"Snap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this hunter had patience and perseverance and had not yet given up hope of getting near enough to shoot Lightfoot. He moved forward slowly, setting each foot down with the greatest care, so as not to snap a stick or rustle the leaves. He was watching sharply ahead, ready to shoot should he catch a glimpse ...
— The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer • Thornton W. Burgess
... temptation, to the fathers and to the great past, to the history and the teachings which in times of soberness have ever had the nation's highest honor. No nation which is virtuous and vital will ever be slave to the past; at the command of virtue and of vision it will snap precedent like a reed. But every people of seriousness, stability, and character is a reverent people; and when a people's reverence for its noble ancestors, its sacred oracles and its venerable charters ceases to be sturdy and becomes sentimental, much ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... hear them. The Beaver soon found that he was out of the otter's reach, and with his fears relieved on that point he set to work to free himself from the trap. Round and round he twisted, till there came a little snap, and the bone of his arm broke short off in the steel jaws. Then for a long, long time he pulled and pulled with all his might, and at last the tough skin was rent apart, and the muscles and sinews were torn out by the roots. His right hand was gone, and he was so weak and ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... into the crimson west. The difficulty in my elegant villa is to find oil, OLEUM, for the dam axles. But I've paid my rent until September; and beyond the chemist, the grocer, the baker, the doctor, the gardener, Lloyd's teacher, and the great thief creditor Death, I can snap my fingers at all men. Why will people spring bills on you? I try to make 'em charge me at the moment; they won't, the money goes, the debt remains. - The Required Play ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... white gloves that were quite unspotted from the world. The raw February winds had whipped roses into her cheeks; her pure ultramarine eyes made the blue of her suit look commonplace and dull. Dusk had fallen over the city, and Queed cleverly bethought him to snap on an electric light. It revealed a very shabby, ramshackle, and dingy office; but the long table in it was new, oaken, and handsome. In fact, it was one of the repairs ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... reason at all, he would at the last moment prevent me from taking some particular walk, one so regular and so consecrated to my use that to deprive me of it was a clear breach of faith; or again, as he had done this evening, long before the appointed hour he would snap out: "Run along up to bed now; no excuses!" But then again, simply because he was devoid of principles (in my grandmother's sense), so he could not, properly speaking, be called inexorable. He looked at me for a moment ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Professor Young's bearing and address did anything but meet the president's idea of scholarliness; and West had no difficulty in convincing himself of the man's incompetence. Details came to his attention from time to time during the autumn which served to strengthen his snap-shot judgment, but he made the mistake, doubtless, of failing to communicate his dissatisfaction to Professor Young, and so giving him an inkling of impending disaster. West knew of just the man for this position, a brilliant young assistant superintendent of schools ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... various machines that put the metal under bending stress, cross-breaking, hammering, drifting, shearing, elongation, contraction, compression, deflection, tension, and torsion stresses. The best of the steels had their elastic limits; there was none that did not finally snap. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... go to him at the very last, just before we are reaching Paris. Tell him, threaten him with arrest, then give him his chance of escape. No fear that he won't accept it; he must, whatever he may have settled with the others. Altro! I snap my fingers at them. He has most ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... no sign of any ape other than the strange she and a young balu playing near by. His wicked, blood-shot eyes half closed as they rested upon the charms of the former—as for the balu, one snap of those great jaws upon the back of its little neck would prevent it from ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... could never thank you enough, my dear Landor, and I will not thank you in words any more. Believe me, I receive the dedication like a great dignity, the worth of which I hope I thoroughly know. The Queen could give me none in exchange that I wouldn't laughingly snap ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... this account he was put out of his living in the country, and here he came to me to help him in again, and was very highly offended because I did not do it. Secondly, it is not that I would invalidate his witness, but give me leave to tell you, it is his way to snap and catch at every man, which is the complaint of the people in his own country. I know that same which is spoken is false; I speak it in the presence of God, I profess, I never had any near converse with Oliver Cromwell about such things; I speak this ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... most unmoral O'er cakes and puddings they would quarrel. I don't believe that either chapkin E'er thought at lunch to fold his napkin, And if one biscuit graced the platter 'Twas ever less than fighting matter, Or if they'd beans—no doubt they had 'em— They failed to snap a few at Adam. I fear me as they ate their salade They hummed some raw primeval ballad, And when the Serpent came to dinner, They made remarks about the sinner. No doubt they criticised the cooking And hooked the fruit when none was looking, And when they'd soup—O my! O ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... it, and I'll give ye a sup of milk with it." Up she gets with the tow-cards and the tailor with the goose, and the two 'prentices, the one with the big shears, and the other with the lawbrod; but it dodged them, and ran round about the fire; and one of the 'prentices, thinking to snap it with the shears, fell into the ashes. The tailor cast the goose, and the goodwife the tow-cards; but it wouldn't do. The bannock ran away, and ran till it came to a wee house at the roadside; and in it runs and there was a weaver ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... of the Borgo, she would be beyond the last fringe of Florence, the sky would be broad above her, and she would have entered on her new life—a life of loneliness and endurance, but of freedom. She had been strong enough to snap asunder the bonds she had accepted in blind faith: whatever befell her, she would no more feel the breath of soft hated lips warm upon her cheek, no longer feel the breath of an odious mind stifling her own. The bare wintry morning, the chill air, were welcome in their ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the junior boys had no touch-holes. Mine was delivered to me in this innocent state. Oh! that was a great mortification on field-days, when we were allowed to incorporate with the —- and —- Volunteers, whilst all the big lads actually fired off real powder, in line with real men, to be obliged to snap a wooden flint against a sparkless hammer. A mortification I ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... "Snap went the disselboom of the cart beneath the transverse strain put upon it. Had it not broken the cart would have overset; as it was, in another minute, oxen, cart, trektow, reims, broken disselboom, and everything were soon tied in one vast ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... hadn't money that I objected to him—it wasn't that, for I have a place in my business where I need a smart, up-to- date chap, and I'd have put him there quick, but he didn't seem to have any snap in him—too polite, you know—the kind of a fellow that would jump to pick up a handkerchief like as if he was shot out of a gun. I don't care about money, but I like action. Now, if she had taken a fancy to a brown-faced chap like you I wouldn't have cared if he hadn't enough money ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... a box which one of the men in the jolly-boat fortunately had in his pocket that first evening of our landing. Then we wanted a fire badly, and couldn't build one until he got ashore, and this box was expended up to the last match; so, on the second occasion, Mr Macdougall had to snap off nearly all the caps he had for his gun before he could get a light, the snow having damped them. Oh, yes, I remember Pat's fire ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... in my making myself look as attractive as possible under the circumstances. As I am to be an adventuress, I must do the best I can for myself. Nice feelings are for people who have money to live as they please. If I had ten thousand a year, or even five, I would snap my fingers at all men, and say, "No, I make my life as I choose, and shall cultivate knowledge and books, and indulge in beautiful ideas of honor and exalted sentiments, and perhaps one day succumb to a noble passion." (What grand words ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... upon the ground. They had come to the end of hope, they were possessed with a lethargy of despair. Feversham thought not at all of the pine trees on the Surrey hills, nor did Trench have any dread that something in his head would snap and that which made him man be reft from him. They walked slowly, as though their fetters had grown ten times their weight, and without a word. So stricken, indeed, were they that an Arab turned and kept pace beside them, and neither noticed his presence. In a few ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... to the wall, stood for an instant, then stepped back, as we heard a slight clicking sound, like the snap of a spring on an old box-lid. At the same time a part of the wainscoting rolled away, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... he tore into the boy before him, jabbing him swiftly with his left glove and suddenly sending over his right with a snap. The ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... Ayrton," replied Paganel. "By going on we may come across the traces of Captain Grant. In returning south, on the contrary, we turn our backs to them. I think with you, then, and I don't care a snap for these escaped fellows. A brave man wouldn't care a ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... get so stiff around the gills about it," said the lady, with a snap of her luminous eyes and a startling gyration of her umbrella. "Business is what I've come for. I want your opinion in the matter of a suit for divorce, as the vulgar would call it, but which is really only the readjustment of the false and ignoble conditions that the short-sighted ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... cold to read—I'm awful cold. I wisht that cove in there'd get a move on him, an' get better. He's got a snap. Some one sent him a bottle of milk to-day, too," he concluded, with a solemn wink, the tongue again appearing on the scene to bear internal witness—"but I forgot—I'll read them words to you myself," which he proceeded ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... the hyenas of the sea," said Howard, "although I believe some kinds are stupid and harmless. I think I have heard them called that by somebody, I don't remember who. They will snap up anything ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... went on, never altering his easy saunter. The wolf came out of the ferns and paced up to Hedulio like a house dog. Hedulio patted his head, pulled his ears and the wolf not only did not attack him nor snap at him, nor even snarl, but showed his pleasure as plainly as any pet dog. When Hedulio had stopped petting him, I reached them. We two went on as if we were alone, leaving the wolf standing looking after us as if he were watch-dog at the house of ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... First we buy a film, then we open the kodak and place the film. Now pull the paper over to the empty roll and fasten, close the kodak and begin to wind. Oh, here you are, No. 1. The day is clear, for we must have a clear day to get the best picture. We hold the kodak very steady, then snap, we have it. Next we pull a little slide in the back, take a pencil and write down the date and name. Let me see, what was that picture? Oh, yes, "Chrysanthemum (is that the way to spell it?) exhibition." Next the films are developed, and the kodak pictures are complete, ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... wicket-gate she ran against Cyril, who was throwing stones in the air for the dog to snap ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... of some discretion, somebody she would not dare to snap at. Her expressions are so reckless, that a young man would not suit her. She ought to have some one to look up to; and you know how she raves about fame, and celebrity, and that. She really seems to care for ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... completely different from his actions on the long space flight. He was a man of firmness and immediate decision. Shooting from one project to another in a jet boat, he would listen to the supervisors' complaints, make a snap decision, and then head for another project. Once Tad Winters and Ed Bush, who had taken over Astro's jet barge, had hesitated when trying to transfer a four-hundred-ton lift. A bank of atomic motors from ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... whirring for half an hour and I sat and ate my frugal meal, listening eagerly to the talk going on about me. Sometimes the girls made me the butt of their jests, for they were envious of me, because of my easy job, and hinted that I was not getting this snap for nothing. All of this I did not in the least understand, for I was not much more than ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... Uncle Sam's. For reasons that can soon be explained only small-sized flags are ever hoisted near Cheyenne. By noon of three hundred days a year, straight from the wild pass to the west, there comes sweeping down a gale that would snap the stoutest flag-staff into flinders, and that whips even a storm-flag threadbare ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... your mother for new clothes!" Filomena would snap at him, when his toes came through his shoes and the rents in his jacket-sleeves had spread beyond darning. "These you are wearing are my Giannozzo's, as you well know, and every rag on your back is mine, if there were any law for poor folk, for not a copper of pay for your ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... or snap before dinner: so called from its damping, or allaying, the appetite; eating and drinking, being, as the proverb wisely observes, apt to take away ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... to that end he desired that they would come over to him. Well, his creditors appoint him a time and come over, and he, meanwhile, authorizes another to treat with them, but will not be seen himself, unless it was on a Sunday, lest they should snap him with a writ. So his deputed friend treats with them about their concern with Mr. Badman, first telling them of the great care that Mr. Badman took to satisfy them and all men for whatsoever he owed, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... feet, the sky between the trees was like damp blotting-paper, and the smell that had been only faintly in the air before was now heavy around them, blown in thick gusts as the wind moved through the trees. Shrapnel now could be distinctly heard at no great distance, with its hiss, its snap of sound, and sometimes rifle-shots like the crack of a ball on a cricket bat broke through the thickets. They separated, spreading like beaters in a long line: "Soon," Trenchard told me, "I was quite alone. I could hear sometimes the breaking of a twig or a stumbling ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... not a complete fool. I put two and two together at random. I only guess, as you know. I have guessed all my life. And as often as not I have guessed right, as you know. Ah! you think I am interfering in that which is not my business, and I do not care a snap of the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... calculate how or where. Through all quarters of the world he wanders, and apparently through all circles of society. If in any scene, perhaps difficult to fix geographically, he settles for a time, and forms connections, be sure he will snap them abruptly asunder. Let him sink out of sight as Private Scholar (Privatsirender), living by the grace of God in some European capital, you may next find him as Hadjee in the neighborhood of Mecca. ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... rotten to you about that oil nonsense. It was nonsense, nothing on earth but nonsense. I tell you frankly I was a fool. I didn't care the snap of my finger for Corliss, but—oh, what's the use of pretending? You were always such a great 'business man,' always so absorbed in business, and put it before everything else in the world. You cared for me, but you cared for business ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... the consummation of the allotted era, the bands of human society are to be dissolved, and a new principle of association is to determine men's place. Their moral and religious affinities will bind them together or separate them, and all other ties will snap. This marshalling according to religious character is the main thought of the solemn closing words of the parable and of its interpretation, in which our Lord presents Himself as directing the whole process of judgment by means of the 'angels' who execute His commands. They are 'His angels,' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... most brutally, scratching away savagely on each other's hard shells, without doing a great deal of damage, however. But one of them had lost one eye in the fight, and so we seized him and made off, leaving the other to snap his tongs together in anger because he had nobody to pinch. It must be a dreadful thing to want to hurt somebody and have nobody ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... Congress proposing to array the fundamental law of the land against the multitude of American women by ordaining a denial of the political rights of a whole sex. To this injustice we object totally! Such an amendment is a snap judgment before discussion; it is an obstacle to future progress; it is a gratuitous bruise inflicted upon the most tender and humane sentiment that has ever entered into American politics. If the present Congress is not called to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... nothing anywhere seems settled save clouds, dun and dreary, drooping low over a dreary earth; came when the minister was struggling hard with a nervous headache and sleeplessness and anxiety over a sick child; came when every nerve was drawn to its highest tension, and the slightest touch might snap the main cord. It didn't snap, however. He read that long, wise, carefully-written, sympathetic letter through twice, without the outward movement of a muscle, only a flush of red rising to his forehead, and then receding, ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... sixty at a time. First the date gets stamped on the bottom, then partitions are fitted in. "Here's your sample. Under the table you'll find the candies, or else ask Fannie, there. You take the paper cups so, in your left hand, give them a snap so, lick your fingers now and then, slip a cup off, stick the candy in with your right hand." And ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... he added, as he went down the steps of the porch, and told the servant to turn him loose. He called him up with a snap of his thumb and finger as he entered the yard and patted his head which was stretched out to receive the caress. "Poor fellow! he is not so young as he was then, though he has had good care. The gray hairs are beginning to show on his muzzle, and I can detect, though no one else might ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... not be what you want, but I'm just going to show you this proposition and see what you think of it. It ain't going to last—somebody's goin' to snap it up before ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... took up the sewing an my lap and made a few stitches. "Tell me some more of your mother's garden. Did she have winter pinks and bachelor's buttons and snap-dragons and hollyhocks in it? I used to hate grandmother's ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... fellers is talkin' now? Nix. You go into the village gay with these Schwabs by the sewer line, I guess." Truxton pricked up his ears. "The old man has had a hole chopped in the sewer here, they tell me, and it's a snap to get into the city. Not very clean or neat, but it gets you there. Well, so long! They're ready, I see. They don't monkey long when they've got a thing to do. I'd advise you not to be too stubborn when they get you to headquarters; it may go easier with you. I'm not so damned ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... at this game, and did not know that the master was in the next field, watching what was going on; over the hedge he jumped in a snap, and catching Dick by the arm, he gave him such a box on the ear as made him roar with the pain and surprise. As soon as we saw the master we trotted up nearer to see ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... and things he could love. And then Wapi would whine, and perhaps the whine would bring him the blow of a club, or the lash of a whip, or an Eskimo threat, or the menace of an Eskimo dog's snarl. Of the latter Wapi was unafraid. With a snap of his jaws, he could break the back of any other ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... almost anywhere in this country," replied the rancheman. "I'd give it to you, for one, and I know of a dozen others who stand ready to snap up the first man that comes along, no odds whether he ever herded cattle or not. You have made precious fools of yourselves, and you'll get a fool's reward. You'll have mean grub, hard work and poor pay, and be niggers to every little snipe ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... the stifling passage through which he was crawling! The scene changed, and he was climbing a slippery sheet of ice with desperate effort, his foot on the floor of a shallow niche, his hold an icicle ready to snap in an instant, an abyss below him waiting for his foot to slip or the icicle to break. How thin the air seemed, how desperately hard to breathe! He was thinking of Mont Blanc, it may be, and the fearfully rarefied atmosphere which ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... November 1 we transplant the plants into cold frames, six inches apart each way, as we wish to keep them growing a little all winter. The glasses are kept on at night and through heavy rains. In case of a cold snap, we cover the glasses with mats; but that is not often necessary, for we seldom have a temperature colder than 16 deg. above zero. Everything depends on good plants and an early start in the spring, for we raise two crops the same season, and an early ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... not want him to snap at me," thought Rose. "And if I went near enough I guess he would snap. I'll keep away from the poor dog, for I would not dare try to get the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... throughout the twelve days of Christmas, provided everything was done conformably to ancient usage. Here were kept up the old games of hoodman blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, bob apple, and snap dragon; the Yule-clog and Christmas candle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe with its white berries hung up, to the imminent peril of all ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... hand forward, downward, and outward, and when near at arm's length, suddenly snap the fingers from the thumb as if sprinkling water. (Wyandot I.) "To throw away contemptuously; ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... be convinced that I have more resolution than you give me credit for. I will not torment you. If I am destined always to be disappointed and unhappy, I will conceal the anguish I cannot dissipate; and the tightened cord of life or reason will at last snap, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... good air and to commune with her heart's desires and designs. There was one hazard beside which foul air and stray shots were negligible, a siege within this siege. To be insured against the mere mathematical risk that those designs, thus far so fortunate, might by any least mishap, in the snap of a finger, come to naught she would have taken chances with the hugest shell Grant or Porter could send. For six weeks Anna and Hilary—Anna not knowing if he was alive, he thinking her fifty leagues away—had ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... in thus moralising, merely taking the mean advantage the author is apt to imagine he has established over his reader when he ends off a chapter with a snap, and hopes the said reader will not dare to skip? No, we are not. We really mean something, and shall get to it in time. Let us only be clear ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... amongst some people; then again some didn't like him, he was a mean man, all for himself. He was a man that didn't care anything about his servants, except to get work out of them. When he came where the servants were working, he would snap and bite at them and if he said anything at all, it was to hurry the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Anguish. Then he proceeded to take a snap-shot of the castle from the middle of the street. He also secured a number of views of the mountain side, of some odd little dwelling houses, and two or three interesting exposures of red-robed children. Everybody, from the children up, wore loose ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... saved him. Yet one of the racing cow ponies struck the boy and his horse a glancing blow. For the moment, Tad felt sure his left leg must have been broken. He imagined that he had heard it snap. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... and the forest together. But first promise not to interrupt me. If you snap the golden threads of thought, they will float away on the air like the film of the gossamer, and I shall never be ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... the month. There will be a spell of mild weather about the 13th and 14th. After a brief interval of mild weather, during which more snow will fall, the third quarter of the month will probably see blustering and cold weather—a cold snap with heavy snow storms and consequent good sleighing. Very cold weather may be expected during this quarter. The last quarter of the month will bring milder weather, but will terminate, probably, with heavy snow-falls and stormy ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... have handed out the double cross many a time, and stand ready to do it again if it promises the slightest advantage to them. They have run off in the hope of taking care of their own hides, without caring the snap of a finger ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... stranger. By the time he had finished drinking and faced about, the little man with the carroty-blond hair was on his feet. Alan stared, and the little man grinned. His ruddy cheeks grew pinker. His blue eyes twinkled, and in what seemed to be a moment of embarrassment he gave his gun a sudden snap that drew an exclamation of amazement from Alan. Only one man in the world had he ever seen throw a gun into its holster like that. A sickly grin began to spread over his own countenance, and all at once Tatpan's eyes ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... fireplace, as proud as Queen Victory,—I don't blame her, Johnny,—O no, I don't blame her; she had the right of it there, I ought to have been ashamed of myself; but a man never likes to hear that from other folks, and I put my pipe down on the chimney-shelf so hard I heard it snap like ice, and I stood up too, and said—but no matter what I said, I guess. A man's quarrels with his wife always make me think of what the Scripture says about other folks not intermeddling. They're things, in my opinion, that don't concern anybody else as a general thing, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... you little varmints!" he would snap. "God knows I'd be glad to get a rap at you—keeping an old man down in the water half ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... with his weight. But in a moment, just as the boat with a swoop plunged over the fall, he rose, clutching securely and hauling himself inch by inch out of the torrent. To Fisher, who watched breathlessly, it seemed as if every moment the branch would snap and send the senior back to his fate. But it held out bravely and supported him as he gradually drew himself up and finally perched high ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... "Take em both together; they go in lots." I saw the old Union—the bold, shivelrous Southner a guidin, controllin, and directin the machine, and assoomin to hisself the places uv honor, and the Dimokrat uv the North follerin, like a puppy dog, at his heels, takin sich fat things ez he cood snap up; the Southerner ashamed uv his associations, but forced to yoose em; the Northerner uncomfortable in his presence, but tied to him by self-interest. I saw a comin back the good old times when thirty-four States ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... for him," said the Spaniard. "He was with me in Cuba, but has no reputation in London. There are hotels that would snap him up." ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... snap shots of my little kitty. We call her "Antoinette" after the aeroplane, for she makes a noise like ...
— 'My Beloved Poilus' • Anonymous
... go, Whirling about in the maddening fun, It plays in its glee with every one, Chasing, Laughing, Hurrying by, It lights on the face and sparkles the eye! And even the dogs, with a bark and a bound, Snap at the crystals that eddy around, The town is alive, and its heart is aglow! To welcome the coming ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... attitude, as though grieving over the depravity of man. The Senator looked around helplessly, but there was no aid in sight, so he climbed down from the wagon and walked around to the bridle. The General may have suspected another attempt at dragging, for a vicious snap of his yellow teeth caused the Senator to step back out of reach, completely baffled. He stared an instant at the solemn face before him and then shaking ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... and gradually began to think new and inspiring thoughts: of chivalry, and poetry, and deeds still to be done; of broad meadows, and cattle browsing in them, raked by sun and wind; of kitchen-gardens, and straight herb-borders, and warm snap-dragon beset by bees; and of the comforting clink of dishes set down on the table at Toad Hall, and the scrape of chair-legs on the floor as every one pulled himself close up to his work. The air of the narrow cell took a ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... woman of us is indeed a self pluviometer, or rain-gauge; or, in plain terms, our nerves are like so many musical strings, affected by every change of the atmosphere, which, if screwed up too tight, are apt to snap off, and become useless; or, if you please, we are like so many barometers, and our animal spirits like their quicksilver; so "servile" are we to all the "skyey influences." Take, for example, the same man at three different periods of the year: on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... Chamberlain at court, a Privy Councillor, and the Tsar himself on this side of the world, but when his inspections and reforms are concluded, and he is one of the wealthiest men in Russia, he will return to St. Petersburg and become so high and mighty that a princess would snap at him. And you aspire! I never heard ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... coming, and looked up, expecting to see a wall of flying snow, and continued looking, seeing nothing of the kind. There I stood, in the air of an ice-house, when a gust of that wind struck me. A miracle! In a snap of your fingers I was bathed in genial warmth. All about me rode the scent of spring and flowers! It was as if the doors of a ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... time, we decided to get along as we were. A strange sight we must have presented to the tidy little officer in his uniform and black tie: a haggard, unshaven lot of men, none too clean, all suffering from strain and lack of sleep, with nerves ready to snap; a white yacht, motionless, her sails drooping,—for not a breath of air moved,—with unpolished brasses and dirty decks; in charge of all, a tall youth, unshaven like the rest, and gaunt from sickness, who hardly knew a nautical phrase, ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... oyster to be again opened, and he knew,—no one better,—that this oyster becomes harder and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes older. It is an oyster that will close to again with a snap, after you have got your knife well into it, if you withdraw your point but for a moment. He had had a rough tussle with the oyster already, and had reached the fish within the shell. Nevertheless, the oyster which he had got was not the oyster ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... at the quiet little French inn everything suddenly changed color. It was quick, it was quiet. There was a complete change in the snap of a finger. All the chauffeurs and the porters and the waiters—men who had been there for years and with whom we who visit there Summer after Summer have grown familiar—suddenly stopped work, gave up their jobs, were turned into soldiers. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... the sides and upon the top, to conceal (as you think later in life) his diminutive height; and he steps very springily around behind the benches, glancing now and then at the books,—cautioning one scholar about his dog's-ears, and startling another from a doze by a very loud and odious snap of his ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... make a nice little item for our society girl. Usually she disdains people who do not live on the Lake Shore Drive, but she will have to admit there is snap in this 'Dr. and Mrs. Karl Ludwig Hubers,'"—pounding it out on a copy of Walden as typewriter—"' but newly returned from foreign shores, entertained last night at a book dusting party. Those present were Dr. Murray Parkman, eminent surgeon, and ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... where grew the apples which sometimes gave her an "upset"; the garden where grandpa spent hours and hours "cultivating" his vegetables; and grandma's own particular garden, which was given over to tall gaudy hollyhocks, and prim rows of verbena, snap-dragon, phlox, spicy pinks, heliotrope, and other flowers such as all grandmothers ought ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... hut, his canoe, his fence, his cart, woodwork of any kind—indeed, everything to be made fast, from a bundle of sticks to a broken-down carriage, is lashed together with this split material, which must, when so employed, be bent with the shiny skin outside, otherwise it will infallibly snap. The demand for this article is ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... a master here," says the tyrant. "I'll demolish the first who puts me out of temper! I insist on perfect sobriety and silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers." Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish palaver that we should be ashamed ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... another the treacherous roots yielded to my grasp, and fell into the torrent, my heart sunk within me. The branches on which I was suspended over the yawning chasm swang to and fro in the air, and I expected them every moment to snap in twain. Appalled at the dreadful fate that menaced me, I clutched frantically at the only large root which remained near me, but in vain; I could not reach it, though my fingers were within a few inches of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Gashford, swallowing his wrath. (Paddy brought his teeth together with a snap in prompt obedience.) "You know well enough that we haven't got him, and you know you're not sorry for it; but mark my words, I'll hunt him down ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... microbes against it—the heavy front door, with its cherry panels and brass fittings, had no fear of draughts or cold. It had limitless resistance. The stocky stove, on its four squat legs, could hold its own and snap its fingers at time. They were all so arrogantly indestructible, so fearfully permanent—they had no sympathy, no common meeting ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... convened but irregularly and for brief periods, their existence was a source neither of embarrassment to the Government nor of benefit to the people. "I also have my Estates," declared the Emperor upon one occasion. "I have maintained their constitution, and do not worry them; but if they go too far I snap my fingers at them or send them home." The Diet of Hungary was not once convened during the years 1812-1825. On the side of administration Metternich did propose that the various executive departments, hitherto gathered under ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... environment and are solvable by methods similar to those used to remedy such conditions among white people, if prejudiced presuppositions, which conclude without experiment or inquiry that Negroes have innately bad tendencies, give place to open-minded trial and unbiased reason. Snap-shot opinions should be avoided in such serious questions and statesmen, philanthropists and race leaders should study the ...
— The Negro at Work in New York City - A Study in Economic Progress • George Edmund Haynes
... shelves, or on clean well-ventilated barn floors, or lofts. They should be spread out thinly and turned occasionally from day to day until completely cured. When this point is reached, in perhaps three to six weeks, the roots will snap readily when bent. If dried out of doors they should be placed under shelter at night and ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... Their bareness and boldness startled the convent-bred girl, even horrified her. She was the last to leave the omnibus, and then, instead of pushing in with her fellow-passengers to secure a room before others could snap up everything, she lingered a moment ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... not again! Raoul, I swear I'm going to do something about this phobia of yours; it's getting to be not so funny any more." With a show of exasperation, Arnold propelled him through the door. "I give you my absolute word our pet won't snap at you. Not today. It's going to be far too busy for the ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... travellers thought, upon the little circular garden near Durham Terrace, where every brightness of fall flowers abounded,— marigold, coxcomb, snap-dragon, dahlia, hollyhock, and sunflower. It was a substantial and hardy efflorescence, and they fancied that fainter- hearted plants would have pined away in that garden, where the little fountain, leaping up into the joyless light, fell back again ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... remain where he was, lest he betray himself. Clutching the dollar as he had never clung to anything in his life, he picked up his cane and slowly began to worm his way backward, on his belly, from the thicket. With the utmost caution, an inch at a time, he moved, lest he snap a stick or strike a stone with his foot. As soon as he was clear of the brush, he faced about, ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... a snap for her as long as you are alive," retorted the old lady. "I'm sorry now that I ever let you go with him so much. He seems to be getting more and more determined to make you marry him whether or no. He is jealous of Mr. Westerfelt." Mrs. Floyd lowered ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... enlarges, louder grows the singing, rousing shouts of encouragement come in, half bacchanalian, half devout, "Wake 'em, brudder!" "Stan' up to 'em, brudder!"—and still the ceaseless drumming and clapping, in perfect cadence, goes steadily on. Suddenly there comes a sort of snap, and the spell breaks, amid general sighing and laughter. And this not rarely and occasionally, but night after night, while in other parts of the camp the soberest prayers and ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... interests when the religious cry is raised, and the fidelity of our troops is being tampered with. Pay, pensions, and orders of merit may, and would, be cast to the winds when the honour of the faith was in the scale; but to snap the associations of years, and to turn in his hour of need against the man whom he has proved to be just and worthy, whom he has noted in the hour of danger, and praised as a hero to his family, is just what a Pathan will not do—to his honour ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... likely to see will not be over twelve feet long; and you will find ten little ones to one of this size. None of them will meddle even with a child; though if you should lie on the edge of a boat, with a hand or foot in the water, and went to sleep, they might snap at it." ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... ninety pounds and Fieldmouse is a cinch. That little sleight-of-hand stunt between Murphy and your nigger is working fine. They not only put it over on the judges, but none of the other owners are wise. I'd try it myself some day if I wasn't afraid somebody would fumble and give the snap away." ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... plan to do all the basting and hand work first and keep the machine stitching for a rainy or a damp day, as the thread is then less apt to break. A current of air or a breeze from an open window on a dry day will often cause the thread to snap. For the same reason the machine should never stand near the ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... ancient rifle at the little animal preparing to snap off a quick shot. It would be a cinch at this distance. Even Lindy wouldn't have missed, if she hadn't ...
— Black Eyes and the Daily Grind • Milton Lesser
... mothers and children, for whom Win backed humbly into a corner, and then, just as the doors were about to snap shut once more for a downward plunge, a young man and woman hurried laughing in. Winifred Child shrank farther into her corner, plastering herself against the wall of the elevator, and turning her face away, for the newcomers were ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... to themselves. Others may at an earlier period have been lives of great promise and fulfilment. In the case of the latter, how sad to think that they should be dragged out into worthlessness or dishonour, all for want of a friendly hand to snap them short! In the lower form of life the process of preying upon animals whose work is accomplished—that is, of weeding—goes on continually. Man must, of course, be more cautious. The grand function of the Society is to find out the persons who have a claim on it, and in the ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... a world fate should befall England. The trees do not grow up to heaven. England, through her criminal Government, has stretched the bow too tight, and so it will snap." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... which had stricken his worn nerves; but the adulterated spirit merely maddened his brain with the vision of new depths of horror, while his body lay below, a mean, detestable thing. Had he known how to pray he would have begged that something might snap. But no man may win to faith by means of hatred alone, and his heart was cold as the marble table against which he leant. There was no more hope in ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... sugar and water into a saucepan, and boil them until the sugar becomes brittle, which may be ascertained by taking up a small quantity in a spoon, and dipping it in cold water; if the sugar is sufficiently boiled, it will easily snap. Peel the oranges, remove as much of the white pith as possible, and divide them into nice-sized slices, without breaking the thin white skin which surrounds the juicy pulp. Place the pieces of orange on small skewers, dip them into the hot sugar, and arrange them in layers round ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... the club and other places—and naturally I have something to do with him at the office. I like him. If Evie can snap him up she'll be doing well for herself. I'm sorry for Billy, of course; but he'll have time to break his heart more than once before he'll have money enough to do anything else with it. If I'd married ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... ago, but what are you doing here, right in the jaws of our army? They might close on you any minute with a snap. You ought to be with ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... haven't eaten as much as us can, Duke, for you know downstairs us could eat Grandmamma's treat. I could—I could snap it up in a minute, and the tea too, and yet I can't eat any more bread and milk!" and she gazed at the bowl with a puzzled as well as doleful expression. "I'm afraid—yes, I'm afraid, Duke, that us is ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... Kilton Hall? Oh, splendid! You'll be down on the three o'clock train? Meet you? Of course. Yes, I'll tell the boys. Mother sends love? Give her ours and tell her we are all right and have been as good as gold. Good-by!" and the phone was hung up with a snap as Beverly spun round and catching the one nearest at hand who happened to be Archie, turkey trotted him the length of the big hall before she'd end ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... to the light. Madame Binat looked over her shoulder and smiled with many teeth. Dick leaned against the wall and sketched for an hour, till the kerosene lamps began to smell, and the girls threw themselves panting on the hard-beaten ground. Then he shut his book with a snap and moved away, Binat plucking feebly at his elbow. 'Show me,' he whimpered. 'I too was once an artist, even I!' Dick showed him the rough sketch. 'Am I that?' he screamed. 'Will you take that away with you and show all the world that ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... win, I think—at first, at least—but she could wear away a stone in the end, as you know. The arranging of this place is still amusing her, so she may decide to spend a good deal of time here. She closed her mouth with that firm snap this morning that I have described to you often, and said that it was going to be her delight to make them put themselves out and come so far away from London for her. "Them," for the moment, are Mr. Derringham and Mr. Hanbury-Green, almost a Socialist person, who is on the other side—very ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... refugees—and his summary arrest ordered. But fortune favoured him. A bare quarter-of-an-hour before the police began their search he had embarked with his family on a Japanese steamer lying in the Tientsin river and could snap his fingers at ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... Skratdj had not been a wife and a mother for fifteen years, to be snuffed out at one snap of the marital snuffers. As Mr. Skratdj leaned forward in his chair, she leaned forward in hers, and defended ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... strident activities going forward on every hand. The ship's dog, a curly-haired black retriever, lay on the clean deck in the sunshine stretched on his side, all four legs limp, save when, pestered beyond endurance, he whisked into a sitting position to snap at the all too ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... monstrous stroke of humor; for, at this crisis, Strepsy is made to exclaim, "Some magic is it, O Socrates, about the moon? Well! since you are up to that sort of thing, what do you say, now, to a spell by which I could snap the old monster out of her course for a generation or so?" Now for the parallel case from De Quincey. It is from his paper on "California," a politico-economical treatise. The author's object is to illustrate the fact that scarcity of gold is not due ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... watching of either frog or toad will show exactly how the legs are used and wherein they differ from, and also resemble, the child's own legs. The little hands of the frog and toad, their way of sitting, leaning on their short arms, their eagerness to snap up a tempting fly, the queer tongue fastened the other way round from ours, and its lightning-like speed which is a result of this same position in the mouth,—a hundred interesting things can be learned ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... heads that have played upon the passions of the public, this is one [takes the head'] that did cut a capital figure in that way. This is the head of Jonas, or the card-playing conjuring Jew. He could make matadores with a snap of his fingers, command the four aces with a whistle, and get odd tricks. But there is a great many people in London, besides this man, famous for playing odd tricks, and yet no conjurers neither. This man would have made a great figure in the ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... that, right enough," said the fisherman; "we mean business this time. The last war wasn't a war, it was a snap. We weren't prepared and they were. That won't happen again, bless you. I know what I'm talking about. I go up and down the country, and I ...
— When William Came • Saki
... country peasants and tradesmen of humble rank. But already the noble and mighty were pressing in. As the eyes of Gregory closed in death, a new party was rising to power. Already the Brethren were strong in numbers, and already they were longing to snap the fetters that Gregory had placed upon their feet. From Neustadt in the North to Skutch in the South, and from Chlumec in the West to Kunwald in the East, they now lay thickly sprinkled; and in all the principal towns of that ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... idea that he would have gained anything by flattening it with a bit of silk thread is absurd. What he would have gained would have been a feeling of physical inconvenience during the quiet passages, and terror during the tremendous scenes of passion at the thought that the string might snap. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... up from the bottom of the basin, with his hard shells and heavy claws, as if he was the greatest fish alive. But for all that he opened his mouth so wide, and shut it upon a little crumb with a snap loud enough for a loaf of bread, his throat was so small that that little crumb nearly choked him. All these fishes the Prince fed from golden baskets filled with crumbs, and placed around the basin for the convenience of those who ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... fast they seemed to be coming! How the spray from their oars glittered in the sun, and how their wake lengthened with every stroke! No spectator from the shore (if there had been any) could have doubted that the boat was in pursuit of the skiff, and would snap it up presently. Rolf saw that he had five determined foes gaining upon him every instant; and yet he was not alarmed. He had had his reasons for thinking himself safe near Vogel islet; and calculating for a moment the time of the tide, he was quite at his ease. As he took ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... Again she searched by the feeble light of her candle, but could see no exit. Suddenly she saw something else, however, for stepping on what she took to be a rock, to her horror it moved beneath her. She heard a snap as of jaws, a violent blow upon the leg nearly knocked her off her feet, and as she staggered backwards she saw a huge and loathsome shape rushing away into the darkness. The rock that she had trodden on was a crocodile which ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... also and looked after William Craft. I inspected his weapons; "his powder had a good kernel, and he kept it dry; his pistols were of excellent proof; the barrels true, and clean, the trigger went easy, the caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his poignard; the blade had a good temper, stiff enough and yet springy withal; the point was sharp."[213] After the immediate danger was over and Knight and Hughes had avoided the city, ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... swarm selecting its victim; so that not only Ossaroo, but Karl and Caspar as well, now danced over the ground like acrobats. Even Fritz was attacked by a few—enough to make him scamper around, and snap at his own legs as if he ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... tio; and you who hop about the branches of the ivy in the gardens; the mountain birds, who feed on the wild olive berries or the arbutus, hurry to come at my call, trioto, trioto, totobrix; you also, who snap up the sharp-stinging gnats in the marshy vales, and you who dwell in the fine plain of Marathon, all damp with dew, and you, the francolin with speckled wings; you too, the halcyons, who flit over the swelling waves of the sea, come hither to hear the tidings; let all the tribes ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... and falling into deep water, promptly dived. About twenty yards from the shore he came up for a moment, then dived again heading for the island. I dare say I could have potted him through the head with a snap shot, but somehow I did not like to kill a man swimming for his life as though he were a hippopotamus or a crocodile. Moreover, the boldness of the manoeuvre appealed to me. So I refrained from firing and called to the ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... placed it close to the sheet. In a moment, a large, bright circle of light appeared on the sheet—and in a moment more, we saw a splendid picture of Daniel in the Lions' Den; the lions with their fierce-looking mouths wide open, and their sharp claws spread out as if they would snap up Daniel the very next instant—upon which the children raised such a shout that I thought my head was coming off—and it was quite fortunate that the picture was changed to one of Moses in the Bulrushes, which delighted the children beyond every thing; ...
— The Little Nightcap Letters. • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... moment the Forward threatened to snap her cables; there was danger, too, lest the mountain should be driven by the wind and crush the brig. The officers kept on the alert, owing to their extreme anxiety; besides the snow, large lumps of frozen spray were blown about by ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... your reference to the thing," the detected doctor said, with a grim laugh, "that made me open it. Forty fears ago, sir, I—Phew! it is forty-two years, and I have not got over it yet." He closed the locket with a snap. "I hope you have come back, Dishart, to speak ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... with it pounded a stake into the mud floor. Then he fastened the chain of the trap to the stake, and afterward opened the iron jaws of the cruel-looking thing and set them with a lever, so that the slightest touch would spring the trap and make the strong jaws snap together. ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... the next morning her whole being seemed gathered into a tense strain that made her feel as though the least thing might snap the taut nerves in her body and leave her broken and stranded on some far, emotional shoal. Her heart beat unevenly, while her lips and hands felt dry and hot, as if she had spent hours in a desert wind. She did not experience the bitter ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... as if the liquid expanse were stirred by the rush of a tempest instead of lying as motionless as a country congregation during the rector's sermon. Suddenly Captain BABBIJAM closed his binoculars with an angry snap, and turned to me. His face showed of a dark purple under his ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... circumstances, and in view of the fact that your majesty will soon call upon the city for a loan to make up the Lady Mary's dower, it would be wise not to antagonize them in this matter, but to allow Master Brandon to remain quietly in confinement until the loan is completed and then we can snap our fingers at them." ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... hardly help wondering why it took the trouble to strike at all, the single door of the room was opened and a man entered, advancing toward the body. As he did so the door closed, apparently of its own volition; there was a grating, as of a key turned with difficulty, and the snap of the lock bolt as it shot into its socket. A sound of retiring footsteps in the passage outside ensued, and the man was to all appearance a prisoner. Advancing to the table, he stood a moment looking down at the body; then with a slight shrug of the shoulders walked over to one of the windows ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce |
