"Wormed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man peered within, and saw, as he thought, a convenient place of shelter. With feet foremost and arms pressed closely to his side, he wormed himself into ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... account. If the love charm were wanted by a woman—a housekeeper may be, who desired some rich old man to fall in love with her, in order that she might come into his property; or by a woman—a companion probably—who, having wormed herself into the confidence of some eccentric old lady, was anxious that that lady should leave her all her money—Hamar took care that the magnes microcosmi should be charged with a lasting infatuation; and the sale ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... of furniture and decorations from Paris. Forty-eight hours before the arrival of Mrs. Scott, Mademoiselle Marbeau, the postmistress, and Madame Lormier, the mayoress, had wormed themselves into the castle, and the account they gave of the interior turned every one's head. The old furniture had disappeared, banished to the attics; one moved among a perfect accumulation of wonders. And the stables! ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... piece you are," he exclaimed; "you seem to have wormed your way into the hearts of these men. Do you know that you will probably ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... very shortly after this conversation, he was guilty of the most detestable piece of knavery I ever heard of. He learned that an unfortunate young man from the country, into whose confidence he had wormed himself, was to receive 15,000 livres on his father's account; he invited him to supper, and, by the aid of two villains like himself, stripped him of his last sous. Not satisfied with this, he wrote the father such an exaggerated account of his son's ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... I wormed my way to the old man's side with never a doubt but that the great wheel would yield on the instant to the power of my young and vigorous muscles. Nor was my belief mere vanity, for always had my physique been the envy and despair of my fellows. And for that very reason it had waxed ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ball still hovered about the twenty-yard line, Yates secured it on a fumbled pass, and the tide ebbed away from the beleagured posts. Back as before were borne the crimson warriors, while the Yates forwards opened holes in the opposing line and the Yates halves dashed and wormed through for small gains. Then Fate again aided the crimson, and on the blue's forty-seven-yard line a fake kick went sadly aglee and the runner was borne struggling back toward his own goal before he could cry "Down!" ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... with great form. The aged sibyls blessed the bridal bed of the Laird when he married, and the cradle of the heir when born. The men repaired her ladyship's cracked china, and assisted the Laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies. The children gathered nuts in the woods, and cranberries in the moss, and mushrooms on the pastures, for tribute to the Place. These acts of voluntary service, and acknowledgments of dependence, were rewarded by protection ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Kim took up the money; but for all his training, he was Irish enough by birth to reckon silver the least part of any game. What he desired was the visible effect of action; so, instead of slinking away, he lay close in the grass and wormed ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... mess; and at first I could not but feel some very serious scruples about dining with him. Nevertheless, he was a man to study and digest; so, upon a little reflection; I was not displeased at his presence. It amazed me, however, that he had wormed himself into the mess, since so many of the other messes had declined the honour, until at last, I ascertained that he had induced a mess-mate of ours, a distant relation of his, to prevail upon the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... but Lorry got hold of Pancha and wormed it all out of her. For years he's been longing to settle down on a ranch—that was his dream. Poor little dream! Well, it's coming true. We've got several ranches, but there's only one that counts—in Mexico. There's a small one down in Kern that father bought ages ago for a weighmaster he had who ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... one appears to merit a deeper measure of infamy than Captain Warnesford Armstrong, the entrapper and betrayer of the Sheareses. Having obtained an introduction to John, he represented himself as a zealous and hard-working member of the organization, and soon wormed himself completely into the confidence of his victims. He paid daily visits to the house of the Sheareses in Baggot-street, chatted with their families, and fondled the children of Henry Sheares upon his knee. We have it on his own testimony ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... lest the seal might take alarm, watched Toby's every movement as he wormed himself forward, then lay still, then wormed forward again little by little. On his success might depend their lives, and Charley realized it fully. The owl would not last long, and would not go far to renew their wasted strength. ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... astonishment on the little wiry form, as it wormed around the apartment, touching the books, and giving sudden pulls at the curtains and bed drapery. She had never seen Hannah over her threshold before, and wondered what a visit from her ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... return journey to Great New York in an hour. He wormed his way carefully to the nearest conveyor, and made his way openly to the express platform, secure ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... let it be remembered that it is not as in a court of justice, where the plea of "not guilty" is set up, and all has then to be wormed out by examination in the most detailed manner. For the penitent enters the confessional as self-accuser, states the offence, together with the number of times it has happened, and any circumstances which may alter or aggravate the deed. ...
— Confession and Absolution • Thomas John Capel
... then wormed their way back to the gold cave (as they termed it) and sought for nuggets in the dust and dirt of ages that covered the rocky floor. Eleanor found a few pieces the size of walnuts and Polly secured a handful of ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... beast and superstitious fear of the fabulous werwolf or loup-garou,[4] but the next moment I pulled myself together, mastered my trembling limbs, rolled softly out of my blankets, and gun in hand wormed my way toward the spot where Big Pete lay, determined to sell my life dearly. With Big Pete beside me, now that I was thoroughly awake, I would fight all the werwolves of the old world and all the loup-garous of Canada. I reached out and felt for Pete but he was not there, the blankets ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... of his intriguing consort, and, above all, of her paramour, the all-powerful Minister Godoy. Of an ancient and honourable family, endowed with a fine figure, courtly address, and unscrupulous arts, this man had wormed himself into the royal confidence; and after bringing about a favourable peace with France in 1795, he was styled ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Major in the French Army, was convinced that he could do better work if he had a suit of civilian clothes; and as he had the confidence of the prison authorities, the suit was given him. He wore it around for a few days, wormed a little harmless confidence out of some of his countrymen, and then one day quietly walked out of the ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... Miss Aldclyffe had wormed her secret out of her, and would now be continually mocking her for her trusting simplicity in believing him. It was altogether unbearable: she ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... I danced a jig of joy when I went back to my room, and caught sight of my elderly reflection doing it in the glass, and laughed till I cried. My work had begun. The thin end of the wedge had wormed its way in. Now ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Harry again exerted all their strength, the mast rose perceptibly, and they heard a cry of pain from the seaman as he wormed himself ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... rich man's son who infested the club; and, being a snob with a liking for noble nearnesses, Croesus Jr. had wormed himself into Storri's regards as far as Storri would permit. Croesus Jr., fond of display, bought a little steam yacht—one hundred tons. After two costly months of yachting, Croesus Jr., waxing thrifty and bewailing ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... twinkling eyes, an open mouth with its rows of sharp teeth, and a long red tongue dripping with saliva, warned him that mere mesmerism would be useless if he were to avoid a tussle. There was only one other exit besides the door, so without further ado he sprang for ... the open scuttle. He wormed his way successfully through the small orifice with some loss of dignity and greatly to the detriment of his Sunday trousers, flopped gracefully into the water with a splash, and, swimming to the gangway, clambered back on board again. Then, rushing to his cabin, he slammed ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... a point which they guessed was about a mile above the village, then they turned into the trackless tangle of undergrowth to the east. So dense was the verdure at many points that it was with the utmost difficulty they wormed their way through, sometimes on hands and knees and again by clambering over numerous fallen tree trunks. Interwoven with dead limbs and living branches were the tough and ropelike creepers which formed a tangled network ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... minister, "since she never writes to you nor mentions your name." As to Armenteros, with whom Granvelle was still on friendly relations, he was restless in his endeavors to keep the once-powerful priest from rising again. Having already wormed himself into the confidence of the Regent, he made a point of showing to the principal seigniors various letters, in which she had been warned by the Cardinal to put no trust in them. "That devil," said Armenteros, "thought he had got into Paradise here; but he is gone, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Peter's cup. His hand shook, but it was in exultation rather than in shame. As he did it he avoided glancing at the sleeper, but not lest pity should unnerve him; merely to avoid spilling. Then one long gloating look he cast upon his victim, and turning, wormed his way with difficulty up the tree. As he emerged at the top he looked the very spirit of evil breaking from its hole. Donning his hat at its most rakish angle, he wound his cloak around him, holding one end in front as if to conceal his person from the night, ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... one?' 'Soon.' 'Where would he go to get one?' 'To the Sazebus river.' I mention these particulars in detail, as I think, had their practice extended to taking the head of any defenceless traveller, or any Malay surprised in his dwelling or boat, I should have wormed ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... Average Jones jumped out of his chair stripped to his shirt, caught up the pepper-and-salt waistcoat, tried it on and buttoned it across his chest without difficulty; then thrust his arm into the coat which went with it, and wormed his way, effortfully, partly into that. He laid it aside only when he had determined that he could get it no farther on. He was clothed and in his right garments when the Reverend Mr. Prentice returned with a much-worn pair ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... glad to see, likewise, with what becoming indifference the matter of Shakspeare's indebtedness to others is treated by Mr. White in his Introductions. There are many commentators who seem to think they have wormed themselves into the secret of the Master's inspiration when they have discovered the sources of his plots. But what he took was by right of eminent domain; and was he not to resuscitate a theme and make it immortal, because some botcher ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... retired stage-driver, and was doing the wrangling act for the stage-horses. After supper I went out to the corral and wormed the information out of him that the woman was a widow; that her husband had died before she came there, and that she was from Michigan. Amongst other things that I learned from the old man was that she had only been there a few months, and was a poor but deserving woman. I ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... by Sweynheym and Pannartz. 1472. Fol. 2 vols. A fine copy, and larger than either of the preceding: but the beginning of the first volume and the conclusion of the second are slightly wormed. There is a duplicate leaf of the beginning of the text, which is rather brown, but illuminated in the ancient manner. This copy measures fifteen inches and a half, by ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... that if the outside rim of a crowd stirs ever so slightly it means that there is madness in the heart and core of the mob. It soon became evident that something really important had happened in the centre of this excitement. We wormed our way to the front, with the cunning which is known only to cockneys, and once there we soon learned the nature of the difficulty. There had been a brawl concerned with some six men, and one of them lay almost dead on the stones of the street. Of the other four, all ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... alike. Well, I got the maid to show me in somehow, and, once in you can bet I talked for all I was worth. Kept up a flow of conversation about being misdirected and coming to the wrong house. Went away, and called a few days later. Gradually wormed my way in. Called regularly. Spied on their movements, met 'em at every theatre they went to, and bowed, and finally got away with Millie before her aunt knew what was happening or who I was or what I was doing ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... squad's right end had been blocked and now, eager to make up for lost time, he overran and missed his tackle entirely and the second's back came speeding up the field near the side-line, a hastily-formed interference guarding him well. Ten yards, fifteen, twenty, and then Carmine wormed through and brought the ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... any other class celebration, for the sophomores, having thrown off freshman shackles, took a lively hand in the affairs of the members of the entering class. It was sophomores who under pretense of sympathetic interest wormed out of unsuspecting freshmen their inmost secrets and gleefully spread them abroad among the upper classes. It was also the sophomores who were the most active in enforcing the standard that erring freshmen were supposed to live up to. The junior and ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... skins. Now and then they would stop sharpening their deadly-looking kukris, their dearest possession, to allow us to pass along the trench. Nothing delighted these brave little men more than to be permitted to go on a silent raid at night, when they wormed themselves through the wire in "No Man's Land," and did as much damage on the other side as possible. They have been known to enter the enemy trenches without a sound, killing everyone within reach, and to return radiant, quite unscathed. When questioned as to why they ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... involved, but a stalemate. Lying on his belly, Denver wormed as close as he dared to the break of slope outside the door. There, he fired snap shots at everything that moved on the slopes. Everything that moved on the slopes made a point of returning the gesture. Some shots came from places he had ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... certainly giving Peter his due. He had wormed his way into the Rastall-Retford home-circle by grossly deceitful means. The moment he heard that Eve had gone to live with Mrs. Rastall-Retford, and had ascertained that the Rastall-Retford with whom he had been at Cambridge and ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... chatting, went the two children, along the cobble-paved streets of the ancient town, past old churches that had been sacked and pillaged by the very ancestors of one of them, taking short cuts through narrow passages that twisted and wormed their way between, and sometimes beneath, century-old stone houses; across the flower-market, where faint odors of dying violets and crushed lilies-of-the-valley still clung to the bare wooden booths; and so, finally, to the ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... grand Chateau, the only one I detest is probably the most irreproachable of all—Madame de Maintenon. There is something so repulsively sanctimonious in her aspect, something so crafty in the method wherewith, under the cloak of religion, she wormed her way into high places, ousting—always in the name of propriety—those who had helped her. Her stepping-stone to Royal favour was handsome, impetuous Madame de Montespan, who, taking compassion on her widowed poverty, ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... in the world: He knew my cousin Constance never loved you: He has heard her say, you were as invincibly ignorant as a town-fop judging a new play: as shame-faced as a great overgrown school-boy: in fine, good for nothing but to be wormed out of your estate, and sacrificed to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... Grandma Ridge possessed traces of a feminine nature.... And Horatio! He came in late from his business, scorning to pay attention to the "women's doings," sneaked up the back stairs and donned his Sunday broadcloth coat, then wormed his way cautiously into the press to see the fun. One of the more exquisite moments of the day, preserved by Sally Norton and widely circulated among Milly's friends, was the picture of the little man facing the majestic Mrs. Bernhard Bowman—she of the palace on the shore—and teetering ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... that she no longer cared about Wollaston Lee, that she fairly scorned him. Then, suddenly, something occurred to her. She turned, and ran back as fast as she could, her short fleece of golden hair flying. She wrapped her short skirts about her, and wormed through the barbed-wire fence which skirted the field—the boy had leaped it, but she was not equal to that—and she hastened, leaving a furrow through the white-and-gold herbage, to the boy lying on his face weeping. She stood ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... came again in sight of the sentinel. Skipping Rabbit followed her trail like a little shadow. Keeping as far from the man as possible without coming under the observation of the next sentinel, they sank into the long grass, and slowly wormed their way forward so noiselessly that they were soon past the lines, and able to rise and ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... up behind her, women who wore shawls as she did, only the shawls were mostly of gaudy colors; and men pushed up behind her, mostly men of swarthy countenance, who wore circlets of gold in their ears; and, brushing her skirts, seeking vantage points, ragged, ill-clad children wriggled and wormed their way deeper into the press. It was a crowd composed almost entirely of the foreign element which inhabited that quarter—and the crowd chattered and gesticulated with ever-increasing violence. She did not understand. And she could not see so well now. That pitiful ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... He had wormed this fact out of her by that time because Flora had got tired of evading the question. He had been very much struck and distressed. Was that the trust she had in him? Was that a proof of confidence and love? ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... Indian on the trail he wormed his way forward until he came at last within ten feet of the windmill. There was a window before him. Slowly and cautiously he drew himself up to one side of the casement and then peered in through the ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... Old Billy had wormed his way into the ballroom with the pretext of having to carry Miss Ann's shawl. Quietly he slipped up the stairs into the balcony and, hiding behind the festooned bunting, he peeped down on his beloved mistress as she ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... they saw him talking in the front with Lord Dilston's postillion. Now he came back. "Well, Hans, what wormed you out of ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... himself down on his face, and, crawling noiselessly on all-fours across the twenty feet of open platform which intervened between the woodshed and the main building, achieved the precarious shelter afforded by the side wall of the house. He then wormed himself forward till he was close to the front corner; and here his patient efforts were at last rewarded, for he heard a few scraps of a conversation which, had he been in a less dangerous position, would have afforded him ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... stitched boys' pants in a Polish sweatshop, and lived for two days in New York's most rococo hotel. I took a graduate course in Anglo Saxon at Columbia University, and one in lamp-shade making at Wanamaker's: wormed into a Broadway musical show as wardrobe girl, and went out on a self-appointed newspaper assignment to interview the mother of the richest ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... took out the grating and set it beside the opening. Then he wormed his way into the tunnel. It was a tight fit, but he could move. The first turn should bring him to the branch that opened out on the passage not far from his ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat
... Wedderburn had wormed himself into favour with Lord North and won the office of Solicitor-General (1778). Two years later he became Lord Loughborough, a title which Fox ascribed to his rancorous abuse of the American colonists. Figuring next as a member of the Fox-North Administration, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... waistcoat; 'but he's spoilt by two bad traits. In the first place, he's so dreadfully conscious of the fact that he has risen from a lower position; and then, again, he's so engrossingly and pervadingly mathematical. X square seems to have seized upon him bodily, and to have wormed its fatal way into ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... porch he remembered; the Avocat was kept in mind by papers which he was called upon to read and alter from time to time; the Cure never forgot, because when the young man went he lost not one of his flock but two; and Medallion, knowing something of the story, had wormed a deal of truth out of the miller's wife. Medallion knew that the closed, barred rooms were the young man's; and he knew also that the old man was waiting, waiting, in a hope which he never even named ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pondering much on the singular interview she had had with this singular man. Not a word that she had spoken to him had been intended by her to be received as true, and yet he had answered her in the very spirit of truth. He had done so, and she had been aware that he had so done. She had wormed from him his secret, and he, debarred as it would seem from man's usual privilege of lying, had innocently laid bare his whole soul to her. He loved Eleanor Bold, but Eleanor was not in his eye so beautiful as herself. He would fain have ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... calculation. He followed with his eye what must have been the path of the slayer on that dreadful night. It led, no doubt, to the spot on which he now was standing, for just behind him was the suggestion of a narrow, weed-lined path that wormed its way through the trees toward the top of the great rock. He decided that one day soon he would disregard that sign on the gate, and climb up to the strange burial place of Edward Crown ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... daughter's hand by way of compensation for frustrated hopes, and he found little difficulty in renouncing his purpose when he discovered that Cesar, whom he supposed to be rich, was in point of fact comparatively poor. He set a watch on the notary, wormed himself into his confidence, was presented to la belle Hollandaise, made a study of their relation to each other, and soon found that she threatened to renounce her lover if he limited her luxuries. La belle Hollandaise was one of those mad-cap women who care nothing as to where the money comes ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... coffee deliberately, unsmiling, his gaze over the valley where the railroad track wormed its way ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... move? She could not tell. Impulse prevailed, and without a thought she flew into Judge Ostrander's presence, and, gazing wildly about, wormed her way towards a heavily carved screen guarding a distant corner, and ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... By main force they wormed their way through the crowd, until they were close enough to read the bulletin board. Then Jack uttered an ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... the accumulation in a bottle wrapped up in an old sock. Presently there resounded in the still air a pleasant bubbling sound indicative of liquid being poured out of a glass receptacle, then a deep sigh, followed by a profound silence. Inch by inch I crawled over our barricade and slowly wormed my way along the ditch. At last I reached the Turkish barricade and cautiously slid my hand over the top until my fingers encountered Ibrahim's toque. Then I gave a gentle tug. Horror! he had the flap down ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... your experience of many women, to manage me as you liked. You told me not to marry Edgar Tonmore for some reason of your own; you told me to go and stay with my aunt; you came to see me one night in London, and wormed out of me my relations with my unfortunate mother. With all your knowledge of the world, with all your experience, did you never think I might come to ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... superstitions of a dateless past were embalmed in the hearts of the people hardly less effectually than the bodies of cats and crocodiles and the rest of the divine menagerie in their rock-cut tombs. The conception is well illustrated by a story which tells how the subtle Isis wormed his secret name from Ra, the great Egyptian god of the sun. Isis, so runs the tale, was a woman mighty in words, and she was weary of the world of men, and yearned after the world of the gods. And she meditated in her heart, saying, "Cannot I by ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... was thoroughly upset. It was impossible to prove it or to do anything about it now, but he was convinced that the fellow had wormed his way into the castle in the guise of a waiter. He had probably met Maud and plotted further meetings with her. This thing ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the hill, herself in deep study, and she summoned the Angel to the bar of her judgment. The Angel writhed and wormed, but it was no use, and at last with smile, violet eyes, and halo the Angel spoke the truth. Then a great light dawned for St. Hilda, and she played its searching rays on the Angel's past and he spoke more truth, leaving her gasping ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... pain nor joy—only an unconquerable desire to see and hear everything. Though he had had no sleep the whole night, his body felt light; when he was crushed and prevented from advancing, he elbowed his way through the crowd and adroitly wormed himself into the front place; and not for a moment did his vivid quick eye remain at rest. At the examination of Jesus before Caiaphas, in order not to lose a word, he hollowed his hand round his ear, and nodded his head in ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... you more," she went on, sitting quite erect now on the bed, "your mother thinks she is doing a fine thing to get all her family wormed in here in ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... he grunted, "so I went and axed 'bout 'ee. Cudden vind out nothin'. Then I beginned to worm around. I vound out that Neck Trezidder 'ad tould the passon not to cry the banns at church. Then I got the new cook at Pennington to come to mawther and 'ave 'er fortin tould; then mawther an' me wormed out oal she knawed 'bout the things ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Come on, Will, let's get out," he said. There was a note of impatience in his voice. We wormed our way back to the entrance ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... was made by men of the professional and intellectual classes I should say, having wormed my way in and out of that vast piazza gathering. The daily crowds before the poet's hotel were composed chiefly of youths, at school or college, others in working dress. The noisiest, most inflammable of all these mobs was that in the Costanzi Theater the evening ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... and his Lieutenant were at first officially kind and friendly, extending many privileges to win his confidence. If there had been any treason in Sir Walter they would most certainly have wormed it out of him, for his eyes at first were not fully open. He still believed in the honour and fidelity of ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... be fired he is personally to examine, or to direct one of the Officers Commanding a Division to examine, ascertain and report that the necessary preparations are made and precautions taken to avoid accidents. The guns, if loaded, are to be drawn, wormed, sponged and reloaded. They are, nevertheless, to be so laid as to prevent the possibility of mischief, even in the contingency of a shot or wad being left in any of them. Hard wads are not to be used in firing salutes, nor are port-fires. The guns are to be fired either with ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... whispered Raffles, as he wormed through the window feet foremost, "I'm afraid you'll have to face the music where you are, and I shall have the best of ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... craved and needed flesh. Descended from a race of meat eaters, never in his life, he thought, had he once satisfied his appetite for animal food; and so now his agile little body wormed its way far into the mass of struggling, rending apes in an endeavor to obtain a share which his strength would have been unequal to the task of ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and after an hour's argument got his way. The man, who had wormed the secret out of Tomaso, had only a general idea of the situation of the cave; but he confessed to a certain familiarity with the mountains. He was not persuaded to go until Sturges had promised to send not only himself ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... he came back from one of these quests and wanted me to come and see something, very quietly; I went, and we crept down into a rocky ravine, on the other side of which lay one of the outermost Egaja plantations. When we got to the edge of the cleared ground, we lay down, and wormed our way, with elaborate caution, among a patch of Koko; Wiki first, I following ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... 1797 the French made a lodgment in Corfu; and, agreeably to their general spirit of intrigue, they had made advances to Ali Pacha, and to all other independent powers in or about Epirus. Amongst other states, in an evil hour for that ill-fated city, they wormed themselves into an alliance with Prevesa; and in the following year their own quarrel with Ali Pacha gave that crafty robber a pretence, which he had long courted in vain, for attacking the place with his overwhelming cavalry, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... servant of the Count, who looked upon the new tutor as a rival, yet adroitly flattered his vanity for the purpose of misleading and displacing him, appears upon the stage. "Jean" first detected Otto's passion; "Jean," at an epicurean dinner, wormed out of Otto the secret of the Herisau documents, and perhaps suggested the part ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... in that,' Mr Bloomfield admitted. 'You see I thought it better that even you should be ignorant of my address; those rascals, the Finsburys, would have wormed it out of you. And just to put them off the scent I hoisted these abominable colours. But that is not all, Gid; you promised me to work, and here I find you ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... of a great city. Their machines had burrowed straightforwardly into the grass and no threats of courtmartial could make them sit and look silly till help arrived and they were tamely rescued. So one by one they wormed their way out to fix the ignition, adjust the carburetor, or hack free the cogs which moved the tracks. And one by one their radios became silent and were not ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him a tergo. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently a highway for the inhabitants of the combe; and, to their inexpressible joy, ended, ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... in shirt-sleeves, all eating silently. A few smaller tables at the back of the room were distinguished from the others by white coverings in place of oil-cloth, evidently reserved for the more distinguished guests. Disdaining ceremony, the newcomer wormed his way through, finally discovering a vacant seat where his back would be to the wall, thus enabling him to survey the ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... intended to do no wrong to the party, the fact that he was within speaking distance of the two girls was particularly distressing after the knowledge we had gained in the night. With extreme caution we wormed our way forward, the Professor's piping voice acting as a verbal signpost in helping us to locate the spot where he was engaged in holding the argument. We were close enough to hear his words, and our nerves were on the highest tension as ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... cause was deserted, it was the desertion of a ruling class, not of a people or its army. German treachery wormed its way in at the top, and so destroyed a great race it ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... see the royal state of boroughs walking their desolate streets, hanging down their heads under disappointments, wormed out of all the branches of their old trade, uncertain what hand to turn to, necessitate to become 'prentices to their unkind neighbors; and yet, after all, finding their trade so fortified by companies, and secured by prescriptions, that they ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... break in the rocky chaos to another. Never did he err. Once the tracks seemed to end squarely against a broad face of rock, but there the young hunter found a cleft in the granite wall scarcely wider than his body, through which he cautiously wormed his way. Where this cleft opened into the chasm again the fugitive had rested for a few moments, and had placed some burden upon the snow at his feet. A single glance disclosed what this burden had been, for in the snow was that same ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... me he saw you behind the screen in his wife's rooms at midnight, and felt no need of an explanation. How like an Italian. But he is dead. And you forced your love on another man's wife, though you own she did not return it, wormed yourself into her rooms at night, and then—then—yes, I begin to see a grain of truth among these heaps of lies—then when by an evil chance, an extraordinary stroke of bad luck, there was danger of your being discovered, then you persuaded her, the innocent, ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... however, would have had no more chance against a pair of corkscrews, or a tender young tooth against a pair of dentists, or a little shuttlecock against two battledores, than I had against Uriah and Mrs. Heep. They did just what they liked with me; and wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell, with a certainty I blush to think of, the more especially, as in my juvenile frankness, I took some credit to myself for being so confidential and felt that I was quite the patron of my ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... flat on his face, and wormed his way toward the nearest chimney, not twelve feet from him, for a wet helmet had emerged from the trap opening. A moment later a lantern was flashing and playing about the ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... be staying in Paris, and what effect his presence would have on his intercourse with Madame de Corantin. Would he be able to see as much of her or would she drop him in favour of Ramsey. The thought tortured him, but it wormed its way more and more into his brain. Bobby had very little confidence in his powers of pleasing; it was a common experience of his to be thrown over in favour of men much less attractive to women than ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... marabout had vowed himself and all that was his, the young man's threat sounded like a hint so terrible in its meaning that Ben Halim's heart turned suddenly to water. He saw himself exposed, defeated, hand and foot in the enemy's power. How this Roumi had wormed out the hidden truth he could not conceive; but he realized on the instant that the situation was desperate, and his brain seemed to him to become a delicate and intricate piece of mechanism, moving with oiled wheels. All the genius of a ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... have it he would, if perseverance would avail. From Jamaica he sailed to Hispaniola. There his fluent persuasiveness came again into play. He met a very old man, Spaniard or Portuguese, who was said to know where the ship lay, and "by the policy of his address" wormed from him some further information about the treasure-ship. The old man told him that it had been wrecked on a reef of shoals a few leagues from Hispaniola, and just north of Port de la Plata, which place got its name from the landing there ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... was Monk we saw later. He wormed his long corpse into "Mon Repos" and sat on Albert Edward's bed laughing like a tickled hyena. "Funniest thing on earth," he spluttered. "A mule strayed into my lines t'other night and refused to leave. It was a rotten beast, a holy terror; it could kick a fly off its ears and bite a man ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... parade-ground, and was defying the regiment to come on. The regiment was not anxious to comply, for there is small honour in being shot by a fellow-private. Only Corporal Slane, rifle in hand, threw himself down on the ground, and wormed his way ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... he grew calmer. It might have, been worse. She might have flared up. He had expected something more than this. It was lucky, after all, that June had broken the ice for him. She must have wormed it out of Bosinney; he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... turned the corner; he whisked over the wall, back into the water pen. Shouts, curses, the sound of rushing feet without the wall. Pringle crouched in the deep shadow of the wall, groped his way to the long row of watering troughs, and wormed himself under the upper trough, where the creaking windmill and the splashing of water from the supply pipe would drown out the sound of his ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... Whimple, Epstein, and Watson to persuade William to take a two weeks' holiday before returning to work. He didn't want to go to the country: knew he would die after two days there: was positive he was as strong and as able to work as he ever had been: and, in short, he wouldn't go. Watson wormed the truth out of him after an hour's private talk. "I'm just crazy about keeping up my lessons with Mister Epstein," said William, finally; "I feel that I can't afford to miss one; I wanter be something, ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... her masts, and the deck swarming with smart bonnets and bodices. Her name was the Royal Adelaide, from which the sagacious reader will infer that this excursion was made during the late reign. The Yorkshireman and Tommy Sly having wormed their way among the boats, were at length brought up within one of the vessels, and after lying on their oars a few seconds, they were attracted by, "Now, sir, are you going to sleep there?" addressed to a rival nautical ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... hit upon a plan. He would attract her attention, and reassure her by a smiling greeting from a greater distance. Silently he wormed his way back into the tree. It was his intention to hail her from beyond the palisade, giving her the feeling of security which he imagined the ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... him. 'This, then, is your gratitude. So be it. Silence, no doubt! Until it's too late to take action. Until you have wormed your way in, and think you are safe. To have believed! Where is my husband? that is what I am asking you now. When and how you have learned his secrets God only knows, and your conscience! But he always was a simpleton at heart. I warn you, then. Until next Thursday I consent ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... black, and not too still; everything, in fact, was in the boy's favour as, with beating heart, he wormed his way out of the wigwam and crawled stealthily on his belly from the camp towards the dense gloom of the forest. Then, almost as he had succeeded in gaining the comparative safety of the trees, beneath his moccasined foot a stick snapped, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... blood was tainted with treachery. Ten years before he had been employed by the Whig Government of George of Hanover to ferret out evidence—which not infrequently meant manufacturing it—against the Jacobites. Posing as a Jacobite, Rofflash wormed himself into the secrets of the conspirators, and he figured as an important witness against the rebel lords Derwentwater, Nithsdale, Carnwath ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... answer him, but she let him lead her whither he would. And they came breathless to the rocky outcropping through which the pack trail wormed its way farther down the hill. There he let her stop, for he knew that they had passed around the upper edge of the fire, and were safe unless the wind changed. He helped her upon a high, flat-topped boulder that overlooked the balsam thicket and manzanita slope, and together they faced the debauchery ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... a day passed without at least one visit to Debendra Babu's. Hiramani wormed all Kamini's little harmless secrets out of her and obtained enough knowledge of the girl's tastes and habits to ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... not the mouth. He had caught hold of a point of ice and was trying to pull himself up by that; but something (was it the swiftness of the current?) was dragging his body away from under him so that the water was still above his nose and mouth. Granger wormed his way to within arm-stretch and clasped his hand; but the moment he commenced to pull, the weight became terrific—more than the weight of one man—and he himself began to slide slowly forward till his head and shoulders were above the water. Something was tugging at Strangeways ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... majesty and called to us." He laughed. "What does it mean in reality: Germania, Italia, La France, Britannia? Half a score of pompous old muddlers with their fat wives egging them on: sons of the fools before them; talkers who have wormed themselves into power by making frothy speeches and fine promises. My Country!" he laughed again. "Look at them. Can't you see their swelling paunches and their flabby faces? Half a score of ambitious politicians, gouty old financiers, bald-headed ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... yet of the reference to Michaelmas dinners; and, gradually, as he came to talk frequently to Archie of the Russian spy, and perhaps also to one or two others of his more intimate friends, he began to convince himself that he really had wormed the truth out of Madam Gordeloup, and got altogether the better of that lady, in a very ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... The felucca was a Spanish privateer, belonging to Porto Cabello, and her commander had adroitly managed to capture the pilot-boat just as we were about to fall into the jaws of the Guarda Costa. The commander of the felucca had furthermore wormed out of the unsuspecting Moncrieff all the secrets of his mission, and paved the way for the confiscation of our ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the abstract type looked, and still look, at the essence or soul—at the object pure and simple. A book is a book for a' that. It may be imperfect, soiled, wormed, cropped, shabbily bound—all those things belong to its years; let it suffice that there is just enough of the author to be got in glimpses here and there to enable the proprietor of him in type to judge his quality and ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... find out. Felicity wormed the secret out of Peter by the employment of Delilah wiles, such as have been the undoing of many a miserable male creature since Samson's day. She first threatened that she would never speak to him again if he didn't ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... settlement, I had resolved, in order to win the affections of my people, and to promote unison among the heritors, to be of as little expense to the parish as possible; but by this time the manse had fallen into a sore state of decay—the doors were wormed on the hinges—the casements of the windows chattered all the winter, like the teeth of a person perishing with cold, so that we had no comfort in the house; by which, at the urgent instigations of Mrs Balwhidder, I was obligated ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... three which went with him did he also bid watch while he went yet farther under the trees to commune with Jehovah as oft he doeth. Secure would he have been had not our eyes been heavy with sleep for then would we have seen the crowd approaching that with clubs and torches and spears, wormed its way across Kedron and up the hillside. And had we seen, then would we have passed word to the inner watchers, and to the Master would they have called. Then, lo! him whom Judas would betray, could have escaped far down the hillside, and have safely hidden in some cave ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... leaves of the slim tree above him were never stirred by a wandering wind. Yet now and again there came from the darkness a faintly fetid odor. The evening wore on and still he slept, until at length in the silence of the night a strange huge creature wormed its way steadily out of its lair amid the trees, and drew near the sleeping man to devour him fiercely. But the horse neighed vehemently and beat the ground with his hoofs and waked his master. Then the hideous monster vanished; and the man, aroused from his sleep, saw nothing, although the ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... sir," said she, in measured tones, "this low-born singer, who has palmed himself off on us as a respectable instructor in language, has the audacity to love your daughter. For the sake of pressing his odious suit he has wormed himself into your house as into mine; he has sung beneath your daughter's window, and she has dropped letters to him,—love-letters, do you understand? And now,"—her voice rose more shrill and uncontrollable at every word, as she saw Lira's face turn ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... Titian—they were actually done by another Netherlander, John of Calcar, near Cleves—in which he has dared to prove that Galen's anatomy was at fault throughout, and that he had been describing a monkey's inside when he had pretended to be describing a man's; and thus, by impudence and quackery, he has wormed himself—this Netherlander, a heretic at heart, as all Netherlanders are, to God as well as to Galen—into the confidence of the late Emperor Charles V., and gone campaigning with him as one of his ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... doesn't it? Falkenberg is a man possessed of one idea—to upset the relations between France and England. For that purpose he has been paying secret visits to Paris for the last year. He has corrupted the Press here. He has wormed his way into the confidence of one or two of the Ministers. The thing is a perfect mania with him. He has taken it into his head that the articles which Kendricks has made me promise to write, and the first one of ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... said I. My heart was beating horribly. I would not trust myself to speak again. But I wormed my way to a front place in the little procession, and was, in fact, the second man to cross the threshold that had been the Rubicon of my life. As I did so I uttered a cry of pain, for Mackenzie had trod back heavily on my toes; in another second I saw ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... accomplishments of a knight and warrior, and even of a man of letters, at that court of Rouen, now rapidly becoming the focus of European chivalry, where the fierce barbarian Northmen were becoming the refined but ruthless Normans. Then, in England, he had wormed himself into the confidence of the future king with singular astuteness, and at length had found the occasion he had long sought, in a manner the most unforeseen save as a ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... for two chances right quick, and Julia went out to the bunk-house and wormed two dollars out of the boys there. And next day she was out selling off the other chances. She didn't dislike the work. It give her a chance to enter our homes and see if they needed reforming, and if the children was subjected ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... by giving an ambassador the enemy had sent to him his full dose of liquor, he wormed out his secrets. And yet, Augustus, committing the most inward secrets of his affairs to Lucius Piso, who conquered Thrace, never found him faulty in the least, no more than Tiberias did Cossus, with whom he intrusted his whole counsels, though we know they ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... by Charmion, I began my last work of hate and vengeance. I wormed myself deep into the secrets of the palace, counselling all things for evil. I bade Cleopatra keep Antony gay, lest he should brood upon his sorrows: and thus she sapped his strength and energy with luxury and wine. I gave him of my draughts—draughts that sank his soul in dreams ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... reminded Robbie that disappointment is the lot of man on his earthly pilgrimage; but Haggart knew who were to be invited back after the burial to the farm, and was inclined to make much of his position. The secret would doubtless have been wormed from him had not public attention been directed into another channel. A prayer was certainly being offered up inside; but the voice was not the voice ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... at the house now. Come on." But that didn't suit him. He explained that she wouldn't look at him when the others were around, and that she slid off and wormed out of his way, so he couldn't get at her, anyhow. Just like a girl, wasn't it—not to face the music? Well, anyway, he'd cooked up a plan that he wanted me to do, and I promised I would. He wanted me to get Peggy to go up the river to their former spooning-resort (only ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... name this ingenuous young gentleman answered, would probably have been the first to pour contempt on the verdure of his companion. He had come up to Fellsgarth determined that, in whatever respect he failed, no one should lightly convict him of being green. He had wormed out of his brother in the Sixth a few hints of what was considered the proper thing at Fellsgarth, and these, with the aid of his own brilliant intellect and reminiscences of what he had read in the books, served, as he hoped, both to forewarn ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... ignorant. Belmont, the man who had purposely thrown himself in my way, industriously made himself my intimate, informed me as I supposed of his private affairs and motives of action, inquired minutely into mine, wormed every intelligence I could give that related to myself out of me, designedly attached me to him by intellectual efforts of no mean or common kind (for he saw they delighted me, and they were familiar to him) Belmont, I say, possessed ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Florizel had wriggled and wormed their way through the crowd to a front place, and ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... "but don't you make a fool of yo'self with a good man like Jack Hale." And, wondering, June was silent. The truth was that the old man had wormed out of Hale an admission of the kindly duplicity the latter had practised on him and on June, and he had given his word to Hale that he would not tell June. He did not understand why Hale should have ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... day, during maneuvers, there came to the camp a grey-faced man, a newspaper correspondent, and young Shrike knocked up a friendship with him. Now how it come about I cannot tell, but so it did that this skip-kennel wormed the lad's sorrow out of him, and his confidents, swore he'd been damnabilly used, and that when he got back he'd crack up the book himself in his own paper. He was a fool for his pains, and a serpent in ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... half-outcast from his own people, had early attached himself to the whites, had acquired their language, and owing to a singular mixture of good and bad qualities, blended with great native shrewdness, he had wormed himself into the confidence of several commanders of small garrisons, among whom was our captain. No sooner was the mind of the latter made up, concerning his future course, than he sent for Nick, who was then in the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... fellow removed his jacket and examined the machine carefully. Then, with equal gravity, he wormed ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... them. And never could humans have studied them as the machines did. Scores of great transports arrived, carrying swiftly the slower moving science-investigators. From them came the machine-investigators, and human investigators. Tiny investigator spheres wormed their way where none others could reach, and silently the science-investigators watched. Hour after hour they sat watching the flashing, changing screens, calling each other's attention to this, ...
— The Last Evolution • John Wood Campbell
... later by the Casino and made arrangements for the night. Kerry wormed permission from the watchman to sleep on the platform and, having collected a huge pile of rugs from the booths to serve as mattresses and blankets, they talked until midnight, and then fell into a dreamless sleep, though Amory tried ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... wide detour they circled the ranch and wormed their way cautiously through the dense scrub on its eastern side. Suddenly, with a warning gesture to his companions, the sergeant halted. They had reached the verge of the scrub and the front of ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... wormed his plan for making you rich. He managed the robberies at the house with the aid of John Gilder and one or two of that spiritualistic gang whom he smuggled ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... camp we wormed out of the arroyo like a skirmish line, hugging the ground for the one remaining little knoll between the robbers and ourselves. I was within a few feet of Rusou as we sighted the camp about seventy-five yards distant. ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... somehow or other,—for these women are always looking to anybody's business but their own,—wormed out his message in part, before I was ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... relieved by the Rutland Rifles, and a dog weary battered remnant of the battalion crawled back to camp in a sunken road a mile in the rear. One or two found bivouacs left by the Rutlands, but the majority dropped where they halted. My friend Patrick found a bivouac, wormed into it and went to sleep. The next thing he remembers was the roof of his abode caving in with the weight of two men struggling violently. Patrick extricated himself somehow and rolled out into the grey dawn to find ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... pointed with his long bony finger at the mountebank, Strong. "That man, Francisco Rodriguez, who claims to be an American, but who is a traitor to his country. He fed me with lies, as I now know, and he wormed out of me the ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... topography carefully, we attacked the problem at its most available angle and slid from view. We literally dived beneath the brush. For more than two hours we wormed our way down the face of the mountain, crawling like moles at the base of the overhanging thickets of poison oak, wild lilac, chamise, sage, manzanita, hazel and buckthorn. At last we reached the depth of the canyon and, finding a little water, we bathed our sweat-grimed ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... relationship. There is no use beating about the bush. Other people than Grell had written to me in the old days, and I had my own methods of forcing them to keep me silent. In plain words, a great part of my living was by blackmail, but I naturally acted very delicately. Harry Goldenburg wormed his way into my confidence, and it occurred to me that such a man would ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... the cavern. We had to crawl in upon our hands and knees, and in some places to lie out almost flat. As my friend the cur insisted upon going first, I could not help thinking that the back view of him, as he wormed his way along the low gallery, was not exactly sacerdotal. Sometimes we passed over smooth sand—evidently left by a stream that once issued here; at other times over small stones, which were bad for the knees. We kept a keen look-out for the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... Mala: she had seen it from Mount Terrible; but it was a mountain path trodden not infrequently. This Via Mala, however, wormed its way downward into shadows. Where it led and by what perilous ways she could only imagine. And were these men perhaps, lying in ambush for her somewhere below—on the chance that they might have been ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... good laughter. There was a hint of menace in it, a maliciousness which their black looks verified. The Yellow Handkerchief, since his discovery of my empty pocket, had become most insolent in his bearing, and he wormed about among the other prisoners, talking to them ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... became a spy and a go-between. He insinuated himself into the confidence of Paul Buys, wormed his secrets from him, and then communicated them to Hohenlo and to Leicester; "but he did it very wisely," said the Earl, "so that he was not mistrusted." The governor always affected, in order to screen the elector from suspicion, to obtain his information from ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... but each child sees that the other is of gentle blood, and women's wits be sharp and prying, and the maid will never rest till she has wormed out who ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pinch, the two seamen could complete her, launch her, and make her ready for sea without my assistance. Their escape from the group was therefore in any case assured; while, so far as the navigation of the craft was concerned, they had already wormed out of Billy the information that he was competent ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... with the greatest difficulty that he had scraped together enough to get back to London on the chance of obtaining some expert commission; practically he possessed nothing in the world beyond the clothes on his back, and the contents of two old carpet-bags—these admissions, by degrees, were wormed from him. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... we did ascend. The excitement made the time seem short; and after what seemed to me to be half an hour, which was in fact nearly two hours, we had crept, crawled, climbed and wormed our way through various obstacles, till we found ourselves brought up by a huge overhanging wall of blue ice. This wall was no doubt the upper side of a crevasse, the lower part of which had been filled by snow-drift. Its face was honeycombed by the usual hemispherical chippings, which somehow ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... breathing, though his face was drawn and white from the loss of blood from a wound under the blood-soaked clothing near his upper right arm. A hasty search showed that he no longer had his gun, so Phil, satisfied that he was powerless for some time to come, cautiously wormed his way towards the ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... of notches, scooped into a sharp-edged spoon, it digs the opening of its tunnel. The piece cut out is a mouthful which, as it enters the stomach, yields its scanty juices and accumulates behind the worker in heaps of wormed wood. The refuse leaves room in front by passing through the worker. A labour at once of nutrition and of road-making, the path is devoured while constructed; it is blocked behind as it makes way ahead. That, however, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... like a pair of intertwined corkscrews, fixed to a long handle. Inserted in the gun bore and twisted, it seized and drew out wads or the remains of cartridge bags stuck in the gun after firing. Worm screws were sometimes mounted in the head of the sponge, so that the piece could be sponged and wormed ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... yes, my boy," said the convict softly; "but if you speak, Mrs Braydon, knowing me for what I am, will say, 'This man has wormed himself into my son's confidence—he has obtained an influence over him that is not healthy—he had better go,' and I should be exchanged, Master Nic, as they would exchange a horse or bullock. Don't speak, sir, and have ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... that Finn became conscious of a curious grinding small sound at the back of his cage. Presently a sharp, bright point of steel entered the cage from behind, just above the level of Finn's head, as he sat on his haunches. The steel wormed its way into the cage to a length of fully six inches, and then it reached the side of Killer's cage, pointing diagonally, and bored slowly through that. The auger was well greased, and made only a very slight sound, so slight indeed that Killer was not aware of it. He was not ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson |
