"Fluke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 there had ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... be disgusted. "It was only a fluke after all," they said to each other. Colonel Drew was appealed to urge Monty to save himself, and he was on the point of remonstrance when the message came that the threatened strike was off, and that the men were willing ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... Just what 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' a little private session 'way up in the bow soon after we got the hook ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... 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
... House!" cried Mr. Fox. The next moment every one was shoving and elbowing with their eyes fixed on the ball as it flew through the air. It dropped in exactly the right place, and Jack Vance, by some happy fluke, kicked it just as it touched the ground. Like a big round shot it whizzed through the posts, and there was a ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... more; I had no 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 look-out for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for next day's steaming. When you have to attend to things of that ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... They's three hundred more waitin' on the tree for me to pick two weeks from last night if you'll say the word. It's just the same as I told you before. He's my meat. He still thinks I 'm a rube, an' that it was a fluke punch." ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... may make a lucky hit now and again by what is called a fluke, but even this must be only a little in advance of his other performances of the same kind. He may multiply seven by eight by a fluke after a little study of the multiplication table, but he will not be able to extract the cube root of 4913 by a fluke, without ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... river is a group of islands, of which two only are of large size, namely, ROTTNEST and BUACHE. We anchored on the north side of the former, but broke the fluke, from the rocky nature of the bottom. On the North-East side of the island, the anchorage is better, since it is more sheltered. Rottnest Island is five miles long: it was discovered by Vlaming in 1696. Its shores ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... a joy and a disappointment. Such marvellous angles and stop volleys off difficult drives! Yet immediately on top of a dazzling display Alonzo will throw away the easiest sort of a high volley by a pitiable fluke. ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... univarse was finished. One half of it has got all the ballast of Noah's ark thrown out there; and the other half is eat up by bankers, lawyers, and other great folks. All our money goes to pay salaries, and a poor man has no chance at all.' 'Well,' says I, 'are you done up stock and fluke—a total wrack?' 'No,' says he, 'I have two hundred pounds left yet to the good, but my farm, stock and utensils, them young blood horses, and the bran' new vessel I was a-buildin', are all gone to pot, swept as clean as a thrashin' floor, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Acanthocephales; 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 ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... by slicing their old Turkey in two. Then came the big delay owing to ships changing stations during which mines set loose from up above had time to float down the current, when, by the Devil's own fluke, they impinge upon our battleships, and blow de Robeck and his plans into the middle of next week—or later! These are ward-room yarns. De Robeck was working by stages and never meant, so far as we know, to run ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... little stratagems which as often as not proved injudicious, and then somehow or other in the end, there lay the young man bound and with an arrow through his heart at her daughter's feet. It seemed to her to be all a fluke which she could have little or no hope of repeating. She had indeed repeated it once, and might perhaps with good luck repeat it yet once again—but five times over! It was awful: why she would rather have three confinements than go through the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... counsel that the greater part of my success was due. He taught me the folly of ploughing with a fluke,—a custom to which the Eastern Shore was wedded, pointing out that a double surface was thus exposed to the sun's rays; and explained at length why there was more profit in small grain in that district than heavy tobacco. He gave me Dr. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... whole column then advanced. After two hours' pretty hot work the action was over. We lost six killed against the rebels' twenty-two, and with twenty wounded on our side the rebel losses were proportionate. We took upwards of three hundred prisoners, De Wet himself escaping by the merest fluke. He lost all his transport, and generally ceased after the action to ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... when John thought it impossible to save its life he handed the case over to my wife. She succeeded, chiefly, I think, by careful nursing, in pulling it through, much to John's surprise; doubtless he thought its recovery a lucky fluke. John was given to occasional alcoholic lapses; on one occasion I found him aimlessly driving sheep across a field of growing mangolds! I could see that he was muddled, and on reaching home later I sought an interview. He was not ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... 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 for good measure. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... 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 functioning ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... 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 colleges is the lust to win at ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... Kiranus. And there it happened one Sunday, as the people were at prayers and heard mass, that there descended gently from the air an anchor, as if it had been cast from a ship, for there was a cable to it, and the fluke of the anchor caught in the arch of the church-door, and all the people went out of church, and wondered, and looked up into the air after the cable. There they saw a ship floating above the cable, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... 