"Fluke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a ship's ribs. This was the schooner laden with pipe-clay, out of which in a dangerous sea the captain and crew escaped in their own boat, as the lifeboat advanced to save them. Far away on the Sands you see the fluke of a ship's anchor, which from the shape when close to it we recognise to be a ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... And close to us, beginning to bend away towards that hissing knot in the north-west, wound our poor little channel, mercilessly exposed as a stagnant, muddy ditch with scarcely a foot of water, not deep enough to hide our small kedge-anchor, which perked up one fluke in impudent mockery. The dull, hard sky, the wind moaning in the rigging as though crying in despair for a prey that had escaped it, made ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... She has traveled, she has studied, she is at home with grand dukes in Nice, and scribblers in a country village. She is wise without being solemn. She has courage, too, or I should not be here on a mere fluke. Now, my boy, you have given yourself due ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... away the earth in different places, till he found where there was a good crevice between two pieces of rock, where, making use of the anchor as if it were a pickaxe, he dug out the earth till he could force down one fluke close between the stones till the stock was level, when he gave it a ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... Dobbs allowed him to look over the library of the late Vicar of Fenside, and at length he came to a volume of "Sturm's Reflections," on the title page of which was written, in a clear mercantile hand, "Given to Susan Fluke, on her marriage with Henry Walford Esquire, by her ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... Something or other has taken me in hand: I'm blessed if I know what. All these things don't happen one on the top of the other just by a fluke. There's something going on, and I want to know what it is. And I suppose something's going to ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... houses, Annie Lee, The prettiest little damsel in the port, And Philip Ray the miller's only son, And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd Among the waste and lumber of the shore, Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets, Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn, And built their castles of dissolving sand To watch them overflow'd, or following up And flying the white breaker, daily left The little footprint daily ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... have found her," Jimmie replied. "It was by a mere fluke. I went to a solicitor on some business, and it turned out that he was acting for Miss Foster—you see her father left a good bit of money. He was close-mouthed at first, but when I partly explained how matters stood, he told me that the girl and her old servant, Mrs. Sedgewick, ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... come in on no better pretext than that of simply wanting to (she had after all virtually invited him), that she mentioned how only one song in a thousand was successful and that the terrible difficulty was in getting the right words. This rightness was just a vulgar "fluke"— there were lots of words really clever that were of no use at all. Peter said, laughing, that he supposed any words he should try to produce would be sure to be too clever; yet only three weeks after his first ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... the ass cared not a whit. He did not seem to be conscious of it. Then he wound his hands about his neck, and tried to pull his head back. The effect was useless. Bob's strength was unavailing. He could no more move that bent and stubborn neck, than he could straighten the crooked fluke of an anchor. Then he pounded wildly upon the neck, shoulders, and flanks of the ass, and kicked against his sides. This, too, was useless, for his puny blows seemed to affect the animal no more than so many puffs of wind. Then Bob tried other means. He sat upright, and suddenly called, in a short, ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... a magnificent fight for it, Mr. Trent," he said. "I'm afraid I only got the verdict by a fluke. Another time may you be the ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... about three o'clock A.M. (January 16) a heavy squall burst on us, veering from East-South-East to East-North-East, broke our best bower anchor, and drove us half a mile out to sea, when the remaining fluke hooked a rock and brought us up. It rained and blew till daylight, then we were again favoured with fine weather, and light westerly winds. The land was now in sight, Cape Villaret being the most northerly point, and bearing East-South-East some 16 or 17 miles. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... back in the evening and play some more." I did so, and the game lasted till after midnight. I had beginner's luck—"nigger luck," as he called it—and it kept him working feverishly to win. Once when I had made a great fluke—a carom followed by most of the balls falling ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... tired of travelling, and impoverished by the husband's follies, the hapless couple returned to London, where a pure fluke with some mining shares introduced Minchin to finer gambling than he had found abroad. The man was bitten. There was a fortune waiting for special knowledge and a little ready cash; and Alexander Minchin settled ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... 1879, when persistent rains and an almost sunless summer ruined the crops and reduced many farmers to a state of destitution. Much of the grain was never harvested, whilst owing mainly to the excessive floods there commenced an outbreak of liver-rot in sheep, due to the ravages of the fluke parasite. This continued for several years, and the mortality was so great that its adverse effects upon the ovine population of the country were still perceptible ten years afterwards. A fall in rents was the necessary sequel of the agricultural ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... but the merino ruins his man with greater celerity. Nothing on earth will kill cross-breds; nothing will keep merinos alive. If they are put on dry salt-bush country they die of drought. If they are put on damp, well-watered country they die of worms, fluke, and foot-rot. They die in the wet seasons and they ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... missed," said he—though he hardly knew what he was saying; a kind of bewilderment of joy possessed him—he could not keep his eyes off the dead stag—and now, if he had only chanced to notice it, his hand was certainly trembling. Probably Roderick did not know what a fluke was; in any case ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... was shortening the mare's grasping stride. The trap pitched more than ever as she came up into the shafts and back into her harness; she twisted suddenly to the left into a narrow lane, cleared the corner by an impossible fluke, and Fanny Fitz was hurled ignominiously on to Rupert Gunning's lap. Long briars and twigs struck them from either side, the trap bumped in craggy ruts and slashed through wide puddles, then reeled irretrievably over a heap of stones and tilted ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... sees this, and turned him about so quickly, that no eye could follow him, and caught the spear with his left hand, and hurled it back at Karli's ship, and that man got his death who stood before it. Kolskegg snatched up a grapnel and casts it at Karli's ship, and the fluke fell inside the hold, and went out through one of the planks, and in rushed the coal-blue sea, and all the men ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... our hero also devoted a good deal of his time to acquiring in-door games, being quickly initiated into the mysteries of billiards, and plunging headlong into pool. It was in the billiard-room that Verdant first formed his acquaintance with Mr. Fluke of Christ Church, well known to be the best player in the University, and who, if report spoke truly, always made his five hundred a year by his skill in the game. Mr. Fluke kindly put our hero "into the way to become a player;" and Verdant soon found the apprenticeship ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Red Chicken went quietly over the side of the canoe, descended beside the shark and tapped him sharply on the head. The fish turned swiftly to see what teased him, and in the same split-second of time, over his fluke went the noose, and Red Chicken was up and away, while his companions on a nearby cliff pulled in the rope and killed the shark with spears in shallow water. Red Chicken said that he had learned this art from a Samoan, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... out of a disturbed hole, and Geoffry, with a shout of delight, in pure instinct flung a stone. By a strange, unhappy fluke, expected least of all by himself, the stone hit the poor little terrified thing and it rolled over dead. He picked it up by its ears and called to them triumphantly to witness his luck, with boyish delight in the unexpected, though the chances were he would never have flung the stone ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... her imagination with dangerous fuel. She would begin dreaming and building castles and prospecting for herself, very likely; and that trail led oftenest to black disappointment. If he made good, he would tell her—when he told her something else. And if the whole thing were just a fluke, a stray deposit of a little gold that did not amount to anything, then it would be best for her to know nothing about it. Ward felt in himself, at that moment, the keen foretaste of bitter disappointment which would follow such ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... five hundred-weights) was lowered with the remainder of the chain. For a time this held the ship, but a gust of wind from the southeast caused it to drag. It was, therefore, hauled up and, on coming to the surface, was seen to have lost a fluke. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... when the old man was out, I had a great find. Directly behind the picture is the door of a secret room, so neatly covered by the designs on the wall that it is not discernible. It was only by the merest fluke I discovered it. I was taking down the picture with the idea of "touching up" the face, when my knuckles bumped against the panels of the wall, touched a spring, and the door flew open, revealing an apartment about six by eight feet large. I at ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... whale-killer had hurled his last lance, had killed his last whale. The dying monster, in making a last struggle with his enemies, had struck the captain with his fluke, and he ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... bamboo lattice work, palm leaves sewed with cotton thread into the form of such hats as are worn by the Chinese, and the remains of blue cotton trousers, of the fashion called moormans. A wooden anchor of one fluke, and three boats rudders of violet wood were also found; but what puzzled me most was a collection of stones piled together in a line, resembling a low wall, with short lines running perpendicularly at the back, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... patience, though a loud voice seemed crying in his ears, "What will happen next? What will the end be—success, or a sudden fluke that will mean failure?" He barred his mind against misgivings, but he had hoped for some sign of life when he rode in sight of the white roofs; and ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "There are eighty acres of meadow lying under Lough Corrib this moment which will not give a ton of hay next summer, or food for a sheep next autumn. The pastures will be saturated, and sheep would perish with foot-rot and fluke. Then money must be laid out again upon it, just that Mr. Carroll may again wreak his vengeance." After that there was silence, for the children felt that not a word could be spoken which would comfort ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... ship, never moving a spar, but looking for all the world as though I were a settling fast to go down stern foremost: may be as how I had no objection to that same; but that's neither here nor there. Well, I sat down on the fluke of an anchor, and began a thinking if it wasn't better to go before the mast than live on that way. Just before me, where I sat down, there was an old schooner that lay moored in the same place for as long as I could remember. She was ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... drag away with it; higher up, women and children, their clothes driven by the furious gale, with one hand holding on their caps, and with the other supporting themselves by the gunnels of the boats hauled up, the capstans, or perhaps an anchor with its fluke buried in the shingle, were looking on with dismay and with beating hearts, awaiting the result of the venturous attempt, and I soon discovered the form of Bessy, who was in ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... an avalanche of broken tiles, jumped the street amidst shrieks and cries, and smashed into a plate-glass window with an immense and sickening impact. The balloon rolled nauseatingly, and the car pitched. But the grapnel had not held. It emerged at once bearing on one fluke, with a ridiculous air of fastidious selection, a small child's chair, and pursued by a maddened shopman. It lifted its catch, swung about with an appearance of painful indecision amidst a roar of wrath, and dropped it at last neatly, and as if by inspiration, ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... got his Diploma on a Fluke, but when he appeared on the Rostrum between an Oleander and the Members of the Board, with Goose-Goose on the Aureole, the new Store Suit garnished with a leaf of Geranium and a yellow Rose-Bud, and the Gates Ajar Collar lashed fast with his future Trade-Mark: viz., a White Bow Tie—he ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... amazing fluke, there's a lull. One squadron has gone. Sir John is on his way down. Julian starts early next week, and Gerald a few days later. So within a fortnight we shall all be ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... let her finish, I exclaimed, "There's been a fluke somewhere, I'm afraid; but we are still in good shape, for the train can't possibly be here under an hour. I'll get my field-glasses and have another look ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... come out on? The living ones lying on the ground were asking that about themselves, too. There we were, all sitting up and asking whether we were alive or dead; and some were one, and some were the other. Sort of fluke, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... the chances of being thrown on the island than to be carried past by a fluke of the wind!" he declared, and Thad believed so much the same way that he did ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... As he spoke, the fluke of the starboard anchor of the Serapis hooked in the mizzen chains. It was lashed fast, and the ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... varied cluster of buildings immediately around its foot contain the principal reception and living rooms, and lowest of all the courtyards, kitchens, stables and offices. To the right of the keep a wing, curved like the fluke of an anchor, slopes down to a lower level. This portion is fairly modern and arranged for the housing of guests. The Countess's own apartments were situated at the junction of this wing with the main building, while the quarters assigned by ancient ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... much as that little Canadian girl of six, who, seeing a torpedo shimmering past the ship's side, called out, "Oh, Mummy, look at the pretty fish!" Once a fast torpedo was hit and exploded by a shell from the vessel its submarine was chasing. But this was a perfect fluke. ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... have been made with the light iron. And as for his positive virtues, they were too numerous to mention. He never swayed his body, moved his head, or pressed. He was always ready to utter a tactful grunt when his opponent foozled. And when he himself achieved a glaring fluke, his self-reproachful click of the tongue was music to his adversary's bruised soul. But of all his virtues the one that most endeared him to me and to all thinking men was the fact that, from the start ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... weighed anchor on August 12, having on board 420 blacks—290 men and 130 women—all chained, and all held under by us twenty-two whites, of the which nineteen were women. The weather turned sulky almost from the start, and after ten days of drifting, with here and there a fluke of wind, we found ourselves off the Gaboon river. From this we crept our way to the Island of St. Thomas, three days; watered there, and fetched down to the south-east trades. The niggers were dying fast, and between the south-east and north-east ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... that, under pressure, the latter might carry the stocks he and the others had hypothecated with them until such a time as the company might be organized at a profit. At the same time he was intensely resentful against Cowperwood for having by any fluke of circumstance reaped so large a profit as he must have done. Plainly, the present crisis had something to do with him. Schryhart was quick to call up Hand and Arneel, after Stackpole had gone, suggesting a conference, and together, an hour later, at Arneel's office, they foregathered ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... course you cannot. I was forgetting you did not know! There, pass me the stuff on yonder platter that looks like caked mud from an anchor fluke, and swells like breath of paradise, and let me question you;" and while I sat and drank with that yellow servitor sitting in front of me, I plied her with questions, just as a baby might who had come into the world with a full-blown gift of speech. But though she was ready and willing ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... soothing and gratifying, to feel that one could at any time win an equal fame if one chose to set pen to paper. And now, suddenly, the spring had been touched in me, the time was come. I was grateful for the fluke by which I had witnessed on the terrace that evocative scene. I looked forward to reading the MS. of 'The Fan'—to-morrow, at latest. I was not wildly ambitious. I was not inordinately vain. I ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... their nostrils had their homes in there. In fact, one was still living in there in our own time. It was as long as a tree, and had a body as big around as a tierce, and scales like overlapping great tiles, and deep ruby eyes as large as a cavalier's hat, and an anchor-fluke on its tail as big as I don't know what, but very big, even unusually so for a dragon, as everybody said who knew about dragons. It was thought that this dragon was of a brilliant blue color, with gold mottlings, but no one had ever seen it, ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... at the bottle, and was more than usually quarrelsome; two men were sent from the wheel for daring to spit over the quarter, and M'Kellar was on a verge of tears at some coarse-worded aspersion on his seamanship. The middle watch began ill. When the wind came we thought it the usual fluke that would last but a minute or two, and then, "mains'l up, an' square mainyards, ye idle hounds!" But no, three bells, four bells, five, the wind still held, the water was ruffling up to windward, the ship leaning handsomely; there was ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... as the instruction proceeded, and he developed a certain expert dignity, a quality of fatherly consideration. He treated Denton with the utmost consideration, only "flicking him up a bit" now and then, to keep the interest hot, and roaring with laughter at a happy fluke of Denton's that ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... of each one and trace its evolution or unfolding, we should probably not find more than one that could be associated with the things that happen by chance. The case of a man who achieved what is called a "lucky fluke" out of a piece of spoiled cloth is perhaps the only instance of its kind on record in the history of cloth manufacture. I have admitted that there are cases where advantage falls to a man which cannot be explained by anything he deserves, or has done ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... loved him. I remember as early as the City Merchants' days how Britten and I scoffed at that pompous question-begging word "Evolution," having, so to speak, found it out. Evolution, some illuminating talker had remarked at the Britten lunch table, had led not only to man, but to the liver-fluke and skunk, obviously it might lead anywhere; order came into things only through the struggling mind of man. That lit things wonderfully for us. When I went up to Cambridge I was perfectly clear that life was a ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... place to a man who'd muddle it all up and maybe bring us to the Auctioneer's. I've known ... I've seen ... they had a bailiff in at Becket's House and he lost them three fields of lucerne the first season, and got the fluke into their sheep. Why, even Sir Harry Trevor's taken to managing things himself at North Farthing after the way he saw they were doing with, that old Lambarde, and what he can do I can do, seeing I wasn't brought up in ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... howdah. I was sure that I had missed altogether, and thought no more about it, but when the beat came up half an hour later, a huge tiger was lying there stone dead. That, of course, was an absolute piece of luck, a mere fluke, as I had never even seen the brute. As soon as the Maharajah and his men had examined the big tiger's teeth they at once pronounced him a man-eater, and there was great rejoicing, for a man-eating ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... vessel caught her midships, she would have at once crushed her like an eggshell; as it was, the fluke of one of her anchors, which was hanging from her bows ready for letting go in case of emergency, the barque being not yet clear of soundings, got foul of the cutter's rigging, sweeping her mast and boom away, the stays snapping under the strain ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... — N. angularity, angularness^; aduncity^; angle, cusp, bend; fold &c 258; notch &c 257; fork, bifurcation. elbow, knee, knuckle, ankle, groin, crotch, crutch, crane, fluke, scythe, sickle, zigzag, kimbo^, akimbo. corner, nook, recess, niche, oriel [Arch.], coign^. right angle &c (perpendicular) 216.1, 212; obliquity &c 217; angle of 45 degrees, miter; acute angle, obtuse angle, salient angle, reentering angle, spherical angle. angular measurement, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... though a Fluke should fling your Class aside, And Best Gross be your momentary pride: Are you a Golfer more than when last week You did YOUR best, and barely ...
— The Golfer's Rubaiyat • H. W. Boynton
... he was a cert. It was only the merest fluke I managed to out him when I did. If he'd hung on to the end, he'd have won easy. He'd ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... and warm and slippery, a monstrous tail fluke that stretched down the beach to merge into a flat purplish acreage of back, forested with endless rows of fins and spines and enigmatic tendrils. The Scoop, he saw, and only half believed it, had wallowed into the shallows alongside his ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... on the whole meeting," answered Dick triumphantly. "And even that was a 'fluke,' because Bearwarden's Bacchante filly was ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... and round-worms or Nematoids. Flat worms, such as tapeworms and flukes, require secondary hosts. The immature and mature forms of tapeworms are parasites of vertebrate animals, but an invertebrate host is necessary for the completion of the life cycle of the fluke. The hog is the only specie of domestic animals that becomes a host for the thorn-headed worm. The round-worm is a very common parasite. There are many species ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... and to his titles and the bloody hand of his scutcheon. It was not for many years after that he appeared as Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth de Mogyns, with a genealogy found out for him by the Editor of 'Fluke's Peerage,' and which appears as follows in that work:—'De Mogyns.—Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth, Second Baronet. This gentleman is a representative of one of the most ancient families of Wales, who trace ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Fluke this time, I'm afraid," he acknowledged, "but I rather like the suggestion. You ought to see a great deal of me, Miss Van Teyl. Do you realise that I am a stranger in New York, and any hospitality you can show me may be doubly rewarded? Are you going ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... by seed. A great authority, Mr. Rivers (9/101. 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1863 page 643.) states that "seedlings from the ash-leaved kidney always bear a strong resemblance to their parent. Seedlings from the fluke-kidney are still more remarkable for their adherence to their parent stock, for, on closely observing a great number during two seasons, I have not been able to observe the least difference, either in earliness, productiveness, or in the size or ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... Aft and walk away with her! Handsome to the cathead, now; O tally on the fall! Stop, seize and fish, and easy on the davit-guy. Up, well up the fluke of ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... lawyer, had saved him from being punished as a murderer and after the trial, and the young negro's acquittal, had induced his sister to take him as gardener. His chances as a professional man in the city were no good. "He has had a terrible experience and has just escaped by a fluke" the brother had said. Cora Sayers had taken the young man. She had bound him to herself, ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... fluke. It seemed to him he was getting an entirely disproportionate reward for mauling an insolent chauffeur. That moved him to wonder what became of Pebbles. He felt sorry for Pebbles. The man had probably lost his job ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... waste time the way I do, trying to find these things out; when they do it's generally a fluke if they come across the key. It took me hours to disentangle the first of those advertisements—the rest came ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... Lawrence was playing left end on the Harvard Freshman football eleven; not only that, but in the first game of the season, played against a Boston preparatory school, he had made the only touchdown. He added that that didn't mean much, for he had got the ball on a fluke; still, the tone of the letter ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... eighteen hours in Paris, and by a happy fluke the business was done over which I had counted upon spending a good ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... in spite of his losses, was now almost cheerful again on account of a curious side issue. "You may say it is coincidence," he said, "you may call it a fluke, but I prefer to look for some other interpretation! Consider this. The amount of my balance is a secret between me and my bankers. He never had it from me, for I did not know it—I hadn't looked at my passbook for months. But he drew it all in one cheque, within seventeen and sixpence ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... time. I had to keep guessing at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by inspiration, the signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones; I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims; I had to keep a lookout for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for next day's steaming. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... up the sidewheeler and Schultz reached wide to meet it and failed. The third was the lightning drop, straight over the plate. The batter poked weakly at it. Then Carl struck out and Manning following, did likewise. Three of the best hitters in the Eastern retired on nine strikes! That was no fluke. I knew what it meant, and I sat there hugging myself with the hum of something joyous in ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... golly, I wish you'd tell us what yuh done it for!" Slim cut in disgustedly. "It was nacherlay supposed you could ride; we got money up on yuh! And then, by golly, to go and make a fluke like that before them Diamond G men—to go and let that blue roan pile yuh up b'fore he'd got rightly started t' pitch—If yuh'd stayed with him till he got t' swappin' ends there, it wouldn't uh looked quite so bad. But t' go ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... It was by a fluke that he missed Sanders. As it happened, the Commissioner had come back to the big river to collect the evidence of the murdered woman's brother who was a petty headman of an Isisi fishing village. The Zaire came into the river almost as the last of Bosambo's canoes went round the bend out of sight, ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... childhood I was trained by parents and teachers to discipline the projective potential of my mind into the System. Like every other paraNormal, I received my education by tapping Central for contact with information centers and other minds. But I was a fluke." His dark blue eyes twinkled. "Biological units are never so standardized that all of them fall under any system that can be devised. I functioned in this System, true, but I could imagine my mind existing outside, could see my ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... hastily added, in his orders to Trysail. "We are in no condition to sport with stock-and-fluke; have every thing ready to let go at a word; and see the grapnels ready,—we will throw them aboard the smuggler as we close, and take him alive. Once fast to the chain, we are yet strong enough to haul him in under our scuppers, and to capture him with the pumps! Is the signal still abroad, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... slowly. "I've never known him fail yet in anything he set his mind to—at least, only once. And that was a fluke." ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Hackett Wells this was a national calamity. Havin' got in with the easy-money bunch by a fluke in the first place, he wa'n't a man who could come back. Course he brought suit, and wasted a lot of breath callin' Pyramid hard names from a safe distance; but Pyramid's lawyers wore him out in the courts, and he was too busy to care ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... lashed his anchor to the bow, so that the sharp flukes protruded; thus extemporizing an iron-clad ram more than two hundred years before naval men thought of using one. Thus provided, the second blow of the sloop was more terrible than the first. The sharp fluke of the anchor crashed through the side of the pinnace, and the two vessels hung tightly together. Gallop then began to double-load his duck-guns, and fire through the sides of the pinnace; but, finding that the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to the man and he smiled. "Ye can't get no coffee," he said, "until breakfast time, and that's pretty nigh two hours off. There is people in the place that have breakfast earlier than we do, but we keep boarders, ye know. We've only got Captain Fluke now, but generally have more; and ye couldn't ask a man like Captain Fluke to git up to his breakfast before half past seven. Then ye don't want yer baggage sent fur? Perhaps ye've come ter see friends, an' it's a little airly ter drop in on 'em? Come in, any way, and ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... came about between our cutter and a similar boat of the "Lily," which it will be remembered we beat at Chefoo recently; but so confident were the "Lily's" that our victory on that occasion was the result of a "fluke," that they challenged us again to pull for sixty dollars. The race was conclusive to the "Lily's," and they handed over the "Mexicans" with the best grace a small ship's company can be supposed to exhibit—on ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... his final fluke was I'm only givin' a guess at, but I judge that when Mr. Ellins called on him to point out the pirate hoard, now we were right on the ground, Rupert begun stallin' him off. Anyway, I saw 'em havin' ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... have been very worthy—but gloria's surely not the word for them. Or take a football game," she laughed. "Sometimes the defeated team really does better work than the winners—but wouldn't we rather our fellows would win on a fluke than go down to defeat putting up a good, steady fight? The thing ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... prefiguring with candles the eight-hour day may still be chasing whale-brit round an Arctic iceberg. The whale mates, we are told, once and for keeps. Jogging along from one ocean end to another with the same wife for a thousand years without turning fluke to look at an affinity! Shades of Chicago and Pittsburg, hide your wings! Whales follow their annual migration as regularly as do moose and caribou on land, the seal and salmon in the Pacific. Seen first in May in Bering Strait, the Bowheads trend from here north and east, doubling back ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... to reflect, before, to my surprise, they filled their canoes with stones, and twelve men came off after us to renew the attack, which they did so effectually as nearly to disable all of us. Our grapnel was foul, but Providence here assisted us; the fluke broke, and we got to our oars, and pulled to sea. They, however, could paddle round us, so that we were obliged to sustain the attack without being able to return it, except with such stones as lodged in the boat, and in this ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... sheet over to his comrade as to one who would know exactly what to do with it. Dan perched himself on the weather gunwale, his weight there serving as ballast to keep the craft from capsizing. Yet, even so, everything had to be done with the utmost skill, for, with the mainsail up, the least fluke in handling the boat ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... spread the news Uv how Three-fingered Hoover had insulted Charlotte Rooze At the conversazzhyony down at Sorry Tom's that night, An' when they asked me, I allowed that Bill for once wuz right; Although it broke my heart to see my friend go up the fluke, We all opined his treatment uv the girl deserved rebuke. It warn't no use for Sorry Tom to nail it for a lie,— When it come to sassin' wimmin, there wuz blood in every eye; The boom for Charlotte Rooze swep' on an' took the polls by storm, An' ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... lust of battle. "No," he gritted. "We're going to stay and fight. Mascola's not going to win on a fluke if it costs me ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... rule you are not my overlords. The bonds they set upon your minds do not touch me." Travis hoped that that was the truth and his escape that morning had not been just a fluke. ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... mere fact that the thief got the jewels, and was only stopped by a fluke from getting ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Dinah's face fell. "He has plenty of abilities, but I doubt his staying power; he works too much by fits and starts—there is no method or application. But of course he may turn over a new leaf. It is just possible that he may pass by some lucky fluke. It is not always the best workers who get through. You will give him a coach, of course. Oh, I see," reading Dinah's expression correctly, "he may have a dozen coaches if he needs them; but if you care to consult ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was wounded by a fluke. He is a very ... unusual opponent. I cannot decide whether he is actually as clumsy as he appears to be, or whether he is shamming and trying to make me overconfident. Either way, it is impossible to predict his behavior. Perhaps he ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... circumstances always do, any rigid plan being adhered to. Had there been a fresh breeze before the battle commenced, the chances are that the French would have secured a position that would have enabled more of the crippled ships to get into Cadiz, but even this is doubtful, as only a fluke of wind could have saved them from the strategy of the British Commander-in-Chief before the fighting began. Between eleven and twelve o'clock on the 21st October every humanly possible, detailed arrangement had been completed. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... mention it to you—it was all a fluke. But I don't blame you, Andy. I'll go and talk to the Stewards—they're all right; they only want to get at the ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... follow them with our eyes, and we wish that they would allow themselves to guess. For so many months we have not seen a woman; there have been so many hours when we expected never again to see a woman. We're Lazaruses exhumed and restored to normal ways of life by the fluke of having collected a bit of shrapnel—we haven't yet got used to normal ways. The mere rustle of a woman's skirt fills us with unreasonable delight and makes the eyes smart with memories of old longings. Those childish longings of the trenches! No one can understand ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... grass stalk bearing three encysted cercariae of the common liver fluke (Fasciola ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... warning shout of "Look out! this form's going again!") "I was going to say," continued the speaker, attempting to hide his embarrassment by pretending to drink out of an empty glass, "that it was rather a fluke—" (Shouts of "No! no!" "More pop for the gentleman!" and fresh outbursts of cheering.) "Well, I did the best I could, and—well—glad you're pleased, and all that sort of thing. (Alarums and excursions.) I suppose I ought to say something about this society, but, as regards that matter, ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... die, and to do so with as much trouble to their owners as they possibly can. They die in the droughts when the grass, roasted to a dull white by the sun, comes out by the roots and blows about the bare paddocks; they die in the wet, when the long grass in the sodden gullies breeds "fluke" and "bottle" and all sorts of hideous complaints. They get burnt in bush fires from sheer malice, refusing to run in any given direction, but charging round and round in a ring till they are calcined. ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... the barest fluke that the manoeuvre should have worked so well. Harrison Smith stumbled heavily, grabbed at Dirk and missed him. Barraclough's foot just above his waist line destroyed the last of his equilibrium and over the edge he went into the shallow water below. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... was a pure fluke. Any one could have caught that; and so it does not count either. I am ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... again, of producing another idea in case it should be wanted? That one little flash of inspiration she'd had, that had resulted in the twelve costumes for the sextette—where had it come from? How had she happened on it? Wasn't it, perhaps, just a fluke that never could be repeated? During those wonderful days she had had antennae out everywhere, bringing her impressions, suggestions from the unlikeliest objects. Now they were all drawn in and the part of her mind that had responded ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... anything to do with the conduct of the business of the company in which he invests, but one has got a tip from some friend or other who thinks he knows of a good thing. The work of the two men is exactly the same; it is a mere fluke that one gets a huge return and the other puts his money into a company which, without any fault on his part, ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... a magnificent game if played on honor. An English tennis champion was lately playing a rubber game with the American champion. They were even and near the end when the American made a bad fluke which would have lost this country its championship. The English player, scorning to win on an accident, intentionally made a similar mistake that the best man might win. The chief evil of modern American football which now threatens its suppression in some ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... kind to people! Mrs. Warner told me so," remarked Rumple, with the air of knowing all that there was to be known. "He is most awfully rich, too, and he came into his money quite by a fluke." ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... Anthony's voice in a tone of great surprise. "So it is!" He leaped out and came around to Juliet's side. "What a fluke!" But the happy laugh in ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... fluke, because I was educated at the Scotch convent with these dear old absurd nuns who were Gordons, and Camerons, and Macdonalds, and did n't know a ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... musculature with bold, sure strokes. An excellent prosectress, Kennon thought. Kennon pointed at the swollen liver and the Lani deftly severed its attachments and laid the organ out for inspection. The cause of death was obvious. The youngster had succumbed to a massive liver-fluke infestation. It was the worst he had ever seen. The bile ducts were thick, calcified and choked with literally thousands of the gray-green ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... She had no masts, but the sails were hoisted on huge triangles, which could be lowered at pleasure. Her anchor, too, was of curious construction: it consisted of a tough, hooked piece of timber, which served as the fluke or hook, being strengthened by twisted ratans, which bound it to the shank; while the stock was formed of a large flat stone, also secured by ratans to the shank. I observed that all the crew were armed; and on a small piece of timber in the bows a small swivel ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... called. "Keep an eye open for Garcia. He might make a fluke and shoot straight, for once ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... be able to rise at all. One morning I stuck my head out just in time to see my favourite sweater, which I had counted on for service on the homeward voyage, disappearing over the rail—legitimately, so far as concerned the wearer. Last week, by the merest fluke, I rescued my best boots from a similar fate. The doctor explained lamely on each occasion that they got mixed with the clothing sent for distribution to the poor. This may be a literal statement of fact, but I doubt ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... reflected, is that in the midst of a silly argument that you can shatter in ten words they will by a fluke insert some awkward piece of genuine ratiocination, the answer to which must ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... here where he and his mother had a large estate—Lady Victoria's mother or grandmother was a Spanish-Californian. Of course he chucked the title. He's a sort of cousin of mine and I looked him up, and dined with him the other night. He was born in the United States, by a fluke as it were, and has made up his mind to be an American for the rest of his life and carve out a political career in this country. I'd have done the same thing, by Jove! First-class solution...although it's a pretty hard wrench to give up your own country. But when a man is ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton |
