"Scratch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... On the following Wednesday there was a match between the Under Sixteen and a scratch side. Mike's name was among the Under Sixteen. And on the Saturday he was playing for the third eleven ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... back towards the tool-shed, but suddenly, quite close to him, he heard the noise of a hoe,—scr-r-ritch scratch, scratch, scritch. Peter scuttered underneath the bushes. But presently, as nothing happened, he came out, and climbed upon a wheelbarrow and peeped over. The first thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions. His back was ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... a glorious little scratch on my left side and he suffered an equally glorious little puncture in his right arm. The seconds declared enough. Then we fell into the arms of each other and became friends for life. A year later I went back to New Orleans, and I was the best man at the wedding of Gerard and Flora, ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... owing to a dreadful itching, which no remedy could have allayed as effectually as these powerful words which I kept constantly pouring into her ear: "Bettina, you are getting better; but if you dare to scratch yourself, you will become such a fright that nobody will ever love you." All the physicians in the universe might be challenged to prescribe a more potent remedy against itching for a girl who, aware that she has been pretty, finds herself exposed to the loss of her ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... you say? Well, lemme see," The old man paused to reflect and scratch his head. "Well, de bes' luck sign is to git in wid de Lawd. Keep wid Him; He'll keep you sweet in yo' soul. God's goin' to come down de mid-air. I seen dat one time. Jesus come to me—you never seen ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... at Germantown, of Jack, he was raging in a furious mob of redcoats, with no hat, and that sword my aunt presented cutting and parrying. I gave him up for lost, but he never got a scratch. I like him best in camp with starving, half-naked men. I have seen him give his last loaf away. You should hear Mr. Hamilton—that is his Excellency's aide—talk of Jack; how like a tender woman he was among men who were sick and starving. Hamilton told me how once, when Jack said prayers beside ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... stock at the barn all right and cheerful; the chickens were down making breakfast of what I had given them for supper, all except Crazy Jane, who had finished eating and was trying to get out of the barn, maybe thinking that she could make a nest in a snowbank, or could scratch for angleworms. ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... rather vexed, because they had shut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the house. He sat very quiet for more than an hour, thinking and thinking, when, just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door. He opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog! The dog came softly in, smelt about him, went straight to some straw in the corner which the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets steeped in blood. Just at that moment ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... knows that is deeply enough; and they bear it with an admirable grace; for none bear slavery with a better grace than tyrants. The lads must adopt my theory.... It will be a sad reverse for all our great professors to be compelled to become schoolboys in their gray years. But the sore scratch is to be compelled, as they had before been compelled one thousand years ago, to have recourse to Ireland ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... you wandering about here, alone," he said. "The men on the road are a scratch gang, picked up anyhow, not like the regular miners. I hope you are ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... And weave fine cobwebs, fit for skull That's empty when the moon is full; 160 Such as take lodgings in a head That's to be let unfurnished. He could raise scruples dark and nice, And after solve 'em in a trice; As if Divinity had catch'd 165 The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd; Or, like a mountebank, did wound And stab herself with doubts profound, Only to show with how small pain The sores of Faith are cur'd again; 170 Although by woeful proof we find, They always leave a scar behind. He knew the seat of Paradise, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... day, he thought, for to accompany the stranger they had lighted a lamp; he had heard the scratch of the match, and through the brass fretwork had seen ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... are both so wretched that I fear you will find some difficulty in making out this scratch; but put on your specks, and what you can't read, just guess at. I enclose a very poor likeness of Hugh taken last spring; don't show it to anybody, for I assure you there is scarcely the faintest resemblance ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... Snubbleston. But where was her carriage? Why, it had been newly varnished, and they might scratch her panels with the hampers; and then she was afraid of her springs. So here was Miss Snubbleston without her carriage, for the convenience of which alone she had been invited, considered by the rest in exactly the same light as young Mr. Wrench without old Mr. Wrench,—id ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... spring, the year, And whatsoe'er brings mankind any good. O that my looks were lightning to blast fruits! Would I with thunder presently might die, So I might speak in thunder to slay men. Earth, if I cannot injure thee enough, I'll bite thee with my teeth, I'll scratch thee thus: I'll beat down the partition with my heels, That, as a mud-vault, severs hell and thee. Spirits, come up! 'tis I that knock for you; One that envies[136] the world far more than you. Come up in millions! millions are too few To ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... rogue, about twelve years of age, was however soon persuaded to approach. When we questioned as to where his mammy lived, he pointed over the meadow to a thicket from out of which a little column of light smoke was rising; but in reply to one or two other queries, after a scratch or two at his head, our little squire boldly bolted ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... this talk Bobby had lain quietly by the door, in the expectation that it would be unlatched. Impatient of delay, he began to whimper and to scratch on the panel. The lassie opened her blue eyes at that, scrambled down, and ran to him. Instantly Bobby was up, tugging at her short little gown and begging to be let out. When she clasped her chubby arms around his neck and tried to comfort him he struggled free and ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... if they are in a building they will in most cases come from a water-closet. Sometimes you will see from the drain pipes in the water-closet, say, a six-inch pipe fitted into a nine-inch pipe, and the joint covered round with clay, through which the Rats eat and scratch and get into the building in great numbers in the night, but most of them return into the drains during the day. Now, if it is the breeding season (about eight months out of the twelve) they will do much damage to silk, cotton, leather, lace, and, in fact, all other light goods. And one would ...
— Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher - After 25 Years' Experience • Ike Matthews
... me; people don't scratch coats unless they're encouraged to do it. And you must go in a ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... said, with a sigh, "What becomes of old people being better than young ones, now? Are you and I bears and lions? Do we scratch out each other's eyes? It is all puzzle, puzzle, puzzle. I wish I was dead! Nurse says, when I'm dead I shall understand it all. But I don't know; I saw a dead cat once, and she didn't seem to know as ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle brush, and his war cry as he scuttled through ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... measured utterance. 'You recoil from this arrangement. Do you expect me to convince you? You know very well that I have never held the Mormon view of women. Absorbed in the most arduous studies, I have left the slatterns whom they call my wives to scratch and quarrel among themselves; of me, they have had nothing but my purse; such was not the union I desired, even if I had the leisure to pursue it. No: you need not, madam, and my old friend'—and here the ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... took place. Early in February, a party of Dutch and Indians came to Montreal with news that peace had been signed in Europe; and, at the end of May, Major Peter Schuyler, accompanied by Dellius, the minister of Albany, arrived with copies of the treaty in French and Latin. The scratch of a pen at Byswick had ended the conflict in America, so far at least as concerned the civilized combatants. It was not till July that Frontenac received the official announcement from Versailles, coupled with an address from the king to ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... "Only a scratch," she whispered, but Harkness saw her eyes glazing. He dropped to his knees and caught her swaying body in ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... the fields must go, You tear your dresses and you scratch your hands; But, in the places where the berries grow, A sweeter fruit the ready sense commands, Of wild, gay feelings, fancies springing sweet— Of ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... City, the county seat, and had thrashed a bartender who refused to sell him a drink. This report grew until Lucius was credited with having polished off a whole bar-room full of men without so much as sustaining a scratch himself. ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... little unfortunate that Aida should have been given on the night of the Guards' march through London, for the parade of the Pharaoh's scratch soldiery suffered badly by comparison. The priesthood of Isis, too, furnished more humour than could, I think, have been designed, and I doubt if even Mr. WEEDON GROSSMITH could have given us anything funnier than the spectacle presented by the Egyptian ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... who was hurt, but not sorely. So when he came up, and saw Ursula sitting on the grass with four or five men about her, he sickened for fear; but she rose up and came slowly and pale-faced to meet him, and said: "Fear not, beloved, for steel kept out steel: I have no scratch or point or edge on me." So therewith he kissed her, and ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... gun-file in the pocket the match came from," he said. "I had it mending a trapchain. You can scratch the ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... this. I know you're not the man to do such things; but, between ourselves, I fear the Doctor is just a sort of chap to escape fielding. There are others also I must keep an eye upon. Being captain of a scratch cricket team in the Tropics is no light task, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the wad of tissue to his nose with one hand, Kellogg pulled up his trouser leg with the other and showed a scar on his shin. It looked like a briar scratch. "You saw ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... am weak and must submit Yet I but scratch you with this poisoned blade, And you are dead as if I clove with it That false fierce greedy heart. Betrayed! betrayed! I fling this phial if you seek to pass, 35 And you are forthwith shrivelled ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... it to him? Like a bird! Why, Sissie promised me herself that if she couldn't bring 'that solemn ass, C.,' up to the scratch by Christmas, she'd chuck him and marry me. It's here, in writing." And he handed me ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... to excuse me, sir," he said. "It really was my intention to part with my property, but when it came to the scratch, I ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... ever saw or read of. In clouds they came, and pinged and buzzed and bit till we were nearly mad. Tobacco smoke only seemed to stir them into a merrier and more active life, till at length we were driven to covering ourselves with blankets, head and all, and sitting to slowly stew and continually scratch and swear beneath them. And as we sat, suddenly rolling out like thunder through the silence came the deep roar of a lion, and then of a second lion, moving among the reeds within ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... on the ground. They saw Helen daily, at dinners, dances, at the country clubs, in her own drawing-room. Like any sailor from the Charlestown Navy Yard and his sweetheart, they could walk beside her in the park and throw peanuts to the pigeons, and scratch dates and initials on the green benches; they could walk with her up one side of Commonwealth Avenue and down the south bank of the Charles, when the sun was gilding the dome of the State House, when the bridges were beginning to deck themselves with necklaces of lights. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... or more conciliatory, and long after he had become a great man and wise ruler, there remained in him from this time of servitude some trace of petty cunning. The lion sometimes, in a spirit of undignified vengeance, did not scorn to scratch ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... English-French, was conversing with Tita in her Italian French, the old man was carefully examining his precious head to see that no scratch had been left upon its surface. When he glanced up again, Alleyne had, with a few bold strokes of the brush, tinted in a woman's face and neck upon the white sheet in front ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Proudfoot. Beginning with the days of her chickenhood he had always ordered her about, telling her not to do this and not to do that. Even after she was grown up and had a family of her own, Turkey Proudfoot treated her as if she had just begun to scratch for herself. ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... possible. Men's intellects are at present so various that we cannot even realise the idea of equality, and here in England we have been taught to hate the word by the evil effects of those absurd attempts which have been made elsewhere to proclaim it as a fact accomplished by the scratch of a pen or by a chisel on a stone. We have been injured in that, because a good word signifying a grand idea has been driven out of the vocabulary of good men. Equality would be a heaven, if we could attain it. How can we to whom so much has been given dare to think ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... at the fore end, just as thrain came in, some onvisible murdherer gives me a stupenjus drive in the back, and over I wint on the line, mid-betwixt the rails. The engine came up an' wint half over me widout givin' me a scratch, bekase av my centraleous situation, an' then the porther-men pulled me out, nigh sick wid fright, sor, as ye may guess. A jintleman in the crowd sings out: 'I'm a medical man!' an' they tuk me in the waitin'-room, an' he investigated me, havin' turned everybody else out av the ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... that's as high as you can go, in a carny. I get a good salary—I send enough to my mother and my sister, in Chicago, for them to live on. And I have what I need myself. I've got a job, professor, and standing, and respect." He paused. "Now, suppose I had arms. I'd have to start from scratch, all over again. I'd have to start from the bottom up, just learning the basic elements of any job I signed on for. I'd be a forty-two-year-old man doing the work of an eighteen-year-old. And not making much money. And not having ...
— Charley de Milo • Laurence Mark Janifer AKA Larry M. Harris
... what to say; fighting is a rough trade, and I am by no means certain that you are calculated for the scratch. It is not every one who has been brought up in the school of Mr. Petulengro and Tawno Chikno. All I can say is, that if I were an Armenian, and had two hundred thousand pounds to back me, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... up enough readin' to read my bible and scratch my name. I went to school one mo'ning and didn't git along wid de teacher so I ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... championship in her youthful fancy. George had greased his cowhide boots some years ago, and came to the city to make his fortune. But he forgot to remember to show up again at Greenburg, and Hiram got in as second-best choice. But when it comes to the scratch Ada—her name's Ada Lowery—saddles a nag and rides eight miles to the railroad station and catches the 6.45 A.M. train for the city. Looking for George, you know—you understand about women— George wasn't there, so ...
— Options • O. Henry
... was, oldest of all. When I was bound to old Lowe, it went hard, ef I couldn't scratch together enough for a bit of ribbon-bow or a ring for Nell, come Christmas. She used to sell the old flour-barrels an' rags, an' have her gift all ready by my plate that mornin': never missed. I never hed a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... tough one to have jumped the train without receiving a scratch," said a voice in the ear of the detective, as he flashed the rays of a ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... replied Kitty. "Isobel Carson rang up just now to ask if Nan would come over. It appears that, barring the injury to his back, he escaped without a scratch. He didn't even know he was hurt till he found he couldn't use his legs. Of course, he'll be in bed. Isobel says he seems almost his usual self, except that he won't let anyone sympathise with him over his injury. He's ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the cat so she could not scratch, and Agnes and Ruth "plucked" her and wiped off the molasses as best they could. But it was several days before ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... muster to meet the advance of the clans was the small but fairly efficient body of men who formed the Town Guard; the Train Bands, some thousand strong, who knew no more than so many spinsters of the division of a battle; the small and undisciplined Edinburgh regiment; and a scratch collection of volunteers hurriedly raked together from among the humbler citizens of the town, and about as useful as so many puppets to oppose to the daring and the ferocity of the clans. Edinburgh opinion had changed very rapidly with regard to that same daring and ferocity. When the first rumors ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... "A ... a what do you call it?—a ... Meg ... a Meg—" He gave it up and went on: "By God, but Lulu knows how! Keep clear of her nails, boys—I'd advise you!" At this point, he pulled back his collar, and exhibited a long, dark scratch on the side of his neck. "A little remembrance she gave me to take away with me!" While he displayed it, he seemed to be rather proud of it; but immediately afterwards, his mood veered round again to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... best advice I can give you. Make your husband see you're the better woman of the two. Cut her out, I'm saying, and don't come whining here like a cry-baby, who runs to her grandmother's apron-strings at the first scratch she gets outside." ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... now there are ladies in College, There are ladies in Chapels and Halls; No doubt 'tis a pure love of knowledge That brings them within our old walls; For they talk about Goldie's 'beginning'; Know the meaning of 'finish' and 'scratch,' And will bet even gloves on our winning The Boat Race, Athletics, ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... brought word that he had discovered a partridge's nest with sixteen eggs in the home field, upon which the farmer went out and broke them all, saying that he did not choose to rear birds upon his corn which he was not allowed to scratch, but must leave to some qualified sportsman, who would besides break down his fences in ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... grudge against the other man. Another fellow rushed in here gesticulating complaint, who was literally soaked in blood. We had had our experience and so sending for an interpreter, we soused this fellow into a bathtub. Every dab came off and there was not a scratch under." ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... Tom Swift. "You can kill the dog all right, Koku," he said, "but a scratch from his tooth might be ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... characters. It is a kind of second speech, almost as miraculous as the first. You remember the astonishment and incredulity of Atahualpa the Peruvian King; how he made the Spanish Soldier who was guarding him scratch Dios on his thumb-nail, that he might try the next soldier with it, to ascertain whether such a miracle was possible. If Odin brought Letters among his people, he might work ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... hands as I seized the money, and I pictured to myself the line of action the police would adopt when they would come to arrest me. Irons on my hands and feet; no, only on my hands; perhaps only on one hand. The dock, the clerk taking down the evidence, the scratch of his pen—perhaps he might take a new one for the occasion—his look, his threatening look. There, Herr Tangen, to ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... under examination may perhaps first be somewhat roughly classified by its colour, cleavage, and general shape. One of these standard stones is then gently rubbed across its surface and then others of increasingly higher degrees, till no scratch is evident under a magnifying glass. Thus if quartz ceases to scratch it, but a topaz will do so, the degree of hardness must lie between 7 and 8. Then we reverse the process: the stone is passed over the standard, and if both quartz ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... better from his sickness; only the sour heart that sour sickness breeds made him serve Babo so; cutting Babo with the razor, because, only by accident, Babo had given master one little scratch; and for the first time in so many a day, too. Ah, ah, ah," holding his hand ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... that. It's a game. Two-Paws play at the same thing for hours and hours. I've often tried to scratch paper gently, as He does, but the pleasure doesn't last long. I prefer newspapers torn into shreds that rustle and fly ... There is a little pot of dark-violet, muddy water on his table. I never sniff it ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... can ever drive out the truth,' said Maurice, with provoking coolness. 'Don't let her scratch out my ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he cried; "you've got off light, for there's no a scratch on your lily-white cheek, and the blood-letting from the nose will clear out the dregs of ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... white robes and hideous masks of palm leaves, for during the ceremonies their veils must not touch their faces. We were warned that we must not quarrel or use bad language; that we must not kill game or cause animals to fly from us; that we were not to shave, or cut or oil our hair, or scratch, save with the open palm; and that we must not cover our heads. Any breach of these and numerous other rules would have to be atoned for by the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... hard one on another. Besides, Mrs. Vansuythen was far prettier than them all. She had been most gracious to me at the Governor- General's rout, and indeed I was looked upon by all as her preux chevalier—which is French for a much worse word. Now, whether I cared so much as the scratch of a pin for this same Mrs. Vansuythen (albeit I had vowed eternal love three days after we met) I knew not then nor did till later on; but mine own pride, and a skill in the small sword that no man in Calcutta could ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... for the street's amusement. At the hour when the crowd issued from the matinee at the Hyperion Theatre, our wittiest students paced on all fours up and down behind this grill and roared for raw beef. E—— was the wag of the building and he could climb up to a high place and scratch himself like a monkey—an entertainment of more humor than elegance. Elated with success, he and a companion later chartered a street-organ—a doleful one-legged affair—and as man and monkey they ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... said Mr. Basket, "of a group in my garden entitled Finding the body of Harold. Five feet three, you say? I had better scratch out 'imposing exterior'; or, stay!—we'll ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... human race, until he achieves a local reputation as a cynic. When in this state of mind there is no use in telling him that he is not the only original possessor of a bona fide broken ideal. He'll show you a little superficial scratch and say in husky tones, 'see this great wound it has made in my constitution, it will never heal. Happiness is an iridescent dream. Go and leave me to my fate! 'Then he'll heave a sigh which he thinks comes from a broken heart, but which really emanates from a dyspeptic condition, ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... the fugitive from justice. Thus, when the force of constables claimed admittance, forty-one women, virtually indistinguishable one from the other, ran out into the street, and the bewildered minions of the law were left lifting their helmets to scratch puzzled heads and admitting "the wimmen were a bit too much for us, this ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... presetting arms to him, said: "Sire! I have served under you four campaigns, fought under you in ten battles or engagements; have received in your service seven wounds, and am not a member of your Legion of Honour; whilst many who served under Moreau, and are not able to show a scratch from ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... to git 'em, pretty soon, or the bugs'll have the 'taters," declared her cousin. "Say! you'd ought to have somethin' besides your fingers ter scratch around them plants." ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... of the civilian horde, women, young girls, mufti-clad men, the station still preserved a military aspect. A company of blue-clad poilus sat some way off, in the middle of their packs, eating a scratch meal. Here and there were bunches of British Tommies, with a sergeant and a desultory officer, obviously under discipline. It seemed impossible that the war should be ended—that he, General Lackaday, should have ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... himself. "I have been an absolute fool." Consequently he spent an uneasy night—this uneasiness being increased by the fact that a number of small, but vigorous, insects so feasted upon him that he could do nothing but scratch the spots and exclaim, "The devil take you and Nozdrev alike!" Only when morning was approaching did he fall asleep. On rising, he made it his first business (after donning dressing-gown and slippers) to cross the courtyard ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... organism—commonly the streptococcus pyogenes—into the cellular connective tissue of the integument, intermuscular septa, tendon sheaths, or other structures. Infection always takes place through a breach of the surface, although this may be superficial and insignificant, such as a pin-prick, a scratch, or a crack under a nail, and the wound may have been healed for some time before the inflammation becomes manifest. The cellulitis, also, may develop at some distance from the seat of inoculation, the organisms having ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... the utmost patience every day for weeks. A doctor's help is always required in combating this sort of skin trouble. If the cause is external, then the clothes should be changed. All irritation should be removed—the clothing must not be allowed to scratch the skin. The child must not scratch himself. If necessary, little splints may be placed on the inside of his arms to prevent his bending the elbows if the eczema is on the face, while the little ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... I could do was to scratch my thin iron-grey hair and light a cigar and meditate in front of the fire. I knew all about it—or at any rate I thought I did, which, as far as my meditation in front of the fire is concerned, comes to ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... smartest. He learned more quickly than did his brothers and sisters, how to run to the trough to eat, when his mother called him, and he learned how to stand up against one side of the pen and rub himself back and forth to scratch his side when a mosquito had bitten him in a place he could ...
— Squinty the Comical Pig - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... on a flat surface, and draw a sharp three-cornered file two or three times at right angles across it where it is to be broken, till a scratch is made. Take the tube in the hands, having the two thumbs nearly opposite the scratch, and the fingers on the other side. Press outward quickly with the thumbs, and at the same time pull the hands strongly apart, and the tubing should break ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... gormandize seems unlimited, and the number of insects they can swallow without protest is almost incredible. They will keep a small garden quite free from slugs and other pests. They have no bad habits, do not bark at night, or chase cats, or bite, or steal, or insist upon coming into the house, or scratch up the flower-beds. Some accuse them of causing warts, but this is not true. When handled, they sometimes give forth an acrid liquid from the skin, which stings the mouths of tormenting dogs and smears meddling fingers. But this, though unpleasant, does no harm. Many people ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... can do a great deal. When it came to the scratch, I had but little difficulty in persuading Sir Charles, with Amelia's aid, backed up on either side by Isabel and Cesarine, to accede to the Count's more reasonable proposal. The Southampton Row people had possession of certain facts as to the value of the wines in the Bordeaux market ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... with its own shavings, but it is more usually necessary to follow with a worn piece of glass-paper on a flat piece of cork, but the dust must not be allowed to collect into hard lumps upon it, as these lumps would scratch the surface. Holtzapffel says that when metal, ivory, pearl, shell, or tortoiseshell are mixed with the wood the surface must be carefully levelled with flat files, ending with a very smooth one, after which the scraper should be used if possible and followed ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... lords and ladies of honor Were plagued, awake and in bed; The queen she got them upon her, The maids were bitten and bled. And they did not dare to brush them, Or scratch them, day or night: We crack them and we crush them, At ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... have of patience much—not overmuch— And thou hadst best beware the boundary. Oh thou too cruel and injurious thorn! What hast thou done to my poor innocent hand! Thou art like Theseus, thou dost make me bleed; Offenceless I, yet thou dost make me bleed. This scratch I shall remember well, my lord! Deceiver false! deserter! runaway! My quick-heeled slave! my loose ungrateful bird! Where'er thou art, or if thou hear or no, Know that thou art from this time given o'er, To tarry and return what time thou wilt. It is most like that thou dost lurk not far, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... ROSEBUD,—It is a great while since I wrote to you; and I am afraid this letter will be a great while in reaching you. I hope you are a very good little girl; and I am sure you never get into a passion, and never scream, and never scratch and strike your dear Nurse or your dear sister Una. Oh no! my little Rosebud would never do such naughty things as those. It would grieve me very much if I were to hear of her doing such things. When you come back to England, I shall ask Mamma whether you have been a good little girl; and Mamma ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... dangerous to meddle too much with it. If the Witch may be ordered to touch afflicted Persons in order to their healing or recovery out of a sick Fit, why may not the Diseased Person be as well ordered to touch the Witch for the same cause? And if to touch him, why not to scratch him and fetch Blood out of him, which is but an harder kind of touch? But as for this Mr. Perkins doubts not to call it a Practice of Witchcraft. It is not safe to meddle with any of the Devils Sacraments or Institutions; For my own part, I should ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... shook him vigorously. "Shut up," he said, roughly, partly to hide his own feelings, "Charley's comin' back without a scratch. The good Lord, I reckon, don't make lads as true and white as he to be killed off by a pack of jail vermin. Come to the wall as he told us to. Maybe we'll get a shot at those murderers before the day is done. Come along an' stop that blubberin'," and he grabbed the soft-hearted ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... shooting a gun is merely what lighting a match would be to us. We take reasonable care not to scratch that match on the wall nor to throw it where it will do harm. Likewise the cowboy takes reasonable care that his bullets do not land in some one's anatomy nor in too expensive bric-a-brac. Otherwise any time or place ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... and tell the world, That—surely as thy scratch is curled As never scratch was curled before— Cheap eating does more harm than good, And working-people spoiled by food, The less they eat, will ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... birds of real melody, and will afford one more delight perhaps than any other class. The robin is the most familiar example. Their manners, flight, and form are the same in each species. See the robin hop along upon the ground, strike an attitude, scratch for a worm, fix his eye upon something before him or upon the beholder, flip his wings suspiciously, fly straight to his perch, or sit at sundown on some high branch caroling his sweet and honest strain, and you have seen what is characteristic of all ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... and Marc Klaw were riding in the elevator at the Monongahela House in Pittsburg when the cable broke and the car dropped four stories. It had just been equipped with an air cushion, and the men escaped without a scratch. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... feathers, some of them tipped with glossy black and brown, but many of them pure white. She was named Luca. They were shut together for a few days, until they began to feel at home; then they were set free to scratch in the barn-yard, and get acquainted with the neighbors' fowls, when we began to see how different they were in character as well as dress. Donna holds her head very high, and pays no attention to any other hens; runs away from us, when we invite her to dinner, no matter ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... displacement of the Virginia creeper which covers a portion of the wall, to suggest that the murderer climbed up to the room that way. I think it is certain that if he had done so he would have left his marks on the one or the other. The wall is of a soft old brickwork which would scratch and show marks plainly, and the Virginia creeper would break away. In any case, as I said this morning, it would barely sustain the weight of a boy, or a very slight girl. Finally, there are no marks of footsteps approaching the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... all; gran'ther expressing, with a candidly outspoken cynicism, his belief that 'them whiskers was glued to him.' We wandered about the stock exhibit, gazing at the monstrous oxen, and hanging over the railings where the prize pigs lived to scratch their backs. In order to miss nothing, we even conscientiously passed through the Woman's Building, where we were very much bored by the serried ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... of my carriage was killed, and Duson had his arm broken," he said. "I stepped out of the debris without a scratch. Come into the Customs House now and get your baggage through. I have taken a coupe on the special train and ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... moreover, she had somehow given herself a scratch upon the tip of this odd, investigating member; and it blushed for its inquisitiveness under a scrap of thin ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... "Scratch at St. Andrews," Dickens told them. "His name's Collins. I don't' know anything else about him. He's paid for a week and we're jolly glad to get visitors at ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... To scratch others in your dream, denotes that you will be ill-tempered and fault-finding in ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... peripheral circulation induced by the friction. Where the skin is rough or covered with pimples this suggestion is of especial value. When using friction brushes for this purpose one should not attempt to use very stiff brushes in the beginning, for they will scratch too much. Soft, fair skins usually cannot stand such rough treatment as well as can a thicker skin, or one which is oily in character. In many cases a dry Turkish bath towel will answer the purpose splendidly. If the skin is rather tender it suffices to use ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... significant of the amount of truth in many of the assertions made about travelling in the United States that I traversed about 35,000 miles in the various ways indicated above without a scratch and almost without serious detention or delay. Once we were nearly swamped in a sudden squall in a mountain lake, and once we had a minute or two's pleasant experience of the iron-shod heels of our horse inside ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... reasoning, having all the force of insane logic, Mrs Verloc's disconnected wits went to work practically. She could slip by him, open the door, run out. But he would dash out after her, seize her round the body, drag her back into the shop. She could scratch, kick, and bite—and stab too; but for stabbing she wanted a knife. Mrs Verloc sat still under her black veil, in her own house, like a masked and mysterious visitor ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Quong Lee, exhibiting the regulation tiny phial of romance containing a few drops of a white liquid, 'here is a poison ten-fold more subtle and deadly than that ejected from the fangs of the cruel serpent of the plain. The merest scratch from a weapon dipped in it will effect instant death. The victim curls up as a tender leaf in the midday sun. Yet it may be taken into the stomach with impunity. Strange, is it not? The minute quantity that you see here is all that I possess, and I shall feel honored if you will accept it. But,' ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... you mean?" cried the old red hen, As mad as hops was she. "Oh, I've been 'round among great men, In the world where the great men be. And none of them scratch with their claws like you, They write ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... makes his pantry Right in that garden patch; And all the hens and chickens Think that's the place to scratch. ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... disappeared beneath the water. A minute later he returned to the surface and swam rapidly towards the jungle on the opposite shore, probably intending to find some projecting stump of a dead limb on which he could scratch the torment from under his ruff. At the edge of the jungle he was joined by another monster, like himself, but smaller—probably one of his mates—and together they disappeared, with heavy crashings, in the rank tangle of ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... on blinders. Of no country is this axiom more true than of Russia. A man who would see Russia clearly must strip himself of all preconceived prejudices of religion, race, and language, and study the people from their own point of view. If he goes about repeating Napoleon I.'s famous saying, "Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tatar," he will simply betray his own ignorance ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... to pay, By duty bound, on Stella's day, Furnish'd with paper, pens, and ink, I gravely sat me down to think: I bit my nails, and scratch'd my head, But found my wit and fancy fled: Or if, with more than usual pain, A thought came slowly from my brain, It cost me Lord knows how much time To shape it into sense and rhyme: And, what was yet a greater curse, Long thinking made my fancy ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... steel, and his under parts are of iron; but along the midst of his back, over his spine, there lies a narrow strip of unearthly steel. This strip of steel is Sacnoth, and it may be neither cleft nor molten, and there is nothing in the world that may avail to break it, nor even leave a scratch upon its surface. It is of the length of a good sword, and of the breadth thereof. Shouldst thou prevail against Tharagavverug, his hide may be melted away from Sacnoth in a furnace; but there is only one thing ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... creature. But at last it was done; and the gaunt, blood-stained savage whom we had known as Detective-Inspector Weymouth lay passive upon the couch in his own sitting-room. A great wonder possessed my mind for the genius of the uncanny being who with the scratch of a needle had made a brave and kindly man ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... To make the polish look nice, rub it with an old silk handkerchief, being careful first of all to dust off any small particles, which otherwise are apt to scratch ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... destined to make one of the Channel fleet, when to our great joy, after tacking and half-tacking for six weeks, we were ordered with some more ships of the line under Admiral Collingwood to proceed off Cadiz to watch the motions of the Spanish and French fleets, after the scratch they had with our fleet under Sir R. F. Calder. We occasionally ran into Gibraltar for refreshments and stores. On one of these occasions the Port-Admiral took it into his head to hoist his flag on board ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... madame that Pelagie was safe in the house and the savages had fled and, except for a scratch on my forehead that scarce drew blood, no one was hurt (though at that very moment Black Hawk came creeping back out of the darkness hanging a dripping scalp to his belt, which when I perceived I was nigh sick unto death for a moment)—when ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the coach gave two jolts, and behind it I saw something quivering in the dust on the road. He was nearly cut in two; all his intestines were hanging out and blood was spurting from the wound. He tried to get up, to walk, but he could only move his two front paws, and scratch the ground with them, as if to make a hole. The two others were already dead. And he howled ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... and said: "I've had the luck to pick up two or three other agreeable people that I know will be glad to meet you. Usually it's such a scratch lot at Thanksgiving, for everybody dines at home that can, and you have to trust to the highways and the byways for your guests, if you give a dinner. But I did want to bring Mrs. Strange and you together, and so I chanced it. Of course, it's a sent-in dinner, as you ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... a cat's paw of; to be made a tool or instrument to accomplish the purpose of another: an allusion to the story of a monkey, who made use of a cat's paw to scratch a roasted chesnut ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... a cat's claw give his hand quite a sharp scratch, and hoping that it was meant as an encouragement he opened the millet seed, and drew out of it a piece of muslin four hundred ells long, woven with the loveliest colors and most wonderful patterns; ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... his company. Then they tried ridicule, calling "girl-boy, girl-boy," as loudly as they dared, with Katharine's scornful glances upon them. Monty grew fiery red and tossed his blond head as if shaking an obnoxious insect from it, but did not cease to scratch it for ideas, which he whispered to his companion as fast ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... first bout neither of us had received a scratch, but Griscelli showed signs of fatigue while I was quite fresh. Also he was very angry and excited, and when we resumed he came at me with more than his former impetuosity, as if he meant to bear me down by the sheer weight and rapidity of his strokes. ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... you understand my signals? He is going on well. It was only a scratch—Ah! Madame that's only my way of talking. He will be laid up for a fortnight. The doctor was there—he has some fever, but he ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... ran abroad, Of every puddle drinking. The house with rage he scratch'd and gnaw'd, In vain,—he fast was Sinking; Full many an anguish'd bound he gave, Nothing the hapless brute could save, As if ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... circumspect to avoid that danger, seeing that he was knocked on the head by a tortoise falling out of an eagle's talons in the air. Another was choked with a grape-stone;—[Val. Max., ix. 12, ext. 2.]—an emperor killed with the scratch of a comb in combing his head. AEmilius Lepidus with a stumble at his own threshold,—[Pliny, Nat. Hist., vii. 33.]— and Aufidius with a jostle against the door as he entered the council-chamber. And betwixt the very thighs of women, Cornelius Gallus the proctor; Tigillinus, captain of the watch ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... I was in the Army there was a fellow who used to come to the orderly-room and talk funerals to me until I was sick of the sight of him. After some months of it I made him give me a written list of all his surviving relations, and then as he killed them off I used to scratch them out. I caught him at last on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... that in which they stood. He remained very still for a moment in the hope that he might once more hear the voice which would give him some hint of which way to turn. But the only sound that greeted him was the scratch of tiny feet as a big rat scurried by. He closed his eyes and concentrated his thought upon her. He had heard that so people had communicated with one another and he himself had had proof enough, if it were true that ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... I make it appear that I also am the main spring and original of this endearment? Yes, I can easily demonstrate it, and that not by crabbed syllogisms, or a crooked and unintelligible way of arguing, but can make it (as the proverb goes) As plain as the nose on your face. Well then, to scratch and curry one another, to wink at a friend's faults; nay, to cry up some failings for virtuous and commendable, is not this the next door to the being a fool? When one looking stedfastly in his mistress's face, admires a mole ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... I shall hate it," was her thought; she was conscious of her arms and her legs; her ankle tickled in her shoe, and she longed to scratch it. She sneezed suddenly, and they all jumped as though the ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... wait on me, Miss Morison," he answered, trying to speak naturally, and painfully aware that he did not succeed. "I'm all right, except for the scratch on my arm." ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... or in her Royal claims. Only when she is charged with being the daughter of a Prague innkeeper does she allow indignation to master her, as she retorts, "I have never been in Prague in my life, and if I knew who had thus slandered me I would scratch his eyes out." Domanski, too, proves equally intractable; even the promise of marriage to her will not wring from him a word that might discredit ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... at the start—they do not make much smoke in the fire, he would say—from that vast world he could command the greatest of the great to help him support the loafing while. And as by a miracle, he came out of that chaos of contending spirits without a scratch. He enjoyed the belligerency of pamphleteers as an American would enjoy a prize fight. But he sided with no one; he took from every one his best and consigned him to Im-Hanna's kitchen. Torquemada could not have done better; but ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... grow quick to understand quite complicated explanations. A little girl, not yet two, was playing with her Noah's Ark on the dining-room table with its polished surface. The mother interposed a cloth, explaining that the animals would scratch the table if the cloth were not there. Within a few minutes the child twice lifted the cloth, peering under it and saying, "Not scratch table." Yet how often do we find facetiously-minded persons confound their reasoning and confuse ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... them a sprinkling of the general public, whose time apparently hangs heavily on their hands. In a Stage-box is the Author herself, with a sycophantic Companion. A murky gloom pervades the Auditorium; a scratch orchestra is playing a lame and tuneless Schottische for the second time, to compensate for a little delay of fifteen minutes between the first and second Tableaux in the Second Act. The orchestra ceases, and a Checktaker at the Pit door whistles "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... pity, now, Josh," said Raffles, affecting to scratch his head and wrinkle his brows upward as if he were nonplussed. "I'm very fond of you; by Jove, I am! There's nothing I like better than plaguing you—you're so like your mother, and I must do without it. But the brandy and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the mule, but all was uncomfortable for me, with the prospect for a rainy night, but as wood was plenty I decided to make a fire and take the chances. I looked for matches and scratched one. No go—they were damp, and scratch as careful and quickly as I could, there was no answering spark or flame, and darkness reigned supreme. A camp without a fire in this wet place was not to be thought of, so I concluded I might as well be slowly working my way down along ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly |