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 custom to the use of the reigning ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... 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 too ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... the individuals who will simply trample down their neighbours in order that they themselves may "survive"; or if, again, the Naturalist convinces him that all he has seen in the forest has come about by pure chance; that it is by a mere fluke that we find orchids and not mushrooms, men and not monkeys, at the head of plant and animal life; and that Nature herself is wholly indifferent as to which of the two establishes its preeminence—then he will feel the chill upon his soul, ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... of catting and fishing as other seamen do, this position of the stock offers no impediment. The flukes were of the same dimensions as those of similar sized anchors with us; they were straight and not rounded, and there were no palms. There was also a kedge, with only one fluke. The cables were of rattan. The junk had no bitts, but to supply their place the strong beams across the deck had large holes for stoppers. The "wales" formed another singular feature of the vessel—airtight ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... aroma of broiled bones, lemons, and alcohol, and shaking his visitor affectionately by the hand—for he bore no malice, and the Lenten ditty he quite forgave as being no worse in modern parlance than an unhappy 'fluke'—was about to pull him into the parlour, where there was ensconced, he told him, 'a noble friend of his.' This was 'Pat Mahony, from beyond Killarney, just arrived—a man of parts and conversation, and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... North-west, that goal of so many navigators. On the 10th of February, 1818, while at anchor off the Cape, the cable parted, and they lost one of their anchors, an accident which considerably endangered the remainder of the voyage, as on the 12th the fluke of a second anchor broke in consequence of the wind freshening during the night. Three days afterwards they reached a secure anchorage, which he named the Bay of Rest, as the crew had been long fatigued when the found it. Here ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... It was a very clever trap which was baited, and it was not owing to any foresight or any cleverness on the part of this country that the Allies did not walk straight into it. I say again," he went on, "that it was a mere fluke which prevented the Allies from being represented at that Conference and the driving in of the thin end ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of chumming for snappers, even if they hooked more of sluggish fluke than of the gamier fish to tempt which the chopped bait is devoted, was so exciting that Betty, sailing the sloop, overlooked a pregnant cloud that streaked up from the horizon almost like a puff ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... the main-topsail and fore-topmast-staysail, she rode more upright. The main-topsail was clewed up and fortunately saved, the mizzen-staysail was set. "Stand by, to cut away the stoppers of the best bower anchor—to let it go, stock and fluke," said Captain G. "Man the fore-topmast-staysail down-haul; put your helm down! haul down the staysail." This was done, and the ship came up handsomely, head to wind, "See the cable tiers all clear—what water ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... felt satisfied, for the shots were very good. Mr. Cossey opened his eyes and wondered if it was a fluke, and George ejaculated, "Well, that's ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... vessel, and as the bottom was hard, and difficult to get an anchor into it, there was the risk of dragging on this bank. We say that the bottom was hard, for the reader should know that it is not the weight of the anchor that secures the ship, but the hold its pointed fluke and broad palm get of the ground. The coast itself was distant less than a mile, and the entire basin within the reef was fast presenting spits of sand, as the water fell on the ebb. Still there were many channels, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... I!" cried Tyke heartily. "Of course, we stand to lose a tidy little sum if it should turn out to be a fluke. There's the outfitting to be done, the crew's wages to be paid, an' a lot of other expenses that'll mount up into money. But it's worth a chance, and if we lose I'm willing to ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... as varying 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
... 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 before ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... 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 the scene ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... cried a broad-shouldered jack-tar, giving the fluke of the anchor a hearty slap with his hand after the housing was completed —"there, lass, take a good nap now, for we shan't ask you to kiss the mud again for many a long ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... ten-yard line. The north stand was applauding vociferously this stroke of fortune. If Erskine could get possession of the ball now she might be able to score; but her coaches, watching intently from the side-line, knew that only the veriest fluke could give the pigskin to the Purple. And meanwhile, with hearts beating a little faster than usual, they awaited the first ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... been only 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
... What the devil ails my fingers to-night? M'h! There; will you stay tied as I want you? 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 ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... 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 ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... fluke, I guess," he frowned in frustration and disgust at himself. "I keep thinking I'm getting good—then flooie!" He idly sent his mind towards the boy again ... and suddenly found himself once more ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... a pony on the whole meeting," answered Dick triumphantly. "And even that was a 'fluke,' because Bearwarden's Bacchante filly ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Gulf States of the South would never have ordered their representatives to leave Washington on the election of Abraham Lincoln. The new administration could have done nothing with the Congress chosen. The President had been elected on a fluke because of the division of the opposition into three tickets. Lincoln was a minority President and was powerless except in the use ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... effective, he 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 enemy was not to be dislodged in this way, he ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... so. If Dr. Parkman doesn't win a case, he loses it. His efforts may 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
... people seldom 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 ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... 'em. Even when they'd calmed him down a bit, he still swore that he'd give Ranny the cup, for Ranny'd given him the race. He explained to them in his hoarsest tones that it stood to reason he could never have got in with the pace Ranny'd got on him. It wasn't fair, he said. It was a fluke, a blanky fluke. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... 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, whose ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... point, as usual. "I never got it cashed, because I got by the very same post good news from England. My great-aunt Maxwell is dead at Bath and has left me all her money, twenty thousand pounds. Isn't it the luckiest fluke that ever was? But all the same it is a kindness that I shan't forget. You are an awfully good sort to have done it. Most fellows would have seen me in Halifax first, you know. And if ever you want a friend you'll ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... a year, if you only look out for a good investment. A man with ready money at his own disposal can always get five per cent, at least. I never heard of such a fluke in my life." ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... 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
... own sheep; but I know the signs of it so well. My grasses are peculiarly dry, and my flocks are remarkably well looked after; but I can see indications of it. Only fancy where we should all be if fluke showed itself in Britannula! If it once got ahead we should be no ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... some of the new-comers were fishing off the rocks, west of the hotel, a shark came close in shore. Hearing their outcries, I looked out of my chamber window, and saw the dorsal fin and the fluke of his tail stuck up out of the water, as he moved to and fro. He must have been eight or ten feet long. He had probably followed the small fish into the bay, and got bewildered, and, at one time, he was ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 encounter with Mrs. Ryves he sat at his delightful ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... fluke of fate, life still remained in him; that, in some way he never could discover, he had been cast upon a ledge of rock there in the cataract—a ledge over which spray and foam hurled, seething, yet a ledge ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... princely gathering to see me carry out my bat! Don't grin, you fellows. I know it was a fluke—a dashed fine fluke, too. But it's what I always meant, after all. There's good old Monty, yelling himself hoarse in the pavilion. And his girl—waving. Sweet girl, too—the best in the world. I might cut him out there. But I won't, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... out a failure. Neither of them has 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 ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... under the land, but soon afterwards the wind blew so fresh, that the fluke of our anchor broke, and we were obliged to drop another; which was the last we possessed, besides a small stream anchor that was too light to use, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... I must tell the truth," said John, "it isn't quite so bad as I expected. In fact I very much doubt whether he wrote it at all. If he did—well, it's a marvellous fluke, that's all." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... picked up a few crumbs of comfort, while the feast's been spread for Riverport. And yet Mechanicsburg has just as good athletes as you can boast. We manage to win now and then, sometimes by sheer hard work, and again by a fluke. But they seem to be only the minor events; all the big plums ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... the heart-relation, the brain-relation ('the stranger in blood'), he alone should go untaxed altogether! Alas, the Inland Revenue Commissioners would charge him more than any, which shows that their above-mentioned touch of nature was but a fluke, after all. ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... 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 various and splendid disorder of forces that the spirit of man sets itself ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... here I am. My surroundings I will describe later. I told you I had decided not to go to poor old Major Lessing's funeral for various reasons. I have a horror of humbug; and to pose as sole and chief mourner at the funeral of a man who had made me his heir by a fluke, and if he had lived an hour longer would have altered his will, seemed humbugging, to my mind. Also the funeral service, beautiful as it appears to those who can believe in it, means absolutely nothing to me; and I have scruples about appearing ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... quarters of casks containing any liquid, and stowed in a ship's hold, in order to keep them bilge-free; being steadied upon the beds by means of wedges called quoins. The impression made by a ship's bottom on the mud on having been left by an ebb-tide. The bite made in the ground by the fluke of an anchor. A kind of false deck, or platform, placed on those decks where the guns were too low for the ports.—Bed of a gun-carriage, or stool-bed. The piece of wood between the cheeks or brackets which, with the intervention of the quoin, supports the breech of the gun. It is itself ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... "It's a lucky fluke for you, and I'm glad for your mater's sake. But I wouldn't say too much about it if I were you. It'll make ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... cable got the strain, Raoul felt satisfied that the anchor would hold. Fortunately, a fluke had taken a rock, a circumstance that could be known only by the result; but, so long as the iron held together, there was no danger of that material agent's failing them. The last part of the process of lightening was ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a moral for us, not a doubt of it. Horse that can lick us is not foaled or named. Mr. Punch. Glad you're so cock-sure, dear JOKIM. Still lately They've scored some small handicaps, that you'll allow. Trainer. Oh! Harborough Stakes! Well, that don't scare me greatly, Mere fluke after all, though they raised a big row. Mr. Punch. It's mostly "a fluke" when opponents go by us; But flukes, you know, count, at the end of the game. Trainer. Well, look at the betting! Although they decry us, They'd like to have money on us ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... 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 final stamp, and ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... 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 against the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the particular morning which saw Scrabblegrab the only worker at Blugsey's, the remaining miners were assembled in solemn conclave at Stumpy Fluke's saloon, to determine what was to be ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be in his office. Mat Dillon's long ago. Jolly Mat. Convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, the Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out that evening on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke of mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate at first sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the lilactree, laughing. Fellow always like that, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... 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 ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... 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
... he went on—"don't give it away outside this room, you know—but there have been rumors going about concerning an American and his pretty daughter over here—regular wrong 'uns! They've been up to all sorts of tricks and only kept out of prison by a fluke." ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... table prophesies or delivers "a message from the other world," the result is a compound of fluke with expectation or with apprehension. Fears or hopes dimly in the mind get accentuated, or transmuted, or distorted as in dreams; and when the "spirits" are proved wrong, as in the matter of the Chaperon's mother, the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... air-raid, and knocked me with mangled shoulder-blades into the seat of the 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 tiger had been taking toll of the villagers in one of the ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... in getting clear, and then made sail to beat back to us. In the mean time the strain put upon the Hecla's hawsers being too great for them, they snapped one after another, and a bower-anchor was let go as a last resource. It was one of Hawkins's, with the double fluke, and immediately brought up, not merely the ship, but a large floe of young ice which had just broken our stream-cable. All hands were sent upon the floe to cut it up ahead, and the whole operation was a novel, and, at times, a fearful one; for the ice, being weakened by the cutting, would ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... 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
... of grass stalk bearing three encysted cercariae of the common liver fluke (Fasciola ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... hard and steady and did not show any outward sign of nervousness, though they knew well enough that before the light of another day came their numbers would have passed through the lottery of this game of death. Each man's life depended on no more than a fluke of luck by the throw of those dice which explode as they fall. They knew what their job was. It was to cross five hundred yards of open ground to capture and to hold a certain part of the German position near ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... contests with the smaller colleges had been little more than practice, and in most cases the scrub could have won as certainly if not as overwhelmingly as the 'Varsity. And the victory to-day had been won not by a "fluke," but by clearcut playing. To be sure, the memory of the first part of the game kept rising up like Banquo's ghost to make them uncomfortable. But they had redeemed that so royally in the final half as to silence ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... say, 'What young lady?' You know she's here, and I know it; and she knows I've come and has put her light out and is shaking in her shoes over there. I can swear to that. Well, I want to tell you I never started out to get her; I just stumbled across her on the steamer by a fluke. But I kept my eyes open and I saw a lot of things; and when I got to Paris to-day I told them at the Prefecture. You can see what they thought of the business by my being here. I wasn't keen to come. I've got my own work to do. But they want me to identify her; and they've sent three officers ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... matter of fact," he said, "I played like a fluke. I am not up to Mavorovitch's form at all. I just happened to be on my game; he would have had me down and ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... in our anticipations, for 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. The hillock ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... said the picture. "No! don't go hitting me with paint again, because it's true. You have been trying to fluke an expression on my face all the morning. Really, you haven't an idea what your picture ought ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... 