chapel, an' took my whip with me. I meant to scruff Shine before the lot o' them, an' lash ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... this breed of dog, but abroad it is popular: it has no tail and looks like a pig—when things are going well with it. This particular specimen, when I saw him, looked more like part of a doormat. The fox-terrier had seized it by the scruff of the neck and had rolled it over into the gutter just in front of a motor cycle. Its owner, a large lady, had darted out to save it, and had collided with the motor cyclist. The large lady had been thrown some half a dozen yards against an Italian boy carrying ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... sirrah, come down! no pardon for you now." He pulled Jasmin from his chair and table, and the empty jar fell broken at his feet. "Get out, get out of this house, thou imp of hell!" And taking Jasmin by the scruff of the neck, he thrust him violently out of the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... were gone, as in contumely we called them—"If you break my bag on my head," said one, "how will feed thence to-morrow?"—and after old Cop with clang of iron had jammed the double gates in under the scruff-stone archway, whereupon are Latin verses, done in brass of small quality, some of us who were not hungry, and cared not for the supper-bell, having sucked much parliament and dumps at my only charges—not ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... face of the night prowler even in death. Garry seized it by the scruff of the neck, and ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... a wedding. Chap who stands by the bridegroom with a hand on the scruff of his neck to see that he goes through with it. Fellow who looks after everything, crowds the money on to the minister at the end of the ceremony, and then goes off and mayries the first bridesmaid, ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... roosting next to the cock; then his eye fell upon Pigling Bland, squeezed up in a corner. He made a singular remark—"Hallo, here's another!" —seized Pigling by the scruff of the neck, and dropped him into the hamper. Then he dropped in five more dirty, kicking, cackling hens upon the ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... temper to its throne. He seized Connery by the scruff of his coat, jerked him to his feet, ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... over to see me, and before his car stopped Malachi let me know that Bettina was sitting beside the chauffeur. He greeted her by the scruff of the neck as she hopped down; and I greeted Mrs. Godfrey, Attley, ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... said Mr. Upton, with unimaginable irony. "I'd like to take him by the hand—and those infernal Knaggses by the scruff of their dirty necks—and that old ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... again on our way we consume this cold meat, together with bread brought from last night's rendezvous. By reason of his social inferiority the mudbake is now required to assume the burden of carrying the youthful goat; he takes the poor kid by the scruff of the neck and flings it roughly across his saddle in a manner that causes the gleeful spirits of the khan to find vent in a peal of laughter. Even the usually imperturbable countenance of the mirza lightens up a little, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... and would have made an end of her in less than one minute if Ah Foo had not been there. But Ah Foo could move almost as quickly as a cat; and it was not a quarter of a second after Fairy gave her piteous cry, when she was safe and sound in her mistress's arms, and Ah Foo had Skipper by the scruff of his neck, and was holding him high up, boxing his ears, right and left, with blows ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... finished his forty-fifth fight one spring when Matkah, his soft, sleek, gentle-eyed wife, came up out of the sea, and he caught her by the scruff of the neck and dumped her down on his reservation, saying gruffly: "Late as ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog, and then took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and half threw it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The moment it touched the stone the poor thing began to tremble. It did not try to get away, but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was in such a pitiable state of terror that I tried, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker |
