"Trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the touching appeal. He chanced to have gone away that morning with Biarne and Hake to visit a bear-trap. A little black bear had been found in it crushed and dead beneath the heavy tree that formed the drop of the trap. This bear had been slung on a pole between the two men, and the party were returning home in triumph ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... modern uneasy woman charges? Are her fetters due only to his unfair domination? Or is she suffering from the generally bungling way things go in the world? And is not man a victim as well as she—caught in the same trap? Moreover, is woman never a tyrant? One of the first answers to her original revolt came from the most eminent woman of the day, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and it was called "Pink and White Tyranny!" "I have seen a collection ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... Newfoundlanders only come to fish in summer, but liveyeres stay the winter. The shop keepers we calls planters. They're set up by traders that has fishin' places. The liveyeres has their homes up the heads of bays in winter, and when the ice fastens over they trap fur. In the summer they come out to the islands ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... waste pipe and the trap," said the foreman; "but you don't know what that is, of course. They're putting in the pipe that the water runs through when it runs ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... your business: and it is not my wish that you should say anything to criminate yourself—certainly not. But in the meantime, that you may see I am not at all in the dark, I tell you that your name is Larry O'Trap, a decent journeyman carpenter by trade, but as much a painter as I am ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... inn, where an old nurse of theirs had settled down. It was therefore arranged to drive so far, and take the train the rest of the way, and Barbara, who had heard a great deal about "the carriage," pictured to herself a little pony and trap, and was looking forward to the drive immensely. What was her astonishment, therefore, when she saw drawn up before the door next day, a little spring cart with a brown donkey ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... his trial when his life is in the balance; or what he suffers while hiding from justice and making futile efforts to escape the pursuing officers of the law; or what his emotions are as his hands are tied and he steps upon the death trap. All this is reproduced in the astral life, repeatedly. As one whose mind is completely filled with a subject—let us say something that is the cause of much anxiety—finds it impossible to turn his attention from it and think of ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... later, the Cat went and hid himself in a cornfield and laid his bag open as before. This time two splendid partridges were lured into the trap, and these also he took to the Palace and presented to the King from the Marquis of Carabas. The King was very pleased with this gift, and ordered the messenger of the Marquis of Carabas to ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... thought that it would be a good idea to make a great rat trap and attract all the rats in the city to it. He had a good deal of work done in the Empire Trust, and rigged up a phonograph with a lot of loud speakers in different parts of the basement. He ran a lot of ropes down a ventilating shaft ...
— The Rat Racket • David Henry Keller
... mind, so that he hardly heeded what Etheldreda answered him. "I thought that Bishop Eahlstan stood by me as in the old days, and minded me of words that I spoke long ago, words that were taught me by a wise woman, who showed me how to trap the Danes, when the tide left their ships aground, so that they had no retreat. Then he said, 'Even again at this time shall victory be when the tide is low.' And I said that Somerset and Dorset would fail not at this ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... could she go? she frantically asked herself. But she must not remain there, for she was well aware of the purpose of Curly's visit. He had planned a plot with the assistance of someone as vile as himself, and had caught her in his trap. But he should not take her in the house, and she knew it would be useless to fasten the door against him. She would meet him in the open, and if it came to the worst she knew what she could do. Her hand touched her heaving ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... face, jest as ef a Yankee pedler was a pizen sarpint! Then there waa-s t'other kind o' human critters, so pesky poor, or 'nation stingy, they'd pinch a fourpence till it'd squeal like a stuck pig. Ye-e-s, I do swow, I've met some critters so dog-ratted mean, that ef you had sot a steel trap onder their beds, a-n-d baited it with three cents, yeou'd a cotch ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... ambuscade, barricading with carts and trees the farther end of the pass. Attacked by the royalists they retreated towards this pass, were hotly pursued, and then turned on their pursuers. Two officers and sixty men were killed in the trap, while the terrified rear-rank fled for their lives to the shelter of their head-quarters. At Ballyraheene, on the 2nd of July, the King's troops sustained another check in which they lost two officers and ten men, but at Ballygullen, on the 4th, the insurgents ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... if I were in a trap. To have to live and treat with daughterly deference a woman who I knew so disliked me that she refused to attend her son's wedding ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... do sing. Or wilt thou sleepe? Wee'l haue thee to a Couch, Softer and sweeter then the lustfull bed On purpose trim'd vp for Semiramis. Say thou wilt walke: we wil bestrow the ground. Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shal be trap'd, Their harnesse studded all with Gold and Pearle. Dost thou loue hawking? Thou hast hawkes will soare Aboue the morning Larke. Or wilt thou hunt, Thy hounds shall make the Welkin answer them And fetch shrill ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Wallach, which was being established at Cheyenne Pass. We made this trip and got back to Fort Laramie about November 1st. I then quit the employ of Russell, Majors & Waddell, and joined a party of trappers who were sent out by the post trader, Mr. Ward, to trap on the streams of the Chugwater and Laramie for beaver, otter, and other fur animals, and also to poison wolves for their pelts. We were out two months, but as the expedition did not prove very profitable, and was rather dangerous ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... barrel of summer apples, a cask of vinegar on two trestles with a pail thriftily set for the drippings, a wire cupboard with plates of food set there for the cellar coolness, and in one corner a little dairy compartment, built over a spring covered by a wooden trap-door, completed the furnishings of the floor. For the rest, the place was a fairly well-stocked tool-house; a scythe and a grindstone, snow-shovel and ladders were arranged compactly; a watering-pot and rake stood fresh from use by ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... off the seat and letting himself gently down into the ditch. His intention was to crawl round it until the shed came in sight. The footsteps which he had heard seemed to be underneath the shed; probably there was a trap-door of some kind in the floor. Whoever it was would have heard their voices, and would probably think it worth while to listen to what they were saying. He might do this merely by opening the door a little without showing himself, ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... the picture had so obviously the best of it; he was thoroughly enjoying his own formidableness; while the boy had the look of an innocent, bright-eyed creature caught in a trap, and wondering miserably what harm it ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... presence there was discovered. He was still dazed and confused; his head ached painfully, and he groped in the pitch darkness without any prospect of escape. He could nowhere find an avenue. So far as he could judge, he was absolutely caught like a rat in a trap. ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... persons had seen the advertisement. There were many among them who wondered if Mr. John Richling could be such a fool as to fall into that trap. There were others—some of them women, alas!—who wondered how it was that nobody advertised for information concerning them, and who wished, yes, "wished to God," that such a one, or such a one, who had had his money-bags ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... not find me, as I knew when the soldiers came down to the boat I would have to divulge. He put me down in a little locker that was forward of the main hatch, and rolled barrels on it to hide the trap-door. Well, they came down, took lights, and searched the boat and hold, the ladies' and gentlemen's cabin, and at last gave up. After I had staid down there for eight hours, the boat left for New Orleans. I came up into the cabin, and you ought to ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... there. The ground was trodden bare. Trees three and four inches thick were broken off. The bark of the larger trees was stripped away. The place was a ruin. A few paces away, among the bushes, there was a bear trap with some claws in it, and an iron chain attached to the middle of a clog about four feet long. The log hovel in which the trap had been set, we found later, a little way back on an old wood road. Evidently a bear had been caught there, perhaps two or three ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... geologists induced at length to reject these views, and to assent to the igneous origin of the trappean formations? By an examination of volcanos now active, and by comparing their structure and the composition of their lavas with the ancient trap rocks. ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... corps from the southern wing of the army retreating by the Suwalki-Sejny causeway and by the Ossowetz Railway, according to accounts from Russian sources, made their way out of the trap ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... trap, and did not quite like it; but Morgante thought nothing worth considering but the feast. "Who cares for the host," said he, "when there's such a dinner? Let us eat as much as we can, and bear off the rest. I always do that when I have the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... surprised exchange of glances from the others, but Mother Corey chuckled. "Heart like a steel trap, cobber," he said, almost approvingly. "Well, you'll be earning your keep here—yours and that granddaughter's, too. Here—you'll ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... as well as you say you do, you want to keep us out of the way of soldiers," he said. "If we fall into a trap you'll be the first man shot on ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... seems that I caught two in my mouse-trap! And all the time the General is so calm, so tranquil, and this household is so peaceful! Things are getting mixed up. I shan't go yet; I wish to have a game of whist! Oh! I give up all thoughts of marriage for the present. (Glancing ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... love a good horse—I have often heard you say so. You love a good horse in spite of the fact that you once harnessed Colonel Jack Chinn's thoroughbred saddle animal to a trap, the subsequent events producing a better story than any you will find in these pages. Nevertheless, my dear sir, they are respectfully, even firmly dedicated ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... fourteen-inch screw! It appeared plainly that we were almost criminally wrong in all our calculations. Shamefacedly we continued to drive nails into the impossible hull, knowing full well—poor misguided heroes—that we were only fashioning a death trap! There could be no doubt about it. The free information bureau was unanimous. It was all very pathetic. Nothing but the tonic of an habitual morning swim in the clear cold river kept us game in the face ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... they would not naturally do, or used chance and coincidence, like the accidentally discovered will or the long-lost relative in melodramas, to bring about a result he prefers—a "happy ending," or a clap-trap surprise, or a supposed proof of some theory about politics ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... after the fall of Sebastopol; and if it was our lot then to be left alone to act the part of the extortioner whilst he acted that of the generous victor, the Queen is doubly glad that we should not now have fallen into the trap, to ask Austria (as friends and neutrals) concessions which he was ready to waive. He will now probably omit no occasion to cajole Austria as he has done to Russia, and turn her spirit of revenge upon Prussia ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... Ela sighed with relief, hoping something had happened after all, to keep Dainty at home; but they would have been horrified if they had guessed that Ellsworth had not telegraphed his aunt, choosing to secure a trap at the station, and have a tete-a-tete drive over the ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... suspicion that, for the sake of obtaining them, she would even be willing to promise to marry Del Ferice. It would be very wrong, perhaps; but it would be for the sake of accomplishing good, by preventing Corona from falling into the trap—Corona, whom she hated! Still, it would be a generous act to save her. The minds of women like Madame Mayer are apt to be a little tortuous when they find themselves hemmed in between their own jealousies, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the worst and most persistent offender!"—scowling at a good-looking youth in white flannels, who immediately blushed distressingly. "Yes, you are, young man! I'm amazed that you have the decency to blush! Your insolent sheet, the Evening Star, refers to my Trust Company as a Green Mouse Trap and a Mouseleum. It also publishes preposterous pictures of myself and family. Dammit, sir, they even produce a photograph of Orlando, the family cat! You did it, I am ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... seeing that she occupied the only chair. He felt that it would take a good deal to explain how and why she thought she could induce him to move the office of the Signal into the kitchen of that female rat trap on the avenue. ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... he was looking the other way. But what a position for her to be in. Supposing he had recognized her, my being so close would have made it none the better for her. And could I be sure that he had not seen her? I did not think he was the kind, of man, with all his faults, to lay a trap even for an enemy whom he suspected; but, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... first visit to the newly-married couple, it amused her to find a state of things differing considerably from her anxious expectations. True, they had only one servant within doors, the woman named Ruth, but she did not represent the whole establishment. Having bought a horse and trap, and not feeling called upon to act as groom, Harvey had engaged a man, who was serviceable in various capacities; moreover, a lad made himself useful about the premises during the day. Ruth was a tolerable cook, and not amiss as a housemaid. Then, the furnishing of the house, though ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... city, that should the old man prove false and give an alarm the whole murderous populace of that district would be around them instantly like a swarm of hornets. But whether he was leading them into a trap or not their only ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... the Duke at Christchurch," said the parson. "He and I were of the same par. He was Lord Mistletoe then. Dear me, that was a long time ago. I wonder whether he remembers being upset out of a trap with me one day after dinner. I suppose we had dined in earnest. He has gone his way, and I have gone mine, and I've never seen him since. Pray remember me to him." Lady Augustus said she would, and did entertain some little increased respect for the clergyman who could boast ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... box, so you couldn't sleep any more. Wa'al, 'Bijah he fixed it all complete, and he sot it at half-past five, But he hadn't mor'n got into it when—dear me! sakes alive! Them wheels began to whiz and whir! I heered a fearful snap! And there was that bedstead, with 'Bijah inside, shet up jest like a trap! I screamed, of course, but 'twan't no use, then I worked that hull long night A-trying to open the pesky thing. At last I got in a fright; I couldn't hear his voice inside, and I thought he might be dyin'; So I took a crow-bar and smashed it ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... immediate session. It was now evident that the disbanding would have to be indefinitely postponed. An extraordinary program to meet the emergency was discussed piecemeal. One of its details had to do with the shipment of arms from Benicia. The committee here fell neatly into the trap prepared for it. In all probability no one clearly realized the legal status of the muskets, but all supposed them already to belong to the State that was threatening to use them. Charles Doane, instructed to take the steps necessary to their capture, called to him ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... the ambulance there—for in the lines the ban against motors is absolute—and drive the remaining twelve miles. A sergeant fished out of a farmhouse a toothless old woman with a furry horse harnessed to a two-wheeled trap, and we started off by round-about wood-tracks. The horse was in no hurry, nor the old lady either; for there were bits of road that were pretty steadily currycombed by shell, and it was to everybody's interest not to cross them before twilight. Jean de Rechamp's ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... urchin is there never Hath had that early scarlet fever, Of martial trappings caught? Trappings well call'd—because they trap And catch full many a country chap To go where fields ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... conspirators could wish; the regent, once entered into Madame de Sabran's house, would—provided he stayed after eleven o'clock, which was probable—be taken as in a trap, and nothing would be easier than to carry out their plan in the Rue des Bons Enfants, one of the most deserted and gloomy places in the neighborhood; moreover, as this street was surrounded by very suspicious houses, and frequented by very bad company, it was a hundred ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the others of his staff, who had manifested some surprise at this command. "I do this, gentlemen," he explained, "that the Germans may be drawn into a trap of our own setting. Not knowing that we have learned their plans, they will probably push the attack with vigor. When we begin to give way they will be confident of the success of their plan. In the meantime ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... any way of letting her know she was getting it. It's no use writin' to those scoundrels of lawyers of hers and telling them. She'd only think it was a trap; or she'd think I'd caved in, and be so cockahoop we should never get any forrader. Then I got the idea. It looks a bit roundabout, but I believe it'll work, I do really. But it'll take a lot of working, and I'm wondering whether that little housekeeper ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... of the wind. I had never imagined so wild and lonely a scene. Behind and around us lay a wilderness of white, desolate peaks, crowded together under a grey, pitiless sky, with here and there a patch of trailing-pine, or a black pinnacle of trap-rock, to intensify by contrast the ghastly whiteness and desolation of the weird snowy mountains. In front, but far below, was the troubled sea, rolling mysteriously out of a grey mist of snowflakes, breaking in thick sheets of clotted ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... the place of an argument often. And stomachs go empty, and brains slowly soften, And sense sick with dizziness, All in the name of the bosh men embody In one clap-trap phrase that dupes many a noddy, That—business ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... Carryvan, also Clevant and Vant, a pyramidal trap for catching birds, quy. colly fang, ...
— A Glossary of Provincial Words & Phrases in use in Somersetshire • Wadham Pigott Williams
... going to use Mr. Le Frank as a means of making mischief between Ovid and Carmina. If you had taken me into your confidence, I might have been willing to help you. As it is, please observe that I am not caught in the trap you have set for me. If Mr. Ovid discovers your little plot, you can't lay the blame ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... was a plain, unvarnished Yank who made his Pile in a Scrub Town situated midday between the Oats Belt and the Tall Timber. He was a large and sandy Mortal with a steel-trap Jaw and a cold glittering Eye. He made his first Stack a Dollar at a Time on straight Deals, but after a while he learned a few Things. He organized Stock Companies and then crawled out after hooking up with the Velvet. Every ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... read Brebeuf's magnificent martyrdom, and turn in, subdued and wondering. By and by the thought occurs to me, Brebeuf, with his good, great heart would spare even that poor humble mousie—and for his sake so will I—I will throw the trap in the fire—jump out of bed, reach under, fetch out the trap, and find him throttled there and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Broderson, and Annixter stared at each other. Their wildest hopes had not dared to fix themselves upon so easy a victory as this. It was not believable that the corporation would allow itself to be fooled so easily, would rush open-eyed into the trap. How had ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... forehead was low, projecting over the eyes, and the sandy hair was plastered down over it and then brushed back at an abrupt right angle. The chin was heavy, the nostrils were low and wide, and the lower lip hung loosely except in his moments of spasmodic earnestness, when it shut like a steel trap. Yet about those coarse features there were deep, rugged furrows, the scars of many a hand-to-hand struggle with the weakness of the flesh, and about that drooping lip were sharp, strenuous lines that had conquered it and taught it to pray. Over those seamed cheeks there was a certain pallor, a grayness ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... you fell into a man-trap!' exclaimed Mrs. Mansell, in horror. 'That will be a warning for Mr. Mansell! I have such a ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dead, and who came out at nights to plunder and kill. In the night, an officer said, mingled with the snarling of carrion dogs, they often heard inhuman cries and rifle-shots coming from that awful wilderness. Once they (the Salvage Company) had put out, as a trap, a basket containing food, tobacco, and a bottle of whisky. But the following morning they found the bait untouched, and a note in ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... one side of it was an opening, which was made perceptible by a very faint glimmer of daylight. I found that this opening was in the side of a well. The water was still far below, and the surface of the earth was about fifteen feet above. The trap-door entrance—so the Brothers assured me—did not exist in the last century, and the only entrance to the cave was by the well. It was, therefore, an admirable hiding-place, for the lateral opening was not ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the moment her safety lay in his hands, a sense of pleasure. That this was her feeling puzzled and disturbed her, for to Ernest Peabody it seemed, in some way, disloyal. And yet there it was. Of a certainty, there was the secret pleasure in the thought that if they escaped unhurt from the trap in which they found themselves, it would be due to him. To herself she argued that if the chauffeur were driving, her feeling would be the same, that it was the nerve, the skill, and the coolness, not the man, that moved ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... all seemed like part of a dream from which she dreaded to awake, but soon there came to her the joy of knowing that all the exquisite things that made appeal to her senses were indeed realities. Almost holding her breath, she walked forward to the open golden doors. "It is a trap," she thought. "By this means does the monster subtly mean to lure me into his golden cage." Yet, even as she thought, there seemed to be hovering round her winged words, like little golden birds with souls. And in her ears they whispered, ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... purposes, gives countenance to the only consignment of one human creature to the power of another that the slow evolution of Justice has left in civilised society. Each says to the girl trapped into unholy matrimony, from whom the right to look inside the trap has been cunningly withheld:—"Back to your lord and master! Go to him, he is your husband—kiss him—take his hand in thine!" Neither is ashamed to enforce a contract to demise the self-ownership ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... "Well;—your great-uncle!—they used to trap the foxes there. There was a fellow named Fothergill who used to come there for shooting. Now it is worse than ever. Nobody shoots there because there is nothing to shoot. There isn't a keeper. Every scamp is allowed to go where he pleases, and ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... of intrigue and dissimulation. Always trying to practise some small fraud upon their masters, and even upon their own people, they are in constant fear that every one is trying to overreach them. They are afraid to answer the simplest question, lest it should be a trap laid to catch them. They ponder over every word and action of their European employers, to find out what hidden intrigue lies beneath, and to devise some counter-plot. Sartorius says that when he has met an Indian and asked his name, the brown man always gave ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... guest long since departed. To empty this cellar was the work of many hours. Then in the safest corner a platform was laid for our bed, and in another portion one arranged for Martha. The dungeon, as I call it, is lighted only by a trap-door, and is so damp it will be necessary to remove the bedding and mosquito-bars every day. The next question was of supplies. I had nothing left but a sack of rice-flour, and no manner of cooking I ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... Lock-up House, Bob felt a few uneasy sensations at hearing the key turned. The leary Bum-trap ushered the Gemmen up stairs, while Tallyho was endeavouring to compose his agitated spirits, and reconcile himself to the prospect before him, which, at the moment, was not of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... The trap had worked! Shane had brought about the admission from the servant that Eunice had refused to make. A smile of satisfaction settled on his ugly features, as he nodded his head ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... native women, Fans clearly, by their bright brown faces, and their loads of brass bracelets and armlets; likely enough they had anklets too, but we could not see them, as the good ladies were pottering about waist-deep in the foam-flecked water, intent on breaking up a stockaded fish-trap. We pause and chat, and watch them collecting the fish in baskets, and I acquire some specimens; and then, shouting farewells when we are well away, in the proper civil ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... long windowless passage connecting two wings of the house, and in this he was feeling his way, fearful of falling down some stair or trap. He came at last to a door—low-browed like almost all in the house. Opening it—was it a thinner darkness or the faintest gleam of light he saw? And was that again the sound he had followed, fainter and farther off than before—a downy wind-wafted plume from the skirt of some ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... of his departure, as he was waiting for the trap to carry him to the station, that Roger's telegram was put ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... trap with two sleepy, disgusted overgrown cats in it—cats which do not thrive well in this cold land, and which do not smell any too sweet and clean. The pyramid of fine-looking picture-elephants is an ugly live elephant or two standing on a beer-keg or two, which is a wonderful ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... representation of this play, the king, who did not know the trap which was laid for him, was present, with his queen and the whole court: Hamlet sitting attentively near him to observe his looks. The play began with a conversation between Gonzago and his wife, in which the lady made many protestations of love, and of never marrying a second husband, if she ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... was as if a trap had been sprung upon her. But this time he ignored the gasp and the sudden cold slackness of the hands he held and went on ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... out from the terrace, swung it skywards. "We were right in wondering about Dr. Atteo," he said. "Half an hour ago, he attempted to go through our home in our absence. We'll have to assume he's a Federation agent. The entry trap knocked him out, but the fat's probably in the fire now. The Federation may not have been ready to make an arrest yet, but after this there'll be no hesitation. We'll have to move fast if we intend to keep ahead of ...
— The Other Likeness • James H. Schmitz
... in our crossing the stony bed of the river, through which a reduced stream only a few inches deep flowed in the centre, and having with difficulty gained the opposite bank a hundred yards distant, we soon arrived in a sort of natural eel-trap formed by a narrow avenue of gigantic olive-trees, the branches of which effectually barred our progress and prevented the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... weather set a trap? If it ketched with bait, or with a hook, and what it ketched? and how? ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... laden. Brown was at one side of the wheel, steering; I was at the other, standing by to 'pull down' or 'shove up.' He cast a furtive glance at me every now and then. I had long ago learned what that meant; viz., he was trying to invent a trap for me. I wondered what shape it was going to take. By and by he stepped back from the wheel and said in his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... won't kill 'em, an' I don't think it hurts 'em much," said the captain, thoughtfully. "Maybe we can rig up some sort of trap that will do the work without killin' 'em. It's time for bed, now, lads, but think it over and, perhaps, we can hit on some scheme. Had we better take turns ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... M.M. intimates that he is no novice in the art of driving, which is fairly true as regards a pony-trap—and the fears of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... Connor was feeling bitterly envious as he went by the offices. He had already seen seven smugly-similar faces when he came by Room Eight. Suddenly the face of its occupant contorted in agony, then the man got up and paced about as if in a trap. Deciding he had seen more than was good for him, Connor hurried on. But the man in Nine was acting out the same curious drama. He quickly retraced his steps, passing one scene of consternation after another, and went back down to the work floor, wondering what ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... a hunter who used often to spend the whole night stalking the deer or setting traps for game. Now it happened one night that he was watching in a clump of bushes near the lake for some wild ducks that he wished to trap. Suddenly he heard, high up in the air, a whirring of wings and thought the ducks were coming; and he strung his bow and got ready his arrows. But instead of ducks there appeared seven maidens all clad in robes made ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... of assiduous trapping, however, Kane felt bound to acknowledge that this modest ambition of his seemed remote from fulfilment. Every kind of trap he could think of, that would take a beast alive, he tried in every kind of way. And having run the whole insidious gamut, he would turn patiently to run it all over again. Of course, the result was inevitable, for no beast, not even such a one as the Gray Master, is a match, in ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... lowered its own living cord, to take fresh hold of the foul soil below); the web of roots, which stretched away inland till it was lost in the shades of evening—all seemed one horrid complicated trap for him and his; and even where, here and there, he passed the mouth of a lagoon, there was no opening, no relief—nothing but the dark ring of mangroves. Wailing sadly, sad-colored mangrove-hens ran off across the mud ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... lid. We know that if it does not reach all the way up, the box will not be divided into two compartments. It will be only partly divided. The Titanic was only partly divided. She was just sufficiently divided to drown some poor devils like rats in a trap. It is probable that they would have perished in any case, but it is a particularly horrible fate to die boxed up like this. Yes, she was sufficiently divided for that, but not sufficiently divided to ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... crisis was impending. It was known that the French-British armies confronted German armies of equal, if not of superior strength. In Paris and London the military critics wrote optimistically that the Germans were marching into a trap. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... well they got there first," went on the mayor of Lakeville. "This looked like a bad blaze, and if it had got beyond control the whole house would have gone. It's as dry as tinder, and a regular death-trap." ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... to this. Then Queen Guinevere rose with all her attendants and went into the courtyard. Their horses were brought them and they mounted. Sir Lancelot was the last to pass out of the banquet hall. As he was going through the door he stepped upon a trap which Sir Malgrace had prepared for him. The trapdoor fell and dropped him into a ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... stood, a door opened, and Margaret came into the hall; she saw him in a moment; and he divined that she had not known he was within, but had meant only to pass through; for she stopped short as though irresolute, and looked at him with a wild and imploring gaze, like a forest thing caught in a trap. ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a trap, escaped with the loss of his "brush." Henceforth, feeling his life a burden from the shame and ridicule to which he was exposed, he schemed to bring all the other Foxes into a like condition with ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... a ride I have given children in India," said Umboo. "But that was after I was caught in the jungle trap ...
— Umboo, the Elephant • Howard R. Garis
... her rigging in order to look down on our decks, and as he went up, my father bade our men crawl over to windward, so that he should see all one gunwale lined with men, and so think that both were, and deem that we were setting a trap for them in order to entice them alongside by pretending to be hardly manned. At the same time, he sent the ladies and children into the cabin, so that ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... effected by a bill introduced by Lord Suffield, which abolished the practice of setting spring-guns and other engines of destruction for the preservation of game. This bill, which passed into a law, declared it to be a misdemeanour in any person to set a spring-gun, man-trap, or other engine calculated to kill, or inflict grievous injury, with the intent that it should destroy life, or occasion bodily harm to any trespasser or other person who might come into contact with it. An exception was made in favour of gins and traps for the destruction of vermin, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... sight-seeing in their cosy little pony carriage. It is a nice little two-wheeled affair. I believe the orthodox name of it is a croydon. It carries four, who sit back to back, while the back seat turns up when not wanted. It was in quite a different trap that I rode in on my visit to Glenveigh. During my journey there we talked, my guide and I, of what constitutes a good landlord. It was a negative sort of goodness which he expected from the good landlord—"that he would not harry the tenants ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... pranks, As very infants prattle of thy pride. Thou art a most pernicious usurer, Froward by nature, enemy to peace; Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems A man of thy profession and degree; And for thy treachery, what's more manifest In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life, As well at London-bridge as at the Tower. Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts are sifted The king, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt From envious malice ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... hove on the rocks. She violently rises and falls, and then we are cast, as it were, into the smooth water of the lagoon, though still carried upward for some distance. It strikes me at the moment that we are like mice caught in a trap, and that it must depend on the pacific disposition of the natives whether or ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... is a simplistic and inaccurate picture of religious teachings. Mr. Cranmer-Byng, like many cross-cultural scholars, seems to have fallen into the trap of seeing only noble things afar, and only ignoble things at hand. As counter-examples, there are numerous schools of Buddhism, some of which DO offer a type of heaven; and the Confucian ideal of reciprocity can easily be, and often has been, misinterpreted in the same way as ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... Custis, "and that the murderer will never be discovered. If there is any spirit of the McLanes left in my brothers and nephews, they will wipe out, in blood, the insult of this marriage between my daughter and the man who set a trap upon the honor of ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... news of her young brothers besides this. Bob and Fred were enamored of the radio. They were ingenious lads. Nell said she believed they could rig a radio set with a hair-pin and a mouse-trap. But she was going to help them obtain a fairly good set; only, because of the shortage of funds at the parsonage, Bob and Fred would be obliged themselves to make every part that ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... stuffed you up with gooseberries, or swung you on gates, or lifted you over puddles to save your petticoats? I wonder what has become of that boy whom I hit in the eye with my bow and arrow, or of that other lout who pummelled me into the middle of next week for disturbing his bird-trap? By the way, is the Squire—is Roger ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... together. Now such was the fashion of her castle that it was built forth over the sea, and there were certain chambers therein whereunder the sea flowed; in such a chamber Thorstein and Spes ever sat; and a little trap-door there was in the floor of it, whereof none knew but those twain, and it might be opened if there were ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... marster did. W'en Mars Dugal' went ter de sale whar he got Dilsey en Mahaly, he bought ernudder han', by de name er Wiley. Wiley wuz one er dese yer shiny-eyed, double-headed little niggers, sha'p ez a steel trap, en sly ez de fox w'at keep out'n it. Dis yer Wiley had be'n pesterin' Dilsey 'fo' she come ter our plantation, en had nigh 'bout worried de life out'n her. She didn' keer nuffin fer 'im, but he pestered her so she ha' ter th'eaten ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... officer, and mark the change that sweeps over the latter. His eyes seem to flash fire, and his pallid face—thin with suffering and loss of blood—flushes despite his physical weakness. His handsome mouth sets like a steel-trap. ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... opponent, "I'll stay where I am until that's done, and chance it. I'd rather have a cold than be drowned in my cabin, like a rat in a trap." ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... and she stood up, and unfastened her hooks. 'Perhaps Dr. May would let me go back now!' as a mountain of mohair and scarlet petticoat remained on the floor, upborne by an over-grown steel mouse-trap. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... youth, with a melancholy look; 'a room—I remember I slept in a room, a large lonesome room at the top of a house, where there was a trap-door in the ceiling. I have covered my head with the clothes often, not to see it, for it frightened me: a young child with no one near at night: and I used to wonder what was on the other side. There was a clock too, an old clock, in one corner. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... returned to France, and bought a small house at Les Tulettes, about three leagues from Plassans. He fitted up his establishment by degrees, and even became possessed of a horse and trap. Where the money came from no one knew, but it was believed that his brother Pierre Rougon was keeping him. Notwithstanding this, he had great ill-will towards the Rougons, and lost no opportunity of annoying them. Partly with this object, ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... restorative to a man exhausted with fatigue. The peasant, who was watching me narrowly, judged of the truth of my story by the sincerity of my appetite. All of a sudden, after having said that he saw perfectly well that I was a good and true young fellow that did not come to betray him, he opened a little trap-door by the side of his kitchen, went down and returned a moment afterwards with a good brown loaf of pure wheat, the remains of a toothsome ham, and a bottle of wine, the sight of which rejoiced my heart more than all the ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... old Metzeger's desk the exact sum of five dollars and eighty-seven cents. One less gifted as to human nature would have said, "Thank you!" and laid down five dollars and ninety cents. Bean fell into neither trap. Metzeger looked quickly at the clock and silently took the money. He had become the prey of a ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... broke in, rudely; "you need not trouble yourself to repeat that stale clap-trap. You mean to say that, if I were not safe from your profession, I should not have said so much. It isn't worth while lying to yourself, and I have no time to trifle. The converse is the truer way of putting it. You know better than I can tell you that, if ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... fortune was in store for Mr. John Dory. At daybreak he returned in a borrowed trap from ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... make herself look well. In the exasperated phase of revolt through which she was passing, she could not have been persuaded to dress so as to heighten the effect of her appearance, and so make of herself a trap to catch admiring glances. To be neat and fresh was all her care; but that was enough. The young man with the pointed beard, who had been looking about the room uneasily, seemed to have found what he wanted when he noticed her. He asked an elderly man standing near him who ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... with my regard for the 'dear reader,' to add any thing by way of remark on this true school-girl letter. But it is so suggestive. How many circulars do tally with facts? Even in those of the best schools, that need none of this clap-trap, there is a little humbug. But this is rather the fault of the patrons; like Bessie's mother, they will hardly look at a plain advertisement. The truth is, we love to be humbugged. Among the 'wants of the age' may ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... night he had gone, or how, or why, it seemed hopeless ever to divine. The door remaining as it had been left, and the lantern standing in the window, it could only be supposed that he had got out by a trap in the floor which communicated with an empty cart-house below. But he had shut it down again, if that were so; and it looked as if it had not been raised. Nothing of any kind was missing. On this fact being clearly ascertained, we all yielded to the painful ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... September 17th the Governor offered a reward of five hundred dollars for his capture, and there were other rewards swelling the amount to eleven hundred dollars,—but in vain. No one could track or trap him. On September 30th a minute account of his capture appeared in the newspapers, but it was wholly false. On October 7th there was another, and on October 18th another; yet all without foundation. Worn out by confinement in his little cave, Nat Turner grew more adventurous, and began to move about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... Nicholas' return and Hubert's departure for the North had passed uneventfully at Great Keynes. The old knight had been profoundly shocked that any Catholic, especially an agent so valuable as Mr. Stewart, should have found his house a death-trap; and although he continued receiving his friends and succouring them, he did so with more real caution and less ostentation of it. His religious zeal and discretion were further increased by the secret return to the "Old Religion" of several of his villagers during the period; and a very fair congregation ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... openly with his sovereign, and at a great banquet persuaded his leading officers to sign an oath that they would stand by him in whatever he did. Some of the more timid among them warned the Emperor, and with his approval formed a trap for Wallenstein. The general's chief lieutenants were suddenly set upon and slain; then the murderers rushed to Wallenstein's own apartments. Hearing them coming, he stood up dauntlessly, threw wide his arms to their blows, and died as silent and mysterious as ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... unmolested through a court-yard—descended some stairs; the guide unlocked the door of a cellar, and took a dark lantern from under his cloak. As he drew up the slide, the dim light gleamed on barrels and wine-casks, which appeared to fill up the space. Rolling aside one of these, the guide lifted a trap- door, and lowered his lantern. "Enter," said he; and the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton |