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 ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... me, and showing their tops well above the moon-kissed reeds and bushes, were two trees—a tamarind and a kulpa briksha. God knows why I decided on the latter! Probably through a mere fluke, for I hadn't the remotest idea which of the trees offered the best facilities to a poor climber. My mind once made up, there was no time to alter. The wer-tiger was already terribly close behind. I could gauge its distance by the patter of its feet—apparently the ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... 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 ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... that her sudden brightness but hid a black abyss of bitterness and apprehension. What she had told me had somehow stricken me dumb. There seemed a stark sordidness in the situation that repelled me. She had arisen and was about to step over the fluke of the great anchor, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Fifes are missing, most of the Devons also, so-and-so killed, and so-and-so, and so-and-so. Kits lost, and tents burnt. From various reliable sources I have compiled the best account I can make of the affair, which we missed by the merest fluke, what men call chance, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... projected a few inches below the stone, and were cut off just below a branch of about an inch in diameter and eight or ten inches long. These branches, when growing, bent downwards and slanted at an angle closely resembling that of the fluke of an anchor with the upright. The whole, therefore, was an excellent imitation of an anchor with four flukes, two on each side, the stone serving as a weight. This was thrown out of the bow of the canoe, and a couple of fathoms of line let out. Then Godfrey hauled up the ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things, "the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... had been along the Gold Coast, and round the Bights of Benin and Biafra. The Captain stated that he was going to Prince's Island to procure anchors, having only one remaining, and that one, with but a single fluke to it. We afterwards learnt from the crew that he had endeavoured to enter the river Lagos, but had been fired on and forced to retire, by several Brazilian vessels lying there at the time. We conjectured that ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... the right thing, it was a most fearful fluke," I said, for I could not be silent. "I simply hate men who walk about patting themselves on the back because they have had what they call success with ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... on earth did you get to know about me," Mr. Dunster asked, "and my errand? You couldn't possibly have got me here in an ordinary way. It was an entire fluke." ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... been an hour ago. 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
... light, from the south. This day came into Harbor the bark Winona, after a cruise of three years, two months, and four days. Captain Chase reported that my eldest son, Matthew Shore, was killed by the fluke of a right whale, at Christmas Island. The whale yielded seventy barrels of oil. Matthew Shore was ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... going to make false starts aplenty," Bud remarked after the first fluke. "Jeff and I have it out next. I'll just give Smoke another treatment." He dismounted, looked at Jerry undecidedly and slapped him on the knee. "I'm glad to have a friend like you," he said impulsively. "There's a lot of two-faced sinners around here that would steal a ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... chance." Here 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 me ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... what I wish to know," answered Sir Bale; "because, although I can't, of course, believe that he's a witch, yet he has either made the most marvellous fluke I've heard of, or else he has got extraordinary sources of information; or perhaps he acts partly on chance, partly on facts. Be it which you please, I say he's a marvellous fellow; and I should like to see him, and have a talk ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... without avail. The terrors and agonies I've endured this last few days lest that old blockhead should take himself off without saying or doing anything, no man will ever know. And he would have gone off, too, had it not been for that lucky fluke of your mother's. Do you mind ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... had been prominent before, though she had never noticed it, and now he had helped her up to this noble elevation! He must think she would adorn it. Adorn!—it was a lovely word that Missy had just captured. Though she had achieved her eminence by a fluke. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... 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 distress, to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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 ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... he 's editor of a noos-sheet, and gits a thousand dollars a year—'tain't believable, but it's what they say—an' he thinks he knows it all. He got Fluke to take him out in his boat; he began to direc' Fluke how to do this, an' how to do that, and squallin' and flyin' at him. Fluke sailed back with him and sot him ashore. 'When I take a hen in a boat, I'll take a ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... eighty all told, Lieutenant Thompson was in command, Lieutenant Bukett executive officer, and two midshipmen were the line officers. She was so slow that we could hardly hope for a prize except by a fluke. Repeatedly we had chased suspicious ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... applause, interrupted by a 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 ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... it too dreadful and wicked and fast of me to go on playing? I don't care if it is. I must finish the game, and I'm going to win.—Oh, Lord Lindfield, what a fluke! Do you mean to say you are going to ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... both in the Cabinet and in the House, and will be ready to advise the Under-Secretary and myself. I must, however, say how deeply grateful I am for our pleasant relations, which might easily have been a little strained from the fact that it was a sort of fluke that you were my Under-Secretary instead of being my colleague in the Cabinet. As it is, nothing could be more satisfactory and more pleasant to me, and the knowledge we have obtained of one another will strengthen and ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... one. Starship was in town and looking for a new galley-boy. Dave did some glib talking and got aboard. It was a fluke thing, ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... 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 ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... 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 ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... tendency to link lives together in vital inter-relations. Thus flowers and their insect visitors are often vitally interlinked in mutual dependence. Many birds feed on berries and distribute the seeds. The tiny freshwater snail is the host of the juvenile stages of the liver-fluke of the sheep. The mosquito is the vehicle of malaria from man to man, and the tse-tse fly spreads sleeping sickness. The freshwater mussel cannot continue its race without the unconscious co-operation of the minnow, and the freshwater fish called ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... machine that no measure it may propose is too unsavory to enlist his Dugald Dalgetty loyalty. By your closed lips you countenance the land-jobbing steal which your great state Boss failed by the merest fluke to saddle upon the River and Harbor Bill passed by the last Congress, and purposes to press anew;—dare you vote against ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... the mere fact that the thief got the jewels, and was only stopped by a fluke from getting away with ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... impossible, however, that a man should expend so much ammunition in a region swarming with his particular prey without experiencing something in the shape of a fluke. He did, after a time, get one shot which was effectual. A young rabbit sat on the top of a mound looking at him with an air of impudence which is sometimes associated with extreme youth. A fat old kinsman—or woman—was seated in a ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... some old Minerva-press idea that he would find a girl who would marry him for his own sake. And your sister, no doubt, eager to marry anybody, poor child, for the sake of getting away from that very lovely dungeon of Lady Maulevrier's, snapped at the chance; and by a mere fluke she becomes a countess.' ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... magnificent to be without a committee—we escaped from that by the simple plan of getting the Belgians first and trusting to the goodwill of the Parish to take care of them afterwards—there are other important factors in our success. There is our extraordinary foresight—of course it was a pure fluke really—in obtaining among them a real Belgian policeman. You can have no idea what a fine sense of security that gives us in case anything goes wrong. We have already enjoyed his assistance in a variety ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... Francis acknowledged, "and as a matter of fact I deny that I have started in any new career. It was easy enough to make use of a fluke and direct the intelligence of others towards the right person, but when the real significance of the thing still eludes you, one can scarcely ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thousand year old hatred for the Sonorans who so snobbishly ignored them, isolated them, and considered them unfit for association. The Sonorans, on the other hand, are now thoroughly scared, and will be feeling correspondingly vindictive. They won this time by a fluke—our coming. I can just see those two peoples getting together and settling any kind of sensible, ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... "Somebody sold you a fluke. This set must be an off brand. Incidentally, isn't Tanganyika a colony governed ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... breast, and no matter whose imagination might be fired by the tale, he felt a reasonable security. Experienced prospectors, experts in their line, had been seeking this symbolic well in the desert for twenty-five years and he, not by virtue of his skill or knowledge, but by a mere fluke, a glorious accident, had stumbled on it. It was hardly likely that another should have a similar experience, within the space of the next few months at any rate, and the next few ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... 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 advance of all ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... his mantel-shelf? Well! In poking about the room the other day, 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 once ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... 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 die ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... hear about her position from local gossip—that she is rich, and so on. Perhaps she is not so very plain. They are sure to meet, or Mrs. Nicholson will bring them together in her tactful way. She has not much time to lose if the girl's glass ball yarn is true, and it may be true by a fluke. Jephson is rather bitten by a taste for all that "teleopathy" business, as the old Malaprop calls it. On the whole, I shall say no more to him, but let him play the game, if he goes to Walton, ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... 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)
... water-logged timber 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 there when I was a boy, and never looked a ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... fluke, then," said Hector, who, in spite of his sorrow for the wren, had felt some admiration ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth
... started to interrupt indignantly, but Lispenard continued, "Hold on till I finish. One at a time. Well. Miss Luck gets him chosen to a convention by a fluke and Peter votes against Costell's wishes. What happens? Costell promptly takes him up and pushes him for all he's worth. He snubs society, and society concludes that a man who is more snubby and exclusive than itself must be a man to cultivate. He refuses to talk, ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... in the place for years, but Mr. Williams quarrelled with Dr. Bevan, and his daughter dared not send for him, and as I was the nearest medical man, the servant came to me; it was just a fluke, that's all." ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... matters. In imitation of these gentlemen she will assure those who care to listen to her, that she has had a real bad day, not having managed to get on to a single winner, and that if it hadn't been for a fluke in backing Tantivy, one, two, three, she would have been reduced to a twopence in the pound condition of beggary. She will then forget her imaginary losses, and will listen with amusement and interest while a smooth-faced lad criticises with as much severity ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... and a coat which had formerly been that of a man, gave her a masculine air, which was increased by her strength, uncommon stature, and harsh voice. "What are ye for the day, your honour?" she said, or rather screamed, to Oldbuck; "caller haddocks and whitingsa bannock-fluke and ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... inarticulate mammals, living in trees and caves, one of them by himself, or a little group of them together, hit upon the use of articulate vocal signs as a means of conveying to his mates his needs, his fears, his desires and threats. It was probably by a happy fluke that he hit upon this use, or by some transcendent flash of insight due to a spontaneous variation of ability above that of the average ape; or else some unusual stress of hunger or danger of attack drove ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... 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
... just awash, gently undulated by the long, low swell, one pectoral fin slowly waving like some great stray leaf of Fucus gigantea. [Footnote: Fucus gigantea: fucus is a kind of tough seaweed.] A hole is cut through the fluke and the line secured to it. The ship, which has been working to windward during the conflict, runs down and receives the line; and in a short time the great inert mass is hauled alongside and secured by the fluke [Footnote: Fluke: one ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... 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 would ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... think it was a fluke," said the professor. "I saw him make a swift pick-up a few minutes ago that nine out of ten would have missed. And he threw down to first almost on a line. The ball didn't rise more than three inches on ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... the idea of the ship's chief mate—the man who sees them go down clear and come up sometimes foul; because not even the most unremitting care can always prevent a ship, swinging to winds and tide, from taking an awkward turn of the cable round stock or fluke. Then the business of "getting the anchor" and securing it afterwards is unduly prolonged, and made a weariness to the chief mate. He is the man who watches the growth of the cable—a sailor's phrase which has all the force, precision, and imagery of technical language that, created by simple ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... 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. ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... 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 ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... any other that might have been vouchsafed to him. And yet amidst it all he was somewhat ashamed of his pride. 'The man who can do it for himself is the real man after all,' he said. 'But I have got it by a fluke and by such a sad chance too!' Then he wandered on, thinking of the circumstances under which the property had fallen into his hands, and remembering how and when and where the first idea had occurred to him of making Clara Amedroz his wife. He had then felt that if he could only do that ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... sand; sometimes drawing it in with difficulty, inch by inch, as the net was drawn over some rough or rocky place, and occasionally coming for a time to a dead lock, when—as is not unfrequently the case—they caught hold of a bit of old wreck, or, worse still, were caught by the fluke ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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. Unquestionably ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... "The newspapers were wild about you. It was a fluke, wasn't it—Clancy 'getting' you ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... soundin', I thought that the tip of the upper one looked as if it had been damaged—as if he had broken it floppin' about in some tight place; and ever since, when I have seen a whale, I have looked for the tip of that upper fluke, and there's that same old break. Every time I have looked I have found it. It can't be that there are a lot o' whales in here and each one of ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... men will work the same notion! Imagine this world to be a flat board accurately parcelled out into squares, and you have the basis at once of Alice through the Looking-Glass and of Les Rougon-Macquart. But for the mere fluke that the Englishman happened to be whimsical and the Frenchman entirely without humor (and the chances were perhaps against this), we might have had the Rougon-Macquart family through the looking-glass, and a natural and social history of Alice in parterres of existence labelled Drink, War, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... consequence, at 6 P.M. the two frigates fell aboard, the Chesapeake's quarter pressing upon the Shannon's side just forward the starboard main-chains, and the frigates were kept in this position by the fluke of the Shannon's anchor catching in the Chesapeake's ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... this way. We had spun merrily along the tail of the S.E. trades and glided slowly to a standstill on a glassy ocean, and beneath a sun that at noon left us shadowless. A fluke or two of wind had helped us across the line; but now, in 2 deg. 27' north latitude, the Midas slept like a turtle on the greasy sea. The heat of the near African coast seemed to beat like steam against our faces. The pitch ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
