"Bait" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poor old Galilean; when he thought it was all up, he went out and dug bait, and started off a-fishing. You attend to your fishing, and let me dream. If God should attempt to reveal Himself to you to-night, which I wouldn't do, He would have to elevate and enlarge and change you to a celestial, so that you could understand Him; or shrink and shrivel ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... little balls as fine as dust. (I presume the blue pill is a pretty exact equivalent to this preparation.) You infuse this composition into a string of cotton, loosely twisted, which you hang round the neck; the lice are sure to bite at the bait, and they thereupon as surely swell, become red, and die forthwith. In China and in Tartary you have to renew this ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... suffers from the depopulation of country places: the young people are attracted to the large manufacturing towns by the bait of high wages paid temporarily by the producers of articles of luxury, or by the attractions of a more stirring life. The artificial protection of industry, the industrial exploitation of foreign countries, the prevalence of ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... the thought of Bilk had never once crossed the minds of the agitated amateur gipsies, but it flashed across them now as the doctor strode straight for the cross roads. What if the miserable Alexander Magnus should have swallowed the absurd bait laid for him, and be in the act of making his fortune on the very spot they ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... name from the peculiar shape of his foot, and he got that from trifling with a gun-trap. You know what that is,—a loaded gun set in such a way that a bear or any game that's curious about it, must come up to it the way it p'ints; a bait is hung before the muzzle, and a string runs from that to ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... Mortimer plotted to lure on Earl Edmund to ruin. Their agents persuaded him that Edward II. was still alive and imprisoned in Corfe castle, and urged him to restore his brother to liberty. The earl rose to the bait, and agreed to be party to an insurrection which was to restore Edward of Carnarvon to freedom, if not to his throne. When Kent was involved in the meshes, he was suddenly arrested in the Winchester parliament of March, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... Creator. In a state of inaction, Friends have been exposed to the influences of a corrupt public sentiment; they have, to a considerable extent, imbibed the prejudice against color, while some of them have been caught by the gilded bait of southern commerce. ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... as how she does,' replied the settler, with an eagerness that betrayed his conviction that the bait had taken; 'but Mr. Grantham,'—and I could detect a lurking sneer, 'I expect at least that when you have lick'd the prize you will make my loyalty stand a little higher than it seems to be at this moment, for I guess, puttin' the dollars out of the question, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... safe bait, is a woman, all the world over," said the spokesman, "and this one's finished her part of the business well enough. Now our parts have got to be done. Some time to-night you received a ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... seeing the obstinate wretch still escaping his just judgment—as to have formed the design of baiting a trap for the fox, hoping thus to gain access to him, and to take him unawares. He added—without explaining the nature of the trap and the bait—that he deemed it his duty to lay the subject before the most serene Prince of Parma, protesting at the same time that he did not contemplate the exploit for the sake of the reward mentioned in the sentence, and that he preferred trusting in that regard to the immense liberality ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and the other boys were enjoying themselves greatly. For that matter, so was Will, though his activities ran along a single groove. Let those who cared to fish sit out there on the lake all they wished; or troll along, using minnows for bait, which had been taken in a little net made of mosquito bar stuff; Will preferred to roam the adjacent woods seeking signs of minks, raccoons, opossums and foxes, and planning just how he would arrange his traps so that at night time the animals would set ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... been doing well this week with Cod-fishing, as only one other Boat has been out (owing to the others not having a Set-net to catch bait with). His fish have fetched a good price, even from the old Jew, Levi. {108} I believe I have smoked my Pipe every evening but one with Posh at his house, which his quiet little Wife keeps tidy and pleasant. The Man is, I do think, ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... would have done for a recitation of Collins's ode; and graceful, playful, and beautiful the attitudes were— and I saw in a moment that Frank's attention was caught. He was silent all of a sudden, and said no more about Alice Elstree. Monimia had it all her own way; but when she saw that her bait had taken, she determined to play the trout a little longer. She cast herself into finer and more captivating attitudes than ever, threw back her bonnet till it hung at her back—her beautiful hair broke loose—and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... liest, thou fiend! Not unawares The sinner swallows Satan's bait, Nor pits conceal'd nor hidden snares Seeks blindly; wherefore dost thou prate Of ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... deepened from moment to moment: Gramma Pilot, two yards away, brought supper to her squealing sow; and further off, out on the waning mirror of the harbor, a conch lowed faintly for some schooner's bait. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and across Madison Street, on his way from this club to Merton's hotel, Marsh thought quickly. If he could not at this time establish a connection, then at least he would try to ascertain the nature of the bait which had been held out to take this man of quiet habits to the North Side at two o'clock in ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... (and truly not too full-fed, for we supped early if thou dost remember, and did not overtax our bellies), I saw myself busy on a rock, and there I sat and watched the fishes, and kept spinning the bait with the rods. And one of the fish nibbled, a fat one, for in sleep dogs dream of bread, and of fish dream I. Well, he was tightly hooked, and the blood was running, and the rod I grasped was bent with his struggle. So with both hands I strained, and had a sore tussle ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... one foot protruding from beneath the covers. Whether or not he had done this purposely, it was difficult to decide. Be that as it may, Mr. Snowden caught sight of the pink foot. He rose to the bait like ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... enlightened measures adopted in later years by commercial nations, especially by the United States and Great Britain. We admitted fish free of duty into our country, while Canada refused to our fishermen the right to purchase bait and other supplies in Canadian ports, thus preventing our fishermen from competing with the Canadians on the open sea. The President undertook, by treaty, to correct this injustice, but the Senate thought that the provisions of the treaty were not adequate for that purpose, and declined ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... temptations, into many foolish and noisome lusts, which drown men in perdition." 1 Tim. vi. 9. "Gold and silver hath destroyed many," Ecclus. viii. 2. divitia saeculi sunt laquei diaboli: so writes Bernard; worldly wealth is the devil's bait: and as the Moon when she is fuller of light is still farthest from the Sun, the more wealth they have, the farther they are commonly from God. (If I had said this of myself, rich men would have pulled me to pieces; but hear who saith, and who seconds it, an Apostle) therefore St. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... finally, on arriving at the place of her birth, had, according to the farmer, "fired the divil's pelt of a kick into her own mother's stomach". Moreover, she "hadn't as much sound skin on her as would bait a rat-trap"—I here quote Mr. Trinder—and she had fever in ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... other people, you waited for them to give feasts to you. You went about with your soul full of suspicion and hatred; you understood that you were environed by hostile powers that were trying to get your money, and who used all the virtues to bait their traps with. The store-keepers plastered up their windows with all sorts of lies to entice you; the very fences by the wayside, the lampposts and telegraph poles, were pasted over with lies. The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... receive only officers. That they would receive many clients, of high rank, of much information, who would readily fall victims to their wiles. They are very vile themselves, these Germans. The curious thing is, how well they understand how to bait a trap for their enemies. In spite of having nothing in common with them, how well they understand the nature of those who are fighting in the name of ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... of the ponies stampeded, Snatcher making for home and Nobby for the Western Mountains, while Victor, with Bowers still hanging on to him, just bolted here, there and everywhere. Wilson and P.O. Evans at once started after their ponies, and the former by means of a biscuit as a bait managed to catch Nobby west of Tent Island, but Snatcher arrived, with a single trace and dangling sledge, by himself at Cape Evans. Half an hour after Wilson had returned Bowers brought in Victor, who had a gash in his nose, and was very much distressed. 'I ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... the money'd bring you no luck,—maybe a downright curse,—and how can I say it won't? Ha'n't it cursed me? Sandy said it would, even as your'n follered him. What's it good for, then? It burns my hands, and them that's clean, won't touch it. There, you damned devil's-bait,—my arm's sore, and my heart's sore, wi' the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... did they rivet with gigantic piles Thorough the centre their new-catched miles, And to the stake a struggling country bound, Where barking waves still bait ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... also, the Steve spoken of and who had slipped away with his new steel-jointed bait-rod, and a handful of fat grubs, as soon as he heard Max say they had gone far enough on their way. Steve, being one of those hasty lads who do a thing while many people would be only figuring it out, had long ago fallen ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... if I were one"—the disclaimant glistened with mirth—"I couldn't be as poor a one as he is; he's afraid of his own bait." She began to laugh but had to force back her tears: "I didn't mean that! He's never had any bait—for me, nor wanted any. Neither he nor I ever—Really, Con, you are the only one who's made any mistake as to either of us! ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... scene in the House of Commons would render the publication of Lord Stanley's letter necessary. Mr Gladstone might possibly join him; at least no pains would be spared to bring him in. Lord Palmerston had often so much secret understanding with Disraeli that he might be tempted with the bait of keeping the Foreign ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... nervous darts and tail whiskings, a bold squirrel would skip up close, and, after eating a little ground bait, would boldly come up and nibble out of a motionless hand. In two minutes half-a-dozen pretty little creatures would be fidgeting round, eating bread and butter daintily, neatly holding the morsel in their little ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... in the absence of an available market, than the like amount of fish caught by one customer. It is manifest, by the true theory of free trade, that it is unimportant whether the French and Americans obtain their bait and catch fish within our limits or not, or even whether the world is supplied by them or by us; but it is not so if foreign nations thereby rear, employ, and maintain in time of peace fifty thousand seamen, who, in the event of war, are at the beck of their respective Governments, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... thoughts, he said, "What is this! What is this? Do I love her, that I desire to hear her speak again, and feast upon her eyes? What is it I dream on? The cunning enemy of mankind, to catch a saint, with saints does bait the hook. Never could an immodest woman once stir my temper, but this virtuous woman subdues me quite. Even till now, when men were fond, I ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... highest office in that city. He was kept well supplied with billets-doux, half-faded flowers, bitten apples, and all the stock-in-trade of those intriguing dames whose business it is to fan an artificial passion that vanity has inspired. There is no more seductive bait to young men who value themselves on their personal attractions, than the belief that they have made an impression; they are sure to fall into the trap. Chariclea was a charming little woman, but ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... verse would blemish all the fair; But yet, if some be bad, 'tis wisdom to beware; And better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare. Thus have you shunn'd, and shun the married state, Trusting as little ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... VERSUS MAJORITIES. No doubt, I shall be excommunicated as an enemy of the people, because I repudiate the mass as a creative factor. I shall prefer that rather than be guilty of the demagogic platitudes so commonly in vogue as a bait for the people. I realize the malady of the oppressed and disinherited masses only too well, but I refuse to prescribe the usual ridiculous palliatives which allow the patient neither to die nor to recover. One cannot be too extreme in dealing with social ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... good clothes and proud manner caught her; and her social position caught him. Everyone in town knew, however, that Nora Sinclair had been too smart for Handy. She had him hooked through the gills before he knew that he was more than nibbling at the bait. The town concurred with Colonel Morrison—our only townsman who travelled widely in those days—when he put it succinctly: "Ab Handy is Nora Sinclair's ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... he is like the Ossifrage[FN106] which, for precaution against the hunters, abode in the upper air, of the excess of his subtlety; but, as he was thus, he saw a fowler set up his nets and when the toils were firmly staked down bait them with a bit of meat; which when he beheld, desire and lust thereof overcame him and he forgot that which he had seen of springes and of the sorry plight of all birds that fell into them. So he swooped down from ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... ichthyologist could enumerate correctly. The line used by Moses was a single fibre of bark almost as strong as gut; the hook was a white tinned weapon like a small anchor, supplied by traders, and meant originally for service in the deep sea. The bait was nothing in particular, but as the fish were not particular that was of no consequence. The reader will not be surprised, then, when we state that in an hour or so Moses had had his heart progged considerably and had filled a large bag with superb fish, with which he returned, perspiring, ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... is no joke. With that queer looking rod and line fastened to its nose it angles for other fishes. It hides amongst the sea-weed at the bottom of the sea, and the fleshy shreds attached to its nose, floating about in the water, act as natural bait, and attract the unwary little fishes in its neighborhood, but the instant one of them makes a bite at the tempting morsel it is whisked away, and the poor fish is caught in the huge mouth of the fisherman fish, and crushed ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... differ somewhat from those used for bait fishing etc., inasmuch as they are usually hollow ground, and tapered shank especially those used for dry flies. The tapered shank next to the eye allows the head of the fly to be tied smaller, and also reduces ...
— How to Tie Flies • E. C. Gregg
... the slim pole that he had already picked out and measured with his eye, took squirming bait from the soft earth under a stone, just as millions of boys in the Mississippi valley have done, and started for the creek, Paul being delegated to accompany him, while Henry, Long Jim and the shiftless one ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and teach us, till earth and heaven Grow larger around us and higher above. Our sacrament-bread has a bitter leaven; We bait our traps with the name of love, Till hate itself has ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... am one of the few Bostonians who are contented to live in the knowledge that Wall Street is too big and bright and cute a metropolitan centre for country boys to monkey with, and you can say I am so tickled to get back my bait that I will never again, never, wander away from home. There is one moral that may be drawn by Wall and State streets from the last few days in Sugar. It is this: It is not necessary to-day, any more than it was in old days, to work deals ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Christ, they knew who he was, the holy one of God, &c. Mar. 1. 24.25. their mouthes were stopped, he would no such witnesse, that wee should learne, not to beleeue them when they say the truth: for this is but a bait, that wee might afterward follow their lies. There is much mention made of these, both in the Ciuill and [i]Canon Lawes, and diuersitie of punishment alotted out for them; so that none can doubt but that there hath beene, and are such. I might remember ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... that the presentation of one served as a signal for the fishes to dart to the surface and spring out of the water. When baits of paper were substituted for the food, the fishes continued to jump at the discs. When, however, a blue disc was persistently used for the paper bait and a red disc for the real food, or vice versa, some of the minnows learned to discriminate infallibly between shadow and substance, both when these were presented alternately and when they were presented simultaneously. This is not far ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... for the rising of the duck-billed platypus—that quaint combination of fish, flesh and fowl—as he dived in the quiet waters, a train of small bubbles marking his track. She fished in deep pools for the great, sleepy, hundred-pound cod-fish that sucked down bait and hook, holus-bolus, and then were hauled in with hardly any resistance, and lived for days contentedly, tethered to the bank by a ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... search'd each cranny of the house, Each gaping chink impervious to a mouse. 'Was it for this (she cried) with daily care Within thy reach I set the vinegar, And fill'd the cruet with the acid tide, While pepper-water worms thy bait supplied; 20 Where twined the silver eel around thy hook, And all the little monsters of the brook? Sure in that lake he dropp'd; my Grilly's drown'd.' She dragg'd the cruet, but ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... the old Andronicus With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous, Than baits to fish, or Honey-stalks to sheep, When, as the one is wounded with the bait, The other rotted ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... brothers," he said, "to-day you shall prove yourselves worthy of your Lady Paramount, of your late master, and of me. Galors de Born, the arch-enemy, is skulking in his strong tower, not daring to attack us. Men of Wanmeeting, we will go and bait him. Hauterive is ours. Follow ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... forget his face in his countenance. The other was ruddy, with a face as sharply cut as a girl's, and delicate features not fitting his long limbs—clearly he was no better than a nincompoop. Yes, the girls were perfectly justifiable in whispering as the waggon stopped to bait at the "Nine Miles House," and they got out to ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... to be seen," replied the Doctor enigmatically. "At all events, bring your pistol. In answer to any questions, we are going fishing. In point of fact, we are—with ourselves as bait. If you have a little time to spare this afternoon you might drop around to the office of the Post and get them to show you all the amnesia cases they have had stories on during the past three months. They ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... and lit his pipe, and the Bishop got ready his tackle, while the three of us clustered about him, filled with wonder and delight to see the book of many coloured flies, and all the intricacies of preparing the rod and bait. Angel and I were equipped with proper rods baited with greenish May-flies, and The Seraph got a willow wand and line at the end of which ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... prior to engagements, says Judge CLUER, are in the nature of bait and cannot be recovered. Once the angler is safely hooked a different ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... in a voice of sympathy, "we'll move on, and offer it to some other fish." So saying, Jack plied his paddle; but scarcely had he moved from the spot, when a fish with an enormous head and a little body darted from under a rock and swallowed the bait ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... my inflammable heart, she offered the tempting bait solely to the end of getting ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... much sense. It had more likely been Dunn; he was the kind to get eaten! Collins must have legged it early for my corduroy road, where Paulette had expected him enough to shoot at him; while Dunn stayed round La Chance to put the wolf bait in my wagon and got caught by it himself on his way to ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... a bait to Mancini the idea of a treble condominium, by making him believe that Italy and Russia could, by procuring for a treble intervention the adhesion of the whole concert of European Powers, prevent it becoming dangerous from the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... across the beautiful meadow one morning, with a tin-pot full of fishing bait in his hand, when suddenly ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... Alice Nutter. Of course that proved an easy matter.[34] At another time, when Jennet was glibly enumerating the witches that had assembled at the great meeting at Malking Tower, the judge suddenly asked her if Joane-a-Downe were there. But the little girl failed to rise to the bait and answered negatively, much to the satisfaction of everybody, and especially of the ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... threw out this tempting bait advisedly, for at this moment he would have poured his hoard into the lap of any woman who would help him to avenge his ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the Muse, in an age still more degenerate than that of their great original, found ample excuse for dealing out their wares at the best market. When such as Dryden and Pope lavished in preface and dedication their encomiums upon wealth and power, and waited eagerly for the golden guineas the bait might bring them, we have no right to complain of the Tates and Eusdens for prostituting their neglected Muses for a splendid sum certain per annum. Surely, if royalty, thus periodically and mercenarily eulogized, were content, the poet might ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... indigestible, yet it serves to fill: in feeding, the end proposed. For Mardi must have something to exercise its digestion, though that something be forever indigestible. And as fishermen for sport, throw two lumps of bait, united by a cord, to albatrosses floating on the sea; which are greedily attempted to be swallowed, one lump by this fowl, the other by that; but forever are kept reciprocally going up and down in them, by means ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... print those books that your children are rubbing their noses in? Yankees! Oh, I doubt not they have been sharp enough to sprinkle a little of the stuff they call religion here and there in them; 'tis but the bait on the hook! But you silly 'Cadians think your children are getting education, and that makes up for every thing else. Do you know what comes of it? Discontent. Vanity. Contempt of honest labor. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... ruse was successful; the bait was instantly swallowed, and Jerry Belknap glanced maliciously up at the closely curtained chamber windows, and muttered, as he began to saunter slowly up and down before ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Florentines, mostly churchmen, whose offence is not to be named; after which they beheld Usurers; and then arrived at a huge waterfall, which fell into the eighth circle, or that of the Fraudulent. Here Virgil, by way of bait to the monster Geryon, or Fraud, let down over the side of the waterfall the cord of St. Francis, which Dante wore about his waist,[23] and presently the dreadful creature came up, and sate on the margin of the fall, with his serpent's tail hanging behind him ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... this accursed neighbourhood. It was cold, starry, and clear, and the road dry, with a touch of frost. For all that, I had not the smallest intention to make a long stage of it; and about ten o'clock, spying on the right-hand side of the way the lighted windows of an alehouse, I determined to bait there for the night. ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... again. This would take the record of at least an hour's conversation: another attachment would send in a still-alarm to the detective agency or police station, so that within that hour a man could be on the job with a new supply of records and bait ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... me perfectly," said Lorimer, as he leisurely sipped his tea. "I'm an excellent fisher. I hold the line and generally forget to bait it. Then,—while it trails harmlessly in the water, I doze; thus both the fish and ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... careless handling of a promising situation. Just give one of them the chance of securing such a prize fish as this stalwart millionaire! Well, at least he should not miss the hook for lack of a bait. ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... the strings, the weighed net-work fell vertically into the water, and closed the decoy. There, by dozens and dozens, were the ducks, caught by means of their own curiosity—with nothing but a little dog for a bait! In a few hours afterward they were all dead ducks on their way to ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... You need this beauty as an added bait To lure when policy can drive him not. What do I gain ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... head and cast it nearly into the center of the water, where he allowed it to sink gradually, paying out the line as far as it would go. When the end was reached, he began drawing it in again, until the crab bait was ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... insignificant contribution to the nutritive material required for the growth of plants. [Footnote: I believe there is no foundation for the supposition that earthworms attack the tuber of the potato. Some of them, especially one or two species employed by anglers as bait, if natives of the woods, are at least rare in shaded grounds, but multiply very rapidly after the soil is brought under cultivation. Forty or fifty years ago they were so scarce in the newer parts of New England, that the rustic fishermen of ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... as Chillis put down his empty glass, and turned toward the door, which he had entered not five minutes before. This thoughtfulness for his comfort, however, only meant, "Stay till you've taken another drink, and then maybe you will tell us a story;" and Chillis knew the bait well enough to ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... pitiful pedagogues of the rural South, shiftless, half-educated, inefficient. He had never been able to earn much, and his family had always gently starved. Then had come the chance—the golden chance—the Philippines and a thousand a year. He had taken the bait, had come ten thousand miles to the spot of his maximum value. Only, things had not gone quite right. Thanks to the beautiful red-tape of the department, three months had gone before he had received his first month's pay. Then ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... to myself, 'White man, if I'm not mistaken there's been a bait laid out where the tail of ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... theology,—because therein, if he be a true man, is the very elixir and essence of all that is valuable and hopeful to the universe; and considering this, let us appreciate the settled purpose of our friend, whom even this tempting bait did not swerve from the end which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... blades of grass or light moss so as to hide the fork piece at the back and sides, taking care that no small sticks interfere with the proper working of the trap; strew some suitable seed or bait on the grass or moss, and then carefully place one horsehair noose in such a manner as to trap a bird should it merely hop on the crosspiece, and the other noose arrange so as to catch it by the neck should it attempt to seize the bait ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... in Will, leaning in front of Fred. "I've seen you Heinies fishing for graft too often in the States not to recognize symptoms! Spill the bait can! There's no other way to tell if we'll bite! Tell us what you're ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... naturalized American citizens. In voting they were anxious to vote for the side which would be best for their native land; would he kindly and very confidentially advise them whether to support the Democratic or the Republican ticket. Sackville West swallowed the bait without investigation, and wrote them a letter advising them ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... seem that even an idiot could understand that the most benevolent person could not afford so expensive a method of "benefiting his fellow men." Letters come to him by the hundred, from simpletons who have "taken his bait," asking for his valuable recipe. He sends the prescription, and notifies the party asking for it, that if the articles named in it cannot be procured by him at any drug store convenient to him, he, the "retired physician," "clergyman," ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... noble Lord will admit, is a very tempting bait, not indeed for the purpose of annexation, but for the purpose of humiliating this country. I agree with hon. Gentlemen who have said that it would be discreditable to England, in the light of her past history, that she should leave any portion ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... iridescent dew-fish rose about us uttering their brittle note, "Klicketty-inkle! Klicketty-inkle!" [Footnote: One of the pleasantest sights imaginable is that of the natives gathering these little creatures as they rise to the surface at dawn. The dew-fish or kali-loa are similar to our white-bait, but much ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... the beach, in which were some fish-spears and a fish-hook, nearly three inches long, made of solid mother-of-pearl, the natural curve of the shell from which it was cut being preserved. A piece of bone was securely fastened to it by means of some pig's hair, but there was no bait, and it seems that the glitter of the mother-of-pearl alone serves as a ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... had looked with covetous eye on his former slave, and desired to repossess him. A big price would have to be paid, no doubt; but Peewash was prepared to bid high, and the owner could not withstand a temptation, backed, as it was, by that bait irresistible to a Red Indian, "firewater." The boy again changed hands, and now for some time served his ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... caught on the line like fish. For, on throwing the line, with its hook baited with cod liver, these birds made for it with a rush, and in such numbers that you could not draw it out in order to throw it again, without capturing them by the beak, feet, and wings as they slew and fell upon the bait, so great were the eagerness and voracity of these birds. This fishing afforded us great pleasure, not only on account of the sport, but on account of the infinite number of birds and fish that we captured, which were very good eating, and made a very desirable ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... delighted that her bait had taken, as she thought. Then she said quickly, "I must ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... craft, of course, and one must have a suitable bait. The common or garden ghost trick would be useless. I want something subtle. If I could have developed mediumistic powers, now, and gone into ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... next morning he started with his passengers. They went over to Mallett's Bay first on a fishing-excursion. When they got there, the skipper was astonished to find that the polite young gentlemen from New York were too tipsy to use the bait and lines he had procured. They drank all they could hold, and then went to sleep. They had not told Dory where to go next, and he anchored ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... hopes, they loose the lengthing twine, Bait harmless hooks, and launch a leadless line! Their shadows on the stream, the sun behind— Egregious anglers! are the fishes blind? Gull'd by the sportings of the frisking bleak, That now assemble, now disperse, in ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... the brink of war, to suspend all military operations in order to give diplomatic intervention an opportunity; and it is equally significant that, when the great war broke out, Italy remained neutral, in spite of the pressure from her allies and the tempting bait of a share of the spoil, which, it is said, is even now being offered to her.[159] This is but a bald description of Italy's policy, but it can be substantiated in detail from official documents. As early as July 25th ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... the fort. We were told not to kill these men, but to chase them into the fort and retreat slowly, defying the white men; and if the soldiers should follow, we were to lead them into the ambush. They took our bait exactly as we had hoped! It was a matter of a very few minutes, for every soldier lay dead in a shorter time than it takes to annihilate a small herd ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... than the dog for a little way, he was no match for him in a journey of some distance. "However," said Reynard, "those good-natured creatures are never very wise; and I think I know already what will make him bait ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The bait has been carefully chosen and is well presented. It takes the form of a celebration of the anniversary of the oath of the Tennis-court. A tree of Liberty will be planted on the terrace of the Feuillants and "petitions relating to circumstances" ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... leave—may challenge comparison with anything the Thames can show at Nuneham or Cliefden. The angler, too, is as fortunate as the lover of the picturesque. The trout that have hidden themselves all summer, or at best have cautiously nibbled at the worm- bait, now rise freely to the fly. Wherever a yellow leaf drops from birch tree or elm the great trout are splashing, and they are too eager to distinguish very subtly between flies of nature's making and flies ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... dripping with rain, had completely drenched me. When nearly there the increasing rain became a heavy shower; but I kept on. I reached the pond, but nothing was to be seen of Harry. Not a frog could I find for bait, owing to the incessantly pouring rain, and I knew it would be difficult to find a worm. So, after half an hour of tedious waiting and monotonous soaking, I started for Harry's, my ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... At length we did find a tall, red-haired Walloon who said he would go anywhere on earth, and provide a team for the going, if we paid the price he asked. We paid it in advance, in case anything should happen on the way, and he took us in a venerable open carriage behind two crow-bait skeletons that had once, in a happier day when hay was cheaper, ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... and stared. Annie's pretty blue print and gay sash were certainly tempting bait. She glanced ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... thou hast some fear. No, curs! ye have no teeth to bait this bear.[220] I will not bid mine ensign-bearer wave My tattered colours in this worthless air, Which your vile breaths vilely contaminate. Bearer,[221] thou'st been my ancient-bearer long, And borne up Leicester's bear in foreign lands; Yet now resign these ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... thereinto the walls of which are armed with spring points arranged in the usual way to permit ingress and prevent egress; the floor of the passage is elevated to form a chamber below for inclosing the bait, so that it cannot all be readily devoured. The invention also comprises in connection with the above, the application to the side walls of the box, which is open at the top, of projecting sheets of metal to prevent the animals from climbing out; also the application to the top of tilting shelves ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... time after you left, and I showed the Ransmores everything. The next day Fanny and I determined to go fishing, leaving Mrs. Ransmore to read novels in a hammock, an occupation she adores. Isaac was just as good as he could be all the time; he got rods for us, and made us some beautiful bait out of raw beef, for of course we did not want to handle worms; and we started for the river. We had just reached a place where we could see the water, when Fanny called out that somebody had a chicken-yard there, and that we would have to go around it. We walked ever and ever so far, over all sorts ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... most marvellous development of Nature I have seen, for its wonderful divergence from, and yet analogy to, what takes place on earth. You know our flowers offer honey, as it were, as bait to insects, that in eating or collecting it they may catch the pollen on their legs and so carry it to other flowers, perhaps of the opposite sex. Here flowers evidently appeal to the sense of hearing ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... decide on intervention. The road was clear for her to step in and occupy the Bukowina (which Russia was prepared to hand over), and probably Transylvania as well, which latter the proximity of a Russian force might—at the time—have enabled her to do. But the bait failed, no doubt for weighty reasons. Even if Rumania had favored the Triple Entente, which there is strong ground to presume she would, by entering the war, have found herself in as perilous a position as Serbia, with her Black Sea littoral exposed to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... abruptness that the cigar ash fell down over his clothes. The bait was strong, but the man's sympathy was not sufficiently of a piece, he felt, to win ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... du Nord) that was to be a thorn in the side of the 'Adventurers of England' for over thirty years. Frontenac granted permission for two unseaworthy vessels, the St Anne and the St Pierre, to fish off Isle Perce. Strange bait for ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... such a man might build his house contentedly. But to ordinary Christians I am sure there is something unnatural in this beauty of theirs, and they find in it either a paradise only to be won by a much longer road to a bait and veil of sorcery, behind which lies great peril. Now, for all we know, beauty beyond the world may not really bear this double aspect; but to us on earth—if we are ordinary men—beauty of this kind has something evil. Have you not ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... her cap string, somehow as if she were an angler playing a fish. There is capital trouting at Saratoga—or was, thirty years ago. You may see to this day a good many fish that were caught there, and with every kind of line and bait. ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... his daily quest for food, sometimes not returning for three or four days at a time. Once, on an excursion over into the Madawaska Valley, he came upon a deadfall temptingly baited with pork. He rushed forward ravenously to snatch the bait,—but just in time that scent called up an ancient memory. The horror and the shock of that far-off day when such a trap had crushed his mother's life out, came back upon him. It was not the scene, exactly, that came back, but rather the memory of an ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... horse" and salt pork that formed the staple of the sailors' food, he was taking advantage of the calm to fish for bonitos, a large fish over two feet long, the deadly enemy of the beautiful flying fish that every now and then fell panting upon the deck in their mad flight from marine foes. The bait was made to resemble the flying fish itself, the hook being hidden by white rag stuffing, with feathers pricked in to ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... laughter around the compound. They commenced to bait him, those women he would not have wiped his feet on at home. They literally laughed him out ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Australian rivers a splendid fish, called the 'Barrimundi', which not only much resembles the salmon in appearance, but, like it, requires running water and access to the sea. Many a time I have vainly tried to lure them from their watery depths, but no bait would tempt them that I could ever hit on, though I have little doubt that a fly or artificial minnow would prove killing. We could see them in the Macalister, lying with their heads pointed up stream, and seemingly motionless but for the ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... I picked up an old "crow-bait" of a horse, the only four-footed transportation possibly obtainable, and started for Fredericksburg to find my regiment. The only directions I had about disposing of this frame of a horse was to "turn the bones loose when you get through with him." He could go only at a snail's ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... on the part of the younger men. They were so heartily and foolishly suspicious. The older men, as a rule, were inscrutable. They pretended indifference, uncertainty. They were like certain fish after a certain kind of bait, however. Snap! and the opportunity was gone. Somebody else had picked up what you wanted. All had their little note-books. All had their peculiar squint of eye or position or motion which meant "Done! I take you!" Sometimes they seemed scarcely to confirm their ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... mean to say," said he to me, "that these nails are first-rate fish-hooks; but, one thing I do know, and that is, with proper bait they will act as well as the best. But this biscuit is no good at all. Let me but just get hold of one fish, and I shall know fast enough how to use it to ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... young and inexperienced, that is one of her great cheating times. At some seasons of the year, and in some waters, to the fisherman's surprise and confusion, the fish will sometimes take his bare hook; a bit of a red rag is a deadly bait. And Madam Bubble's poorest and most perfunctory busking is quite enough for the foolish fish she angles for. And not in our salad days only, when we are still green in judgment, but even to grey hairs, this wicked witch continues to ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... a wilderness of hazelnut-bushes. He taught her to tear the drying husks from the nuts and crack the nuts with stones. At his request Gertie produced two pins from unexpected parts of her small frilly dress. He found a piece of string, and they fished for perch in the creek. As they had no bait whatever, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis |
