"Catcher" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all!" he cried; "I am a devil of a catcher," and, feeling the air cautiously, he moved forward like a bear about to hug. He caught no one. Christian and Greta whisked under his arms and left him grasping at the air. Mrs. Decie slipped past with astonishing agility. Mr. Treffry, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... once we think of kings and aristocracies, and of world-wide celebrities in soldierships, the arts, letters, etc., and we stop there. But that is a mistake. Rank holds its court and receives its homage on every round of the ladder, from the emperor down to the rat-catcher; and distinction, also, exists on every round of the ladder, and commands its ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... night at the Scollays' and my plan for trapping the spies. My self-respect as a criminal catcher was distinctly soothed to hear her hearty approval ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... conflagration, and, in place of recognising, like the rest of the world, that the moist straw had taken fire of its own accord, they suspected that it was a case of revenge. It proceeded, no doubt, from Maitre Gouy, or perhaps from the mole-catcher. Six months before Bouvard had refused to accept his services, and even maintained, before a circle of listeners, that his trade was a baneful one, and that the government ought to prohibit it. Since that time the man prowled about the locality. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... starting place. They required a special sort of swift car to throw them into the air, but such a car was efficient in any open place clear of high buildings or trees. Human aeronautics, Graham perceived, were evidently still a long way behind the instinctive gift of the albatross or the fly-catcher. One great influence that might have brought the aeropile to a more rapid perfection had been withheld; these inventions had never been used in warfare. The last great international struggle had occurred before the usurpation ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... don't care for me a bit," she said once. "I am only another form of 'ze sensation'—like going up in a balloon or riding on the cow-catcher." ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... strongly recurved, like those of Lilium superbum. Occasionally a specimen is met which has from two to five flowers hung in a loose panicle. People oftentimes travel far to see curious plants like the carnivorous darlingtonia, the fly-catcher, the walking fern, etc. I hardly know how the little bells I have been describing would be regarded by seekers of this class, but every true flower-lover who comes to consider these Utah lilies will surely be well ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... who had been studying birds in the Park. Berkeley was written all over him. A thin, pure type. He was dressed in field glasses and a bag full of green weeds and stout walking boots. There was an ecstatic glint in his eye which meant that he had discovered a long-billed, yellow-tailed Peruvian fly-catcher, ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... have to give orders about my new bridle and saddle-cloth, and speak to the rat-catcher about his dogs: Miss Grey must go ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... dog-catcher," said Mr. Maclin. "But it won't happen again. I've paid his tax and bought him a collar. See, there's a place on it for his owner's name. But, of course, I couldn't have it engraved, for he seems to have no owner. Miss Clementina, don't you think it a pity ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... instrument, upon which he played with a somewhat specious but effective art. He did not try to make you forget his ugliness; he flaunted it in your face and made it part of the charm of his speech. Shutting your eyes, you would have trailed after this rat-catcher's pipes at least to the walls of Hamelin. Beyond that you would have had to be more childish to follow. But let him play his own tune to the words set down, so that if all is too dull, the art of music may ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... thou hast done more with thy good words than all they could with their weapons: give me thy hand, keep thy promise now for the king's pardon, or, by the Lord, I'll call thee a plain coney-catcher. ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... pleased to regard me as a suitable person to wear this, one of Scotland's many famous names. Considering the noble hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson, I have felt that he, better than I, illustrated the virtues of the great Scottish chief. Sure I am, that had any slave-catcher entered his domicile, with a view to molest any one of his household, he would have shown himself like ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... common law, common pleas, or common causes in the court of King's Bench or Chancery. The Speaker's parliamentary dinners are splendid spreads for poor senators; but sometimes the feast is infested with rats, whom his majesty's royal rat-catcher immediately cages, and contrives, by the aid of a blue or red ribband, to render extremely useful and docile. Your orthodox ministers dine on tithes, turtle, and Easter offerings, until they become as sleek as their own velvet cushions, and eke from charity to mankind ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... made up of three flat cars, two armored cars, and between them the engine, with three cars coupled to the cow-catcher and two to ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... Soon a scorpion-catcher came by; and he asked them why they were crying. "A panther has devoured our mother and brother," said the girls. "He has gone now, but he is sure to return and devour ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... passionate devotion. He is informed that Pamina has been stolen by Sarastro, the high-priest of Isis, and imprisoned by him in his palace. He vows to rescue her, and for that purpose is presented by the ladies with a magic flute, which will keep him safe in every danger, while Papageno, a bird-catcher, who has been assigned to him as companion, receives a glockenspiel. Three genii are summoned to guide them, and the two champions thereupon proceed to Sarastro's palace. Tamino is refused admittance by the doorkeeper, but Papageno in some unexplained way ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... why don't you take the cow-catcher off the engine and put it behind the car here? As it is now, there ain't a thing to hinder a cow from strolling into a ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... somewhat an aquiline nose, made like the handle of a razor. He was at that time five and thirty years old or thereabouts, fine to gild like a leaden dagger—for he was a notable cheater and coney-catcher—he was a very gallant and proper man of his person, only that he was a little lecherous, and naturally subject to a kind of disease which at that time they called lack of money—it is an incomparable grief, yet, notwithstanding, he had three ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... an in-door game with out-door weapons. The soft-headed, eight foot spears of the tilting-match are used. The contestants stand on barrels eight feet apart. Each tries to put the other off his barrel. It is well to have a catcher behind each player to save him if ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... crimes laid to the charge of the dramatist Robert Greene was that of fraudulently disposing of the same play to two companies. 'Ask the Queen's players,' his accuser bade him in Cuthbert Cony-Catcher's Defence of Cony-Catching, 1592, 'if you sold them not Orlando Furioso for twenty nobles [i.e. about 7 pounds], and when they were in the country sold the same play to the Lord Admiral's ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... her mistress, laid her on her bed, unlaced her, undressed her, and restored her, not to life, it is true, but to the consciousness of some dreadful suffering. I meanwhile walked up and down the path behind the house, weeping, and doubting my success. I only wished to give up this part of the bird-catcher which I had so rashly assumed. Madame Gobain, who came down and found me with my face wet with tears, hastily went up again to ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... seriously. At the end of the third inning, with the score standing five to four in favor of the sophomores, a radical change was made. The batter was blindfolded and compelled to stand upon an upturned barrel, which was substituted for the home plate. The pitcher and catcher were each also to stand upon a barrel and the pitcher was ordered to throw the ball with his left hand. Naturally it was impossible for the batter to hit the ball, since he was blindfolded, and when three strikes had been called he tore the bandage from ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... the "run," and the sockeye season was almost over. For that reason I wondered many times why my old friend, the klootchman, had failed to make one of the fishing fleet. She was an indefatigable workwoman, rivalling her husband as an expert catcher, and all the year through she talked of little else but the coming run. But this especial season she had not appeared amongst her fellow-kind. The fleet and the canneries knew nothing of her, and when I enquired of her ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... perfection. All the requisite nervous connections are fully established during the brief embryonic existence of each creature. In the case of lower animals it is almost as much so with the few simple actions which make up the creature's mental life. The bird known as the fly-catcher no sooner breaks the egg than it will snap at and catch a fly. This action is not so very simple, but because it is something the bird is always doing, being indeed one out of the very few things that this bird ever does, the nervous connections ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske
... absorption. The moisture of which the air is never deprived penetrates them slowly; it dilutes the thick contents of their tubes to the requisite degree and causes it to ooze through, as and when the earlier stickiness decreases. What bird-catcher could vie with the Garden Spider in the art of laying lime-snares? And all this industry and cunning for the capture ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... toward Ioco a similar goal was prepared. Every time the ball should be thrown over either goal the play would count one for the proximate town, and the game was of twelve or twenty points according to compact, the catcher of the twentieth ball being entitled to especial honor. It was of course the object of each side to throw the ball over the goal toward their own town, and to prevent it from going in the direction of the town of ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... war or for a long journey to the distant bazaar of Chinese traders in the lower part of the river; the necessity of removing to a new site; an epidemic of disease; the rites of formally consulting the omens, or otherwise communicating with and propitiating the gods; the operations of the soul-catcher. The more important of these incidents will be described in later chapters. Here we need only give a brief account of the way in which some of them affect the daily round of ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... tremendous chronicles bequeathed to the world by those Froissarts and Holinsheds of crime—the Ordinaries of Newgate. His vocal collection comprised a couple of flash songs pasted against the wall, entitled 'The Thief-Catcher's Prophecy,' and the 'Life and Death of the Darkman's Budge;' while his extraordinary mechanical skill was displayed in what he termed (Jack had a supreme contempt for orthography,) a 'Moddle of his Ma^{s}. Jale off ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in question (he is a very pleasant Ratcatcher, with a tenor voice) did this because he knew no better. Try to realise that even a Ratcatcher knows St. George of England was not black, and did not kill the Dragon with an umbrella. The Rat-catcher is not under this delusion; any more than Paul Veronese thought that very good men have luminous rings round their heads; any more than the Pope thinks that Christ washed the feet of the twelve in a Cathedral; any more than the Duke of Norfolk thinks the lions ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... tame, and allowed me to approach it very closely. I did not see any others at that time amongst the fir-trees, though no doubt a few others were there. On my return to Guernsey on the following day I was requested by a bird-catcher to name some birds that were doing considerable damage in the gardens about the town. Thinking from having seen the one in Sark, and from his description, that the birds might be Crossbills, I asked him to get me one or two, which he said he could ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... the boys. Miss Fosbrook must first look up there, high upon the side of the house, niched behind that thick stem of the vine. What, can't she see those round black eyes and little beak? They see her plain enough. Ah! now she has them. That's a fly- catcher. By and by they shall be able to show her the old birds flying round, catching flies on the wing, and feeding the young ones, all perched ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at widest variance with the truth. College mates of Taylor will recall the deceptiveness of this outward appearance. It concealed muscles of steel and a will that had only to be right in order to be invincible. He was the peer of any amateur baseball catcher in his day, and held the same enviable place as a student of the classics. He was the strong man for the D.K.E. initiations, and took the same ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... field, dodging two or three of the enemy and by some miracle holding the ball out of harm's way all the while. When, at last, thoroughly desperate, he heard someone shout from across the field to throw the ball, he threw it, and not until the catcher had reeled off twenty yards or more toward Brimfield's goal did Carmine discover that he had been cruelly deceived by the Miter Hill right end! Even Mr. Robey, who had been viewing the game rather grimly, had to swing on his heel to hide a smile at that ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... which Poleon had bought from a college man who had retained this emblem of his past to the final moment. Like the boots, it was much too large for little John, and hard to master, but it made a brave display, as did a red cravat, which covered his front like a baseball catcher's harness. Molly had also two sets of side-combs, gorgeously ornamented with glass diamonds, and a silver-handled tooth-brush, with which she scrubbed the lame puppy. This puppy had three legs and the mange, and he ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... happened the night before, a thin wrack blew over the sky, hiding the stars. The place was very still, though now and then would come the cry of a bird from the crags that beetled above me, and from the shore the pipe of a tern or oyster-catcher. An owl hooted from somewhere up on the tower. That I reckoned was Wake, so I hooted back and was answered. I unbuckled my wrist-watch and pocketed it, lest its luminous dial should betray me; and I noticed that the hour was close on eleven. I had already removed ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... wife) was a native of the island of Maraki—a dark-skinned, passionately jealous creature, who had followed his fortunes for three years to his present location, and then developed mal-du-pays to such an extent that the local priest and devil-catcher, one Pare-vaka, was sent for by her female attendants. Pare-vaka was not long in making his diagnosis. A little devil in the shape of an octopus was in Tene-napa's brain. And he gave instructions how to get the fiend out, and also further instructions to one of the girl ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... 'tis Carver, they say, that has the oil of Rhodium for them; for they follow and fawn on him, like rats on the rat catcher—of all sorts and sizes, he has 'em. They say, he sets them over and after one another; and has lations of them that he lets out on the craturs' cabins, to larn how many grains of salt every man takes with his little prates, and bring information ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... from the kitchen to set the table. "Hungry?" she asked. Then, after a moment: "Isn't Tim your catcher ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... "Mount, mount, my worthy mole-catcher! come and behold the prospect of skirting Ishmael; come and look nature boldly in the face, and not go sneaking any longer, among the prairie grass and mullein tops, like a gobbler nibbling ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... king, then Duke of Clarence, was tried in several situations, but failed in them all. At last he was made a postman, but was found drunk one evening with all his letters scattered about him, and, of course, lost his situation. He then took up the employment of rat-catcher, for which, perhaps, he was better qualified than any other. His stock-in-trade consisted of some ferrets and an old terrier dog, and a more extraordinary dog was seldom seen. He was rough, rather strongly made, and of a sort of cinnamon colour, having ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... afforded by a slender slip of antelope's horn (very much resembling whalebone), which forms the core of the loop. Provided with several sets of these nooses, a trained bullock and a shield-like cloth screen dyed buff and pierced with eye-holes, the bird-catcher sets out for the jungle, and on seeing a flock of pea-fowl circles round them under cover of the screen and the bullock, which he guides by a nose-string. The birds feed on undisturbed, and the man rapidly pegs out his long strings of nooses, and when all are ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... more Mandy Ann was utterly absorbed in her enchanting task. So quiet she was over it that every now and then a yellow-bird or a fly-catcher would alight upon the edge of the bateau to bounce away again with a startled and indignant twitter. The woodchuck, having eaten his carrot, curled up in the sun ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... shoulders may be broad; and, if not, it is a thousand to one but he stoops; and if he stoops, and does not turn out his toes, it is impossible he can understand his author. If he is a scholar and a critic, and repeats a line as you never heard it repeated before, he must be a word-catcher. If his manner is graceful, he has studied dancing too much; but if his manner is not graceful, be sure to tell him he must go to the dancing-school. If you can discover no fault, you must prove ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... but Madame MRAVINA apparently not strong enough. "What made author-chap think of calling her Manon?" asks languid person in Stalls. WAGSTAFF, revived after an iced B.-and-S., is equal to the occasion. "Such a bad lot, you know—regular man-catcher; hooked a man on, then, when he was done with, hooked another man on. Reason for name evident, see?" The Cavalleria Rusticana is the favourite for Derby Night. All right up ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... and, as was usual with Togolat, the dirtiest face of her whole tribe. Her husband, Ewerat, a little ugly man of about five-and-forty, was the only individual among them laying claim to the title of Angetkook, and was, in reality, a sensible, obliging man, and a first-rate seal-catcher. They had two children, one of which, a little girl, Togolat still occasionally suckled, and, according to custom, carried in the hood behind her back; the other, a boy about eight years of age, quite an ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... and some goldfinches come calling shrilly and feasting undisturbed upon the seeds of thistles and other plants. The bird-catcher does not venture so far; he would if there was a rail near; but he is a lazy fellow, fortunately, and likes not the weight of his own nets. When the stubbles are ploughed there will be troops of finches and linnets up here, leaving the hedgerows of the valley almost deserted. ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... the tale of the afternoon's performances, beginning with his experience as a lobster catcher. Seth smiled, then chuckled, and finally burst into roars of laughter, in which the ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... disgrace with them. Our going to them to beg seal-blubber would be a very black mark. We should be looked upon much in the light of paupers. No young Husky thinks of proposing to his lady-love till he has become an expert seal-catcher." ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... as accessories in her earlier works. The rustic hermit and philosopher, Patience, and Marcasse the rat-catcher, in Mauprat, are note-worthy examples. In 1844 had appeared Jeanne, with its graceful dedication to Francoise Meillant, the unlettered peasant-girl who may have suggested the work she could not read—one of a family of rural proprietors, spoken of by Madame Sand in a letter of ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... into Carmine's territory that the ball was going. Suddenly Clint saw Carmine start quickly up the field toward them and guessed that the kick was short. Kendall was heading across to interfere for the catcher. ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... am the best little sparker that ever sent an S. O. S. over the blue between drinks of salt water, while swimming on my back around the wireless room chased by a man-eating shark. And as for a catcher, why, my boy, I can receive while ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... twice and his brain cleared. He saw the scurry of uniformed figures to the field, the catcher adjusted his mask. The Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Known stood nonchalantly in the box, stooped for a handful of earth and with it polluted the fair surface of a new ball. A second later the ball shot over the plate. The batter fanned, ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... keen as others for this kind of sport. As early as the tenth century the Emperor Henry I. had acquired the soubriquet of "the Bird-catcher," from the fact of his giving much more attention to his birds than to his subjects. His example was followed by one of his successors, the Emperor Henry VI., who was reckoned the first falconer of his time. When his father, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (Red-beard), ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... vile submission: Alla stucatho carries it away. Tybalt, you Rat-catcher, will you walke? Tib. What wouldst thou haue with me? Mer. Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine liues, that I meane to make bold withall, and as you shall vse me hereafter dry beate the rest of the eight. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... car off the track in a jiffy. And Mrs. O'Burke's new bonnet was all smashed in the ditch, an' the bloody snort of Number Five knocked you senseless. Who would have thought that boost of the cow-catcher was jist clear good luck? And you moped about with a short draw in your chist, and seemed bound to be a grouty old man in the chimney corner that could niver lift a stroke for your childer, ah' you didn't see the good luck, you know, Tim—but when the prisident sent the bran new cow with a card ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... they obtain damages from the city. The city then decides to bring suit against the state. The bench consists of Apollyon himself and Judge Blackstone; Coke appears for the city, Catiline for the state. The first dog-catcher, called to testify, and asked whether he is familiar with dogs, replies in the affirmative, adding that he had never got quite so intimate with one as he got ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield
... long. The creature at once raised its head also, and deliberately spat in his face, filling both eyes with poison. That is the invariable defence of the "Spitting Snake" (Rinkholz in Dutch, and Mbamba Twan or child catcher in Zulu). The pain is agonising. The eye turns red and appears to run with blood, but after a day or two the poison passes off and sight returns. The snake is not otherwise poisonous, but apparently can count on ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... then, just at its highest pitch, the note breaks suddenly at a right angle; clear and clean as if cut with a diamond; then softly and sweetly down the scale once more. Along the shore, too, there is life; guillemot, oyster-catcher, tern are busy there; the wagtail is out in search of food, advancing in little spurts, trim and pert with its pointed beak and swift little flick of a tail; after a while it flies up to perch on a fence and sing with ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... alauda trivialis, or rather perhaps of the motacilla trochilus) still continues to make a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods. The stoparola of Ray (for which we have as yet no name in these parts) is called, in your Zoology, the fly-catcher. There is one circumstance characteristic of this bird, which seems to have escaped observation, and that is, that it takes its stand on the top of some stake or post, from whence it springs forth on its prey, catching ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... are practicing this afternoon, just as your crowd is, Captain Morgan," O. K. was saying. "I would have been with them, only yesterday I happened to hurt a finger a bit, for you see I'm the catcher of our nine, and it was thought best for me to lay off a few days so as to let ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... him; then there was Judith Nunn, by whom he had a daughter, who at the time of his decease might be about ten years old, both mother and daughter being then living. The sixth and last was no less celebrated as Mrs. or Madam Wild, than he was remarkable by the style of Wild the Thief-catcher, or, by way of irony, of Benefit Jonathan. Before her first marriage this remarkable damsel was known by the name of Mary Brown, afterwards by that of Mrs. Dean, being wife to Skull Dean who was executed about the year 1716 or 1717 for housebreaking. ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... at whom the young girl also looked. A slim, straight statue he stood during a full moment, then slowly raised his arms above his head in a gesture of supple grace and ease. The afternoon sun struck across his wind-ruffled brown hair and smiling face, as he gave a brief nod to the catcher and dropped his arm with a lithe, swift movement and turn of his whole body. The white ball shot across, swerving almost at the plate, and crashed ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... Billy Bunny. "I'll go down to the 3 and 1-cent store and buy a fly catcher." So off he went and pretty soon he came back with a great big fly catching box, and after he had set it down, they stood and watched the flies go in until it was so full that not another one could ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... slowly, "I wouldn't give the job of dog-catcher to a man you couldn't trust to stand by ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... it against the woodwork of the sofa and broke it to pieces. "Who was he?" he went on, in increasing rage; "a chaffering jack-pudding. I have made him what he is, the noodle. If I whistle, he dances; he is only the decoy, I am the bird-catcher." Here Hippus tried to whistle a tune, and to execute a few steps. Again the cold sweat rained from his brow, and, taking out his handkerchief, he dried his face, and carefully replaced the rag in his pocket. ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... simply. "Some one staying at Faircloth's Inn possibly. People come there from Marychurch to spend the day during the summer. Old Timothy Proud, the lobster-catcher, who brought him round in his boat, lives at one of the cottages close to the Inn. No," she repeated, "I have no conception who he is, and yet his face seemed familiar. I had a feeling that I knew him quite well—had seen him often, oh! very ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... says, that "In presence of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, while the philosophers were making elaborate dissertations on the danger of the poison of vipers, taken inwardly, a viper catcher, who happened to be present, requested that a quantity of it might be put into a vessel; and then, with the utmost confidence, and to the astonishment of the whole company, he drank it off. Everyone expected the man instantly ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... must maintain that every one of the variations that have rendered possible the changes produced by man, have been determined at the right time and place by the Creator. Every race produced by the florist or breeder, the dog or the pigeon fancier, the rat-catcher, the sporting man, or the slave-hunter, must have been provided for by varieties occurring when wanted; and as these variations were never withheld, it would prove that the sanction of an all-wise and all powerful Being has been given to that ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... very well know the bland emollient saponaceous qualities both of sack and silver, yet if any great man would say to me, 'I make you Rat-catcher to his Majesty, with a salary of L300 a-year and two butts of the best Malaga; and though it has been usual to catch a mouse or two, for form's sake, in public once a year, yet to you, sir, we shall ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... its croolty to animiles to drag a young feller like me along, too. I've got his number. Just you wait, Cele! Remember, Mr. Stone, he played spook-catcher to Miss Ames. That ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... walking along, haling his ass after him by the halter, when a pair of sharpers saw him and one said to his fellow, "I will take that ass from yonder wight." Asked the other, "How wilt thou do that?" "Follow me and I will show thee how," answered the first. So the cony-catcher went up to the ass and, loosing it from the halter, gave the beast to his fellow; then he haltered his own head and followed Tom Fool till he knew the other had got clean off with the ass, when he stood still. The oaf haled at the halter, but the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... we started back there were about ten million buffaloes on the track. If I had been heading into them with the cow-catcher I shouldn't have been afraid. But I had to back into them, and if I had crippled one it would have ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... known to the public as a golfer, Holabird was catcher on the school baseball team, half-back on the eleven, held the gold medal for the inter-class track meet, and, in fact, excelled in all athletic sports. As a scholar he always ranked high. He was devotion itself ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... appeared and challenged Thor to a test of strength and skill, but without waiting for a preconcerted signal, he flung a red-hot wedge at him. Thor, quick of eye and a practised catcher, caught the missile with the giantess's iron glove, and hurled it back at his opponent. Such was the force of the god, that the missile passed, not only through the pillar behind which the giant had taken refuge, but through him and the wall ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... of the Russian and French armies during the campaign from Moscow back to the Niemen were like those in a game of Russian blindman's bluff, in which two players are blindfolded and one of them occasionally rings a little bell to inform the catcher of his whereabouts. First he rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into a tight place he runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to escape runs straight into his ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... attraction up till now, but it didn't take me long to see that we wasn't any more. Them people was all wrapped up in the lad with the gold name-plate, and they was rootin' for him frantic. Last thing he done was to give his eighteen-carat squaw-catcher the once-over with his buckskin buffer, then he shined it at the chief's girl and trotted down to the startin'-line. I noticed that she glued her big-and-liquids on him ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... upon the colonel, and told him that it was not true that the troops had been ordered to arrest fugitive slaves. The colonel threatened to place Captain Shurtleff in arrest, when he exclaimed: "I'll never be a slave-catcher, so help me God!" There were few men in the army at this time who sympathized with such a noble declaration, and, therefore, Captain Shurtleff found himself in ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... your compliments,' he cried gruffly. 'It was with sweet words that you did coax my fingers into that fool-catcher of yours. Now, here is my old headpiece of Spanish steel. It has, as you can see, one or two dints of blows, and a fresh one will not hurt it. I place it here upon this oaken stool high enough to be within fair sword-sweep. Have ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... life can be traced in his Short Studies. But he had not been reared in a literary atmosphere. He had been brought up among horses and dogs, with grooms and keepers, on the moors and the sea. He describes it himself as "the old wild scratch way, when the keeper was the rabbit-catcher, and sporting was enjoyed more for the adventure than for the bag." He never lost his love of sport, and he gave his own son the same training he had himself. Even in his last illness he liked the young man to go out shooting, and always asked what sport ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... employed upon the island with the theodolite Mr. Hunter, my companion, shot seven or eight brace of birds: they were of two kinds; one a species of oyster-catcher and ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... lodge edgewise in the oesophagus, and are best removed by means of an instrument known as a "coin-catcher", which is passed beyond the coin, and on being withdrawn catches it in a hinged flange. In emergencies a loop of stout silver wire bent so as to form a hook makes an ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... altogether satisfactory to be nursed by a professional rat-catcher, and some of the patients are already complaining ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... hoarse treble voice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river, like an amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in. "He lives up the Kennel Yard at Sut Ogg's, he does. He's the biggest rot-catcher anywhere, he is. I'd sooner, be a rot-catcher nor anything, I would. The moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors! you mun ha' ferrets. Dogs is no good. Why, there's that dog, now!" Bob continued, pointing with an air of disgust toward Yap, "he's no more good wi' a rot nor nothin'. I see it myself, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... were cleared, and a train made up to take the first mail through that had passed since the strike began. Soldiers were everywhere—on the tops of cars, on the platforms, inside, on the tender; and riding on the cow-catcher, loaded rifles in hand, were Archie Fettin ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... through the West River Bridge, with the narrer-gage comin' in on one side, an' the Montreal flyer the other, an' the old bridge teeterin' between?" said the Deacon. "Kin you put your nose down on the cow-catcher of a locomotive when you're waitin' at the depot an' let 'em play 'Curfew shall not ring to-night' ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... were some of the other baseball stars in the defeated set—-Dolan, who guarded the middle garden, Sherley whose domain was away off in right, Boggs, the energetic shortstop, Hennessy the catcher, who had taunted Fred and his chums So persistently whenever they came to bat, in hopes of making them nervous, and ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... arguments: but with exasperating ingenuity, he seemed to have taken the wind out of our sails. It is difficult to answer a man who denies the cardinal principle of American democracy,—that a good mayor or a governor may be made out of a dog-catcher. He called this the Cincinnatus theory: that any American, because he was an American, was fit for any job in the gift of state or city or government, from sheriff to Ambassador to Great Britain. Krebs substituted for this ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I am no rat-catcher; But if you need a poison, here is that Will pepper both your dogs, and rats, and cats: Nay, spare your purse: I give this in good will; And, as it proves, I pray you send to me, And let me know. Would you aught ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... the socialists said. "The Grangers have come over to us, the farmers, the middle class, and the laborers. The capitalist system will fall to pieces. In another month we send fifty men to Congress. Two years hence every office will be ours, from the President down to the local dog-catcher." ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... wishes. It happened, while his passions were in full force, that a rat-catcher arrived at Mowbray Hall; which at that time was greatly infested by the large Norway rats. The man had the art of taking them alive, and was accordingly employed by the Squire. While he was preparing to perform his business, the gentle Olivia, very innocently and without any foresight ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... suddenly became possessed and started dancing round the ebony tree and singing some song which he could not clearly catch; and as she danced she called out "The Pig's fat is overflowing: brother-in-law Ramjit come here to me." When she called out like this the quail catcher quietly crept nearer still to her. Although the woman repeatedly summoned him in this way the Bonga would not come out because he was aware of the presence of the onlooker; the woman however got into a passion at ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... but one thou didst go to the house of Nicol Hendry, who is no common catcher of thieves, but a spy of nations whose business is with the great ones of the earth. Tell me: whom did thy ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... beautiful birds may be said to be the wren (Malurus longicaudus, Gould), the grosbeak (Estrelda bella, Lath.), the king-fisher (Alcyone Diemenensis, Gould), the diamond birds (Pardalotus species), and the satin fly-catcher (Myiagra nitida, Gould). None of the birds equal the songsters of Europe, although many have sweet notes, and some are musical, as the magpie (Gymnorhina organicum, Gould), that lively bird whose cheerful notes delight the ear of every traveller at early dawn in the settled ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... stood with a foot on one of the rails and every sense intent, until the first engine's cow-catcher was almost upon him. Then he leaped for his life and stood half-blinded amid whirling ballast and a rushing wind, as, veiled in thick dust, the great box cars clanged by. He was savage with dismay, for it seemed that the engineer had not seen ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... overtake, To ride among this merry company.'" Of course, he was asked to entertain the pilgrims with a puzzle, and the one he propounded was the following. He showed them the diamond-shaped arrangement of letters presented in the accompanying illustration, and said, "I do call it the rat-catcher's riddle. In how many different ways canst thou read the words, 'Was it a rat I saw?'" You may go in any direction backwards and forwards, upwards or downwards, only the successive letters in any reading must always ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... Knights (of Labor) and dames of high degree. He traces his lineage in unbroken line to that haughty Johann Jakob who came to America in the steerage, wearing a Limburger linsey-woolsey and a pair of wooden shoes. Beginning life in the new world as a rat-catcher, he soon acquired a gallon jug of Holland gin, a peck of Brummagem jewelry, and robbed the Aborigines right and left. He wore the same shirt the year 'round, slept with his dogs and invested his groschens in such Manhattan dirt as he could conveniently ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... for fuel, and, there being no smoke or spark-catcher to the chimney or smoke stack, a volume of black smoke, strongly impregnated with sparks, coal, and cinders, came pouring back the whole length of the train. Each of the outside passengers who had an umbrella raised it as a protection against the ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... hands. It was the first familiar experience that had come to him that day. His blood warmed. He sent a twirler over the plate and was greeted by a roar from the Factory 1 men. The ball dropped with a smack into the hands of the catcher. ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... men, who were indeed known from the letters of Hammurabi and the contemporary contracts, but whose functions are not easy to fix. They were the rid sabi and the bairu. By their etymology these titles seemed to mean "slave-driver," and "catcher." But the Code sets them in a clearer light. They were closely connected, if not identical, officials. They had charge of the levy, the local quota for the army, or for public works. Hence "levy-master" and "warrant-officer" are suggestive renderings. For the former official, "taskmaster," ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... person mentioned in the certificate; in vain may he offer to show that the certificate is a forgery; in vain may he urge that the man who signed the certificate was not a commissioner. The little piece of paper costing ten dollars is to save the slave-catcher from "all molestation," not because the writ of habeas corpus is suspended,—O, no! but in consequence ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite; Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds. Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... three Court-ladies began Their trial of who judged best In esteeming the love of a man: Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed Boy-Cupid's exemplary catcher and cager; An Abbe crossed legs to decide on ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... grudgingly a spout of whiteness. The contrivance was placed in sufficiently close proximity to a low wall so that one of the catchers might conveniently sit on the wall and keep the water spouting with a continuous pressure of his foot, while the other catcher manipulated a tin pail with telling effect. Having filled the barrel which rode on the two wagon wheels, we turned it with some difficulty and started it down the street with the tin pail on top; the man in the shafts leaning back ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... exchange birds' eggs with any correspondents of YOUNG PEOPLE. I give the names of some of the birds found here: linnet, tree blackbird, red-winged blackbird, thrush, ash-throated fly-catcher, California canary, ground-sparrow, chipping sparrow, yellow-hammer, California quail, meadow-lark, common swallow, bank swallow, martin, yellow Summer-bird, night-bird, ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... hae ta'en her for a thief catcher, and me for the thief! She wad threpe (insist) 'at I bude to hae keepit some o' the duds 'at happit Ma'colm MacPhail the reprobat, whan first he cam to the Seaton—a puir scraichin' brat, as reid 's a bilet lobster. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... weariness of the people had cast something of a quietus over the hilarity of their sports. They were sitting about in groups, chatting and laughing, while the tireless children were scurrying about in games of "tag," "catcher," and "hide-and-seek." ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... do think, the mole-catcher himself; let us hear what he has to say. "Good morning, Mr. Mole-catcher; have you been setting any more traps to-day? I suppose those unfortunate fellows gibbeted on yonder thorn were caught by you." ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... never before seen anything like it, and wondered if it could be an observatory on wheels, until we noticed that in the forepart of the train was a snow-plough, such as is to be seen on every engine in Norway during mid-winter, a plough which closely resembles an American cow-catcher. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... know," replied the best catcher ever on the Syracuse Nine; "yes, I know what Saint Paul says, but I differ with Saint Paul." And Stevie, unconsciously, was standing on the well-lubricated chute that landed him, soon, well ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... the papers themselves to crawl along down to Washington by a mail train which has never run over a cow since the road was built; for the reason that it has never been able to overtake one. It carries the usual "cow-catcher" in front of the locomotive, but this is mere ostentation. It ought to be attached to the rear car, where it could do some good; but instead, no provision is made there for the protection of the traveling public, and hence it is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cleaner this morning before I started to school. I saw how easily the motor-driven fan sucked in everything in sight. I held the nozzle near a fly on the window pane and zipp—p-p, in went Mr. Fly. I thought right away that a big vacuum cleaner would make a fine moth catcher if we could only get near enough to the moths. And I even figured out a plan for a large one which wouldn't cost very much and could be made mostly of wood. But I knew it was foolish 'cause we couldn't ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... replied the hostess, really deeply interested in the "fly catcher." "I have always wanted to see one of ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... bird-name for the Water-Wagtail; applied in Australia to Seisura inquieta, Lath., the Restless Fly-catcher (q.v.). Seisura is from Grk. seiein (to shake), and 'oura (a tail), being thus equal in meaning to Wagtail. Also called Dishlick, Grinder, and ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... a living illustration of mutual aid, as well as of the infinite variety of characters, individual and specific, resulting from social life. The oyster-catcher is renowned for its readiness to attack the birds of prey. The barge is known for its watchfulness, and it easily becomes the leader of more placid birds. The turnstone, when surrounded by comrades belonging to more energetic species, is a rather timorous bird; but it undertakes to keep watch for ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... a place for you. I'm the champion dog-catcher of the West Branch region." He reached for Parker's collar, but Parker ducked under his arm, and as he came up struck out with a force that sent the astonished giant reeling backward. Fury and desperation were ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... to admit no kind of superiority among one another, except a certain degree of superstitious reverence for their angetkooks, and their tacitly following the counsel or steps of the most active seal-catcher on their hunting excursions. The word nallegak, used in Greenland to express "master," and "lord" in the Esquimaux translations of the Scriptures, they were not acquainted with. One of the young men at Winter Island appeared ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Pewee, like all of its family, is an expert catcher of insects, even the most minute, and has a remarkably quick perception of their near presence, even when the light of day has nearly gone and in the deep gloom of the thick woods. Dr. Brewer describes it as taking its station at the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various
... very queer-looking, and he made her describe its difference from an American train. He said, "Oh, yes—yes, engine," when she mentioned the locomotive, and he apparently prized beyond its worth the word cow-catcher, a fixture which Lydia said was wanting to the European locomotive, and left it very stubby. He asked her if she would allow him to set it down; and he entered the word in his note-book, with several ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... chance of my getting to the woods, I turned around, and ran back to a persimmon tree, and just had time to run up one of the branches when the dogs came upon the ground. I looked and saw the men, Williams the nigger-catcher, and Dr. Henry and Charles Dandridge. As soon as Williams rode up, he told me to come down, but I was so frightened I began to cry, yet came down trembling. The dogs laid hold of me at once, tearing my clothes and biting my flesh. Dr. Dandridge was just riding up, and ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... well-dressed young gentleman might possess—poetry was by no means his proper avocation; "and indeed," concluded the critic, "from his fondness for flowers and for birds, I would venture to suggest that a florist or a bird-catcher is a much more suitable calling for him than ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the court-yard of a parish-union, or working in his frieze jacket on some parish-farm; a boatman, a road-side stone-breaker, a quarryman, a journeyman bricklayer, or his clerk; a shepherd, a drover, a rat-catcher, a mole-catcher, and a hundred other things; in any one of which, he is as different from the sheepish, straw-hatted, and ankle-booted, bill-holding fellow of the print-shop windows, as a cockney is from ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... roaring, stamping tackle of '95 and '96—Ross and Steve McClave—Harry and George Lathrope—Jarvis Geer and Marshall Geer who played with me on teams at both school and college—Billy Bannard and Horace Bannard—Fred Kafer and Dana Kafer, the first named being also the very best amateur catcher I have ever seen. Fred Kafer, by the way, furnished an interesting anachronism in that while he was one of the ablest mathematicians of his time in college he found it wellnigh impossible to remember his football signals! ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... 344 Hudson Av., Chicago, Ill., a catcher's mask, a league ball and 2 cloth-bound books ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... and paid his ten cents for our mutual entertainment with the grace of a Barmecide. I remember, in a more genial season,—I think early summer,—to have found upon the benches of Washington Park a gentleman who informed me that his profession was that of a "pigeon catcher"; that he contracted with certain parties in this city to furnish these birds for what he called their "pigeon-shoots"; and that in fulfilling this contract he often was obliged to go as far west as Minnesota. The details he gave—his methods ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... standing for classes, yet clothed with individuality,—but lacked the skill to work them out. Such is the Bailiff of Hexham, who represents the iniquities of local magistrates. He has four sons,—Walter, representing the frauds of farmers; Priest, the sins of the clergy; Coney-catcher, the tricks of cheats; and Perin, the vices of courtiers. Besides these, we have Honesty, whose business it is to expose crimes and vices. The Devil makes his appearance several times, and, when the old Bailiff dies, carries him off. At last, Honesty exposes the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... agent dozed complacently, her paws tucked under her body. Three flat cars, loaded with bright-painted farming machines, were on the siding above the station, while, on the switch below, a huge freight engine that lacked its cow-catcher sat back upon its monstrous driving-wheels, motionless, solid, drawing long breaths that were punctuated by the subdued sound of its steam-pump ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris |
