"Flea" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beetles, moths, butterflies, spiders, and scorpions. The bites of some of the spiders and the stings of the scorpions are, of course, uncomfortable, but they are neither fatal nor dangerous. With the exception of an occasional mosquito, and a perhaps more than occasional flea, the visitor to cities only is likely to encounter few of the members of these branches of Cuban zoology. There is one of the beetle family, however, that is extremely interesting. That is the cucullo, which Mr. Hazard, in his book on Cuba, calls a "bright peripatetic candle-bearer, by ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... Oh monstrous arrogance: Thou lyest, thou thred, thou thimble, Thou yard three quarters, halfe yard, quarter, naile, Thou Flea, thou Nit, thou winter cricket thou: Brau'd in mine owne house with a skeine of thred: Away thou Ragge, thou quantitie, thou remnant, Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard, As thou shalt thinke on prating ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... dog! D— you, I've a good mind to box your jaws instead of your comepiss. I'll let you know, as how I am meat for your master, you saucy blackguard. You are worse than a dog, you old flinty-faced, flea-bitten scrub. A dog wears his own coat, but you ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... be in the shires, he knew nothing. He was, too, a bad hand at galloping, but with a shambling, half cantering trot, which he had invented for himself, he could go along all day, not very quickly, but in such fashion as never to be left altogether behind. He was a flea-bitten horse, if my readers know what that is,—a flea-bitten roan, or white covered with small red spots. Horses of this colour are ugly to look at, but are very seldom bad animals. Such as he was, Crocker, who did not ride much when up in London, was very proud of him. ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... kind of an hombre that we're up against—he'd skin a flea for his hide and taller. As old Spud Murphy used to say, he'd rob a poor tumble-bug of his ball of manure and put him on the wrong road home. He's mean, and it sure hurt his feelings to have you hop in and win back your ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... same—Know one, know all Exceeding variety and quantity of things money can buy He will be a part of every history (the fool) I never pay compliments to transparent merit I haven't got the pluck of a flea Love dies like natural decay Pleasant companion, who did not play the woman obtrusively among men Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder love The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master The backstairs of history (Memoirs) To be her master, however, ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... colony of prairie dogs might from planless burrows; only these had more venom in their bite than prairie dogs and came from structural instead of natural, from flea-bepeppered instead of grass-grown dirt. Man, woman and child—the grown men armed, the women veiled in dirt-brown, some of them, and some (mostly the better-looking) unveiled and unashamed, the little children mostly naked and colored with all the human hues ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... next time I get the misery you can hold my hand as long as your little heart desires. 'Leven hundred to the good! Good night! Get down off my shoulder, you little flea, you. I got to turn in here and take a drink on the strength of that! 'Leven hundred ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... certainly was not the case. All had the same start, many had similar environments. Yet witness the motly products of evolution: Man, ape, elephant, skunk, scorpion, lizard, lark, toad, lobster, louse, flea, amoeba, hookworm, and countless microscopic animals; also, the palm, lily, melon, maize, mushroom, thistle, cactus, microscopic bacilli, etc. All developed from one germ, all in some way related. Mark well the difference in size between the elephant, louse, and microscopic ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... Gould (Lives of the Saints. London, 1874), using probably a version of the legend reading pulicem, instead of pollicem suum, has clapped a flea into ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... maid, inside the room, who, having announced that there was a gentleman asking for Miss Morris, was waiting for an answer. Was the follower to be sent about his business, with a flea in his ear, having come, slyly, craftily, and wickedly, in Lady Fawn's absence; or would Miss Morris brazen it out, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the only member of the party who from habit insisted on leggings and boots. Their horses were steady, flea-bitten little beasts, not unlike mustangs, and mounts had been provided for the gun-bearers, to the huge delight of all three. Gholab Singh also demanded a horse, which he obtained, as ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... squeaking voice through his nose, to express a timid and weak fellow, who is always thrashed by the other actors, and always boasts of victory after they are gone."—Tolondron, p. 324. In Italian, Policinello is a little flea, active and biting and skipping; and his mask puce-colour, the nose imitating in shape the flea's proboscis. This grotesque etymology was added by Mrs. Thrale. I cannot decide between "the hen-chicken" of the scholar ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... boys," he said, "and I don't believe they dogged the sheep. Why, they've only got a Newfoundland pup, and an old lame, one-eyed sheep-dog that couldn't hurt a flea. Now, father, this sort of thing has been going on long enough. What difference does a few paltry acres make to us? The country is big enough, God knows! Ross is a straight man and—for God's sake, give the man a chance to get ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... in his awkward antics and eternal persistence, even though he was a pest. Johnny saw more in him than his companions could find, and had quite a little sport with him: he made fine practice for roping, for he was about as elusive as a grasshopper and uncertain as a flea. Johnny was in the same general class and he could sympathize with the irrepressible nuisance in its efforts to stir up a little life and excitement in so dull a crowd; Johnny hoped to be as successful in his mischievous deviltry when he reached the town at ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... can get one of those," cried Peter, "Old man Gilman ought to get a dozen. I'll tell them he's the author of the longest and dullest history of their flea-bitten empire that was ever written. And he's a real professor and a real author, and I can prove it. I'll show them the five volumes with his name in each. How much did that thing ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... me, then; and by all means stir on the youth to an answer. I think oxen and wain-ropes cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were open'd, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... the ear or cheek with his dagger, by which he will sometimes bring three or four heads at once to his general. When it is proposed to send these heads taken in war to be seen by the king or the khan, they very adroitly flea off the skin of the head and face, which they stuff up with straw like a foot-ball, and so send them by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... you, old girl," he told her one afternoon, "I'd go crazy with the flea bitings of the Enemy. But you, bless your wicked soul, are an honest part of the game. I was bred from the beginning to fight floods. You attack in the open, like an honest vixen. Wait till I get my clutches on ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... he was small, very small—not in stature, for he was a six-footer, but small in mind and small in heart; his soul was no bigger than a flea's. "Zeb, my boy," says he to me one day, "always be neuter in elections. You can't get nothing by them but ill-will. Dear, dear! I wish I had never voted. I never did but oncest, and, dear, dear! I wish ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... jump over the creek, unless he was a human flea or a Rocky Mountain goat. Come, since you won't show us where he is, we'll take the liberty of sarchin' your premises. But stay, your daughter's got the name o' bein' a religious gal. If there's any truth in that she'd be above tellin' a lie. ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... the flea can bite before he's pinched," said Max. His heart was thumping, for despite his knowledge of la boxe he knew that he might be pounded into a jelly in another minute. This man was a heavyweight. He was a lightweight. But whatever happened he would show ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... Enniskillens, to be ridden by "Baby Grafton," of the same corps, a feather-weight, and quite a boy, but with plenty of science in him. These were the three favourites; Day Star ran them close, the property of Durham Vavassour, of the Scots Greys, and to be ridden by his owner; a handsome, flea-bitten, grey sixteen-hander, with ragged hips, and action that looked a trifle string-halty, but noble shoulders, and great force in the loins and withers; the rest of the field, though unusually excellent, did ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Mr. Somers, "of a very curious and original painting I saw in England. It represented the ghost of a flea". ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... to observe them. Cold and heat, hunger and thirst, such things did not exist for the gentleman. The armor of his soul was so complete that it was proof not only against the great ills of life but even against the small ones; so the flea-bitten Nigel lay grimly still while ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... remote from the rest of the civilised world. From having been the prey of the inexpressible foreigner in his shooting season, it suddenly becomes, and remains during about five months, the happy hunting ground of the silent flea, the buzzing fly and the insinuating mosquito. The streets are, indeed, still full of people, and long lines of carriages may be seen towards sunset in the Villa Borghesa and in the narrow Corso. Rome and the Romans are not easily ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... hideousness. The California Indian not the Indian of the Leatherstocking tales. A stop at the Buckeye Rancho. Start for Pleasant Valley Rancho. The trail again lost. Camping out for the night. Growling bears. Arrive at Pleasant Valley Rancho. Flea-haunted shanty. Beauty of the wilderness. Quail and deer. The chaparrals, and their difficulty of penetration by the mules. Escape from a rattlesnake. Descending precipitous hill on muleback. Saddle-girth breaks. Harmless fall from the saddle. Triumphant entry into ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... I play a trick on you? Come, sir, and you will see her presently, all dressed up and decked with jewels. Her damsels and she are all covered with diamonds, and rubies, and cloth of gold. And what is more, they are riding three flea-bitten gambling hags, the like of which ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... to place with wonderful agility. Johnson sat in great impatience till the gentleman had finished his tedious narrative, and then burst out (playfully however,) 'It is a pity, Sir, that you have not seen a lion; for a flea has taken you such a time, that a lion must ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... lots of such little properties which are of no use to him at all. What do you say, for instance, to an estate of one hundred acres or so; it would be a mere flea-bite to him. But flea-bite or no flea-bite that's all one to me. I wish him to give it me and give it he must. I mean to pick ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... Kalev, did you lock up our old mother in the kitchen just like a mouse in a trap, while she was baking cakes?" "O yes," said the hero; "and I suppose she roared, and made up a bed among the boxes of peas, and for aught I know she may be sleeping there still, unless a flea has woke her up." "Have you stolen Sarvik's good sword?" asked Tuehi again. "Perhaps I may have taken the weapon too, dear brother," answered the hero. "Who can separate a man and his sword? One is worth nothing without the other." Then Tuehi asked ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... canter; Rob' Burns his mother called him at his birth. Though handicapped by rum and much a ranter, He won the madcap race in Tam O'Shanter. He drove a spanking span from Scottish heather, Strong-limbed, but light of foot as flea or feather— Rhyme and Reason, matched and yoked together, And reined them with light hand and limber leather. He wrote to me once on a time—I mind it— A bold epistle and the poet signed it. He thought to cheat ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... about vastness—mere extension in space? There is a sense in which the infinitesimally small is more marvellous, more disquieting, than the infinitely great. The ant, the flea, nay, the phagocyte in our blood, is really a more startling phenomenon than all the mechanics and chemistry of the heavens. In worrying about the bigness and the littleness of things, we are making the human body our standard—the body whose dimensions are no ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... from the same mysterious source,—"The feature upon which the question hinges!" The only man who could have properly painted this was the enthusiastic BLAKE, who so successfully limned the ghost of a flea! These matters, however, are to be considered as merely supplementary ornaments to great themes. The grand subjects are to be sought for in Hansard's Reports, in petitions against returns of members, in the evidence that comes out in the committee-rooms, in the abstract principles of right ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... her own progress"; she added, being under intoxication, "that, if any danger existed, her scheme was to drown it in the bo-o-owl;" and two days afterward he saw her puffing and panting, and fiercely dragging a gigantic three-decker out into deep water, like an industrious flea pulling his phaeton. ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... my lad, and can, perhaps, give you a lift. Skip shall have a flea in his ear before the whistle sounds again; but, of course, it's none of my business what happens after ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... enjoyed was turning himself into some small commonplace creature to plague his friends on board—a mouse, one day, a flea the next, a fly on the third. Quite naturally, no one suspected his ability to adopt such fantastic disguises. So little did they guess—he had one or two narrow escapes from being swatted or ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... "You'll only get a flea in your ear, John," remarked Aunt Deb. "Sir Reginald will just consider you troublesome. You are much more likely to succeed if you ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... de cyprus swamp; Need n't wake de gent'man, not fu' me. Mule, you need n't wake him w'en you switch an' stomp, Fightin' off a 'skeeter er a flea. Florida is lovely, she's de fines' lan' Evah seed de sunlight f'om de Mastah's han', 'Ceptin' fu' de varmints an' huh fleas an' san' An' de nights ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... height, and some much less[37]. They have small shrill voices like women, and are of very dark complexions, some blacker than the rest. Their only food is the flesh of goats. They are all circumcised and follow the Jewish law, and when any Mahometan falls into their hands they flea him alive. We found a hole at the foot of the mountain out of which there flowed an abundant source of water, at which we laded 16,000 camels, giving great offence to the Jews. These people wander about ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... kitchen wench, "If she lives till doomsday she'll burn a week longer than the whole world!" And Falstaff, cracking a kindred joke on Bardolph's carbuncled nose, avows his opinion that it will serve as a flaming beacon to light lost souls the way to purgatory! Again, seeing a flea on the same flaming proboscis, the doughty knight affirmed it was "a black soul burning in hell fire." In this element of mediaval life, this feature of mediaval literature, a terrible belief lay under the gay raillery. Here is betrayed, on a wide scale, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... there was once reigning, Who had a goodly flea, Him loved he without feigning, As his own son were he! His tailor then he summon'd, The tailor to him goes: Now measure me the youngster For jerkin and ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... saith the proverb of the ancients, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. After whom is the king of Israel come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea. The Lord therefore be judge, and judge between me and thee, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... thinking about when he made the like of you. Let me not see you casting sheep's eyes at my son again. There never was an O'Flaherty yet that would demean himself by keeping company with a dirty Driscoll; and if I see you next or nigh my house I'll put you in the ditch with a flea in ...
— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw
... chorus would interrupt him!—a chorus of agreement. Then would follow a description of that terrible flea-bitten mare, and of Johnnie's bravery; of the fierce kick, and the boy's quiet bearing of his agony, all closing with a word about ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... island half a dozen times a week, and again we don't hear nothing of him for months; sometimes he just stops here for days and mebbe weeks, and again he's here one minute and gone the next. Jumps round like a flea on a griddle, I say; you can't never tell nothing about what he's going to do or where he'll be next.... My land o' mercy, Mr. Searle! What a start ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... "That's a flea-bite. Let her keep it. You're in for it now, and you'd better say nothing about money. He has a decent solicitor, and let him arrange about the settlements. And look here, Jane;—get it done as ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... and lasses, (No bee could blither be, or brisker,)— A Pickwick somehow turned John Ziska, His bump of firmness swelling up Like a rye cupcake from its cup. And there, too, was his English tea-set, 19 Which in his ear a kind of flea set, His Uncle Samuel for its beauty Demanding sixty dollars duty, ('Twas natural Sam should serve his trunk ill; For G., you know, has cut his uncle,) Whereas, had he but once made tea in't, His uncle's ear had had the flea ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... man of all spirit. To grapple with this rigour one should have fed all one's life on blubber. I defy a man to be brave when he is half-frozen. I feel a match for any three men now; but on the heights a flea would have ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... became converted at a Methodist camp-meeting, and as he became a kind of preacher among his own people, he staid converted. He had one fault, to speak not of others. He was irascible to a great degree; a mosquito or a flea would drive him into a passion. But throughout his long career as guardian of his master, he had been never known to lose patience with him. Even mothers become vexed exceedingly with undutiful ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... lady that had never been talked about, Caesar might have searched London for a wife in vain. Good Mr. Lumley professed a great affection for me, and would occasionally favour me with long and technical dissertations on the interior economy of the flea, for example; and once in the fullness of his heart confided to his wife that "Miss Coventry was really a dear girl; it's my belief, Madge, that if she'd been a man she'd have been a naturalist." These little dinners ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... men must act upon realities not fancies; he must learn to have an eye to the main chance, and eschew heroics: what was life without money! It was not as if he gave it grudgingly, for he made him heartily welcome. The property was in truth but a flea-bite to him! He hoped the Macruadh would live long to enjoy it, and make his father-in-law the great grandfather of chiefs, perpetuating his memory to ages unborn. There was more to the same effect, void neither of eloquence nor ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... was writing that last chapter a flea appeared upon the page before me, as there once did to St. Dominic." He proceeds to say that his flea was a flea of flea-flesh, but that ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Chris both knaw I be gwaine to have it out this night. Mother sez I be right, but that Miller will send me packing wi' a flea in my ear; Chris sez I be wrong to ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... keeps twenty-three servants, every blessed one of whom is a near relation of my own. [He sits paralysed. She goes on.] That bald-headed old owl—[with a wave towards the door]—that wanted to send you off with a glass of beer and a flea in your ear—that's my uncle. The woman that opened the lodge gate for you is my Aunt Amelia. The carroty-headed young man that answered the door to you is my cousin Simeon. He always used to insist on kissing ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome
... spared not to doe all necessary things that appertained to a good housewife indifferently for them both, as in making cleane their Cabin, and euery other thing that appertained to his ease: for when he was seasicke, she would make him cleane, she would kill and flea the dogs for their eating, and dresse his meate. [Sidenote: The shamefastess and chastity of those Sauage captiues.] Only I think it worth the noting, the continencie of them both: for the man would neuer shift hemselfe, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... out with the fingers without its causing them pain. The superfluous flesh was often cut out, which caused them to eject much blood through the mouth. Afterwards, a violent pain seized their arms and legs, which remained swollen and very hard, all spotted as if with flea-bites; and they could not walk on account of the contraction of the muscles, so that they were almost without strength, and suffered intolerable pains. They experienced pain also in the loins, stomach, and bowels, had a very bad cough, and ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... monstrous!" Simon repeated. "The command to do no manner of work is absolute and emphatic. The killing of a flea on the Sabbath is as heinous as the butchering of a bullock. The preservation of life itself is inhibited. Moses had the son of Shelomith stoned to death for gathering sticks on it. Shammai occupied six days of the week in thinking ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... me restless, and restlessness made me want exercise. It was no good walking about the city. The weather had become foul again, and I was sick of the smells and the squalor and the flea-bitten crowds. So Blenkiron and I got horses, Turkish cavalry mounts with heads like trees, and went out through the suburbs into ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... very teazing sand-flea, which penetrates and breeds under the skin of the feet, but particularly at the toes. It must be removed, or it occasions dreadful sores. The operation is effected by a needle; but the sac which contains the brood must not be broken, or the whole foot would ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the inhabitants of the moon (for we now found we were in Madam Luna) fly about on these birds. The king, we found, was engaged in a war with the sun, and he offered me a commission, but I declined the honor his majesty intended me. Everything in this world is of extraordinary magnitude! a common flea being much larger than one of our sheep: in making war their principal weapons are radishes, which are used as darts: those who are wounded by them die immediately. Their shields are made of mushrooms, and their darts (when radishes are out of season) of the tops ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... it?' he said. 'The understanding of a flea, a hopping flea with a proboscis. Why should you crawl abject before ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... by the bare shoulder and spoke him burning words. "Canalla," he cried him, "horrible flea! Thou makest the air to reek—impossible to breathe. Fly, thou gnat of the midden, or I crack ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... heat; he wisheth himself a saddle for her to sit on, a posy for her to smell to, and it would not grieve him to be hanged, if he might be strangled in her garters: he would willingly die tomorrow, so that she might kill him with her own hands. [5469]Ovid would be a flea, a gnat, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... under his arm, astride a white mule with scarlet ear-tassels and bells and a saddle of scarlet leather. He gazed across the sands to the sea, and turned to St. Neot, who towered at his side upon a flea-bitten grey. ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... what you're talking about, sir," answered the voice, which seemed to be that of his housekeeper; "but you can't see Joe; he's gone out with a flea in his ear. The idea of his letting you get ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... enthusiastic pilgrims ever started in such high feather to see a dramatic and terpsichorean feast as did we. There was an expression of mystery and expectancy on every face. Mary Garden and all she does would be a mere flea bite to what we should see of pure and simple naughtiness. But alack and alas for our blasted hopes and the human weakness that had been worked on by the adroit press agent! The show was a "fake:" there was nothing naughty about it—and very little that was nice. No refrigerating plant ever ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... her bitters while Mary Ellen did her behests. Each of us cuddled his own puppy, and Giftie began an energetic search for a flea. ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... he cried. "A flea bite in the ocean. It will right itself as the public realize how they are being taken in by these American and German impostors. The Cure can't fail. And let me tell you, Dennymede, my son, the Cure is going to flourish as it has ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... goin' to git tired o' hearin' you cuss my proxy," Mr. Gibney bawled after him, "an' when that fatal time arrives I'll scatter a can o' Kill-Flea over you an' the shippin' world'll know ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... the cube exemplified in the animal kingdom. The agile flea, the nimble ant, the swift-footed greyhound, and the unwieldy elephant form a series of which the next term would be an animal tottering under its own weight, if able to stand or move at all. The kingdom of flying animals shows a similar ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... Willie Wink, Wae's me, drear, dree, and dra, A waeful thocht, a fearsome flea, A wuther wind, ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... you mercy, sir; I saw not you. I think I have sent the scholar away with a flea in his ear. I trow, he'll come no more ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... gentle, was absurd and she knew it. Margaret could go where she liked. It would all be chaste as a piano-recital. But the flea that she had been trying to put in the girl's ear seemed very ineffective. She is just as I was at her age, thought this lady, who, in ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... outcome of the search, got a start. Yonder, far away on the other side of the river, between a little wood and the Staria Derevnia, a light boat drew to the shore, and a little black spot jumped from it like a flea. Koupriane recognized the little black spot as Kathanna. She was safe. Now he could not reach her. It would be useless to search the maze of the Bohemian quarter, where her country-people lived in full control, with customs and privileges that had never been infringed. The entire ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... must go mine while I'm head-gardener at Wanless,' he says. That's what Mr. Menzies told him, the elderly man that he is—and now look at this. Young Glyde turns his back upon him, with no more notice taken than you or I would have of a flea on the arm. Insolence, that is. Downright insolence of an elderly man. Ah," said Mrs. Benson with tightening lips, "if you come ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... bright cushion, and a pile of picture magazines. It made a big bundle when she had them together, and she was dubious if she ought to try to carry them all; but Bud, whom she consulted on the subject, said, loftily, it "wasn't a flea-bite for the Kid; he could carry anything ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... would never earn the wages here that he needed for his child. For he usually earned about fifteen shillings, except in the Christmas season, when trade was brisk. Then he drew more than a pound. This sum of money, which had formerly satisfied his wants, now seemed a mere flea-bite. ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... to me! Who sent you here? It wasn't your father—he hasn't the smeddum of a flea—but he wouldn't send you to do what he dassn't do himself. I suppose it was some of them confounded old maids at the ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... left the court, shook their heads as they returned the money into their leathern pouches, and said, 'that the lad was clever, but they would like to see more of him before they engaged him in the way of business—they did not like his lowping away like a flea in a blanket.' ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... my host warmly for his timely gift, and, as I buckled the historic weapon to my side, glanced at the horse which he had placed at my disposal. It was a beautiful flea-bitten gray, with a small, fiery head, arched neck, sloping shoulders, deep chest, powerful quarters, well-bent hocks, and "clean" shapely legs—a very model of a horse, and as it seemed, ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... the argumentative villagers, a lazy flop in the tank as a raho rose to the surface, an occasional outburst from the ducks, an angry clamour from the water-hens and blue-fowl. My dogs were lying round me blinking and winking, and making an occasional futile snap at an imaginary fly or flea. It was a drowsy and peaceful scene. I was nearly dropping off to sleep, from the heat and the monotonous drone of the putwarrie, who was intoning nasally some formidable document about fishery rights ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... an agent and counsel; ane's sure o' fair play. Ye are a bonny lass, too, an ye wad busk up your cockernony a bit; and a bonny lass will find favour wi' judge and jury, when they would strap up a grewsome carle like me for the fifteenth part of a flea's hide and ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... until seven, so Jean and I went out for a walk; as Hippolyte advised us to try and find a chemist and buy some flea powder. "Je trouverai ca plus prudent," he said. Jean is getting quite natural with me now, and isn't so awfully polite. The chemist took us for a honeymoon couple (as, of course, if I had been French I could not have gone for a walk with Jean alone). He—the chemist—was so sympathetic, he ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... Weimar, [Wilhelmina's acquaintance; wedded, not without difficulty, to a superfluous Baireuth Sister-in-law by Wilhelmina ( Memoires de Wilhelmina, ii. 185-194): Grandfather of Goethe's Friend;—is nothing like fairly out of his wits; only has a flea (as we may say) dancing occasionally in the ear of him. Perhaps it is so with the rest of these Serenities, here fallen upon evil tongues?] Gotha, Waldeck, Hoym, and the whole lot of them, brought upon the carpet:—and after our good Host had got considerably drunk, we rose,—and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... those places as the forms mentioned hitherto. Among these organisms there are several species of worms, spiders, gnats, and, above all, crustaceans of the lower class. The most interesting of the latter is perhaps a variety of the sand flea (Fig. 8—Gammarus pulex). The crustacean found in the pits of mines, which is related to the sand flea, shows, according to Dr. R. Schneider, a slight degeneration of the organ of sight, which has taken place in consequence of its adaptation to the dark places, in which this variety ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... course, in human experience, which is incapable of containing the heart of a flea, much less what may be endured in remoter spheres. But if an intelligence were constructed ad hoc there is nothing real that might not fall within the scope of experience. The difference between existence and truth on the one side and knowledge or representation on the other ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... require a volume. The process is scarcely less complex in insects. Lyonnet found 3,993 muscles in a caterpillar, and while a large proportion belong to the internal organs, over a thousand assist in locomotion. Hence the muscular power of insects is enormous. A flea will leap two hundred times its own height, and certain large, solid beetles will move enormous weights as compared to the bulk ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... one magician who, about the year Fifteen Hundred, made a box with a glass cover that magnified the contents. This great man would catch a flea and show it to the people. Then he would place the flea in the box and show it to them, and they would see that it had grown enormously in an instant. The man could make it big or little, by just taking off and putting on the cover of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... thinking how I may impart more power to the muscles in the legs of a flea, so that it may more readily escape from its enemies. The equilibrium of attack and defence has been ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... he'd do with Devers if he only had him under his command, yet the very men so confident they could bring him to time were not infrequently the ones who subsequently found him too adroit for their straightforward methods. Black Bill told Tintop that Devers was as bad as the Irishman's flea,—put your thumb on him and he isn't there. "I'll cinch him," said Tintop in reply, "if he tries any of his damned nonsense on me." But with every intention of doing his level best, "Topsy" little knew the infinite resources ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... which the epithet of cunning may be best ascribed, is, I think, the flea. If you doubt this, try to catch one. What double backsprings he will turn, what fancy dodges he will execute, and how, at last, you will have to give up the game and acknowledge yourself beaten ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... called him hard names and turned him out of the palace, neck and heels; so back poor Peter went to his mother with a flea in his ear, as the saying is. Now he was poor again, and everybody called him a dull block, for he rode no great white horse ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... the chief thunder-god, fell violently in love with the same Aino woman. Said one of them to the other, in a joking way: "I will become a flea, so as to be able to hop into her bosom." Said the other: "I will become a louse, so as to be able to ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... said. "Anyway, we've got a space drive—flea sized. Now the question before the board becomes, just what are we going to do with it? Turn it over ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... at him by my aunt, half in mockery and half in wrath, eyeing him from head to foot, would have said plainly enough to other men than Master Peter—who, for his part made her a right humble and well-turned speech—"Wait awhile, young fellow! I am here now! And if you find a flea in your ear, you have me to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... benign and almost paternal glance. "You're tremendously sweet to put that flea in my ear, Kay. It's a wonderful prescription, but it lacks one small ingredient—the wealthy, courageous and self-sacrificing friend who will consent to run the sandy on your astute parent, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... is indispensable to the owner, as much so as (to use the classical illustration) the dog to the flea; but the owner is no more indispensable to the worker than a flea to a dog. As dogs would be much better off without fleas, so would ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... box here. Can't you see plain enough, by his having lost an arm, that he earns a livelihood by the work of his hands; so lest he should be riotous for being detained, let me advise you to be off. I'll send him off after you with a flea in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... You doggone little rascal, I'd rather herd a flea on a hot plate! I've a plumb good notion to hog-tie yuh for awhile. Can't trust yuh a minute nowhere. Now look what you got to wear ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... flea—when you try to put your hands on him he isn't there," answered Shadow. "And say, that puts me in mind of another story. Once ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... incredible, so flat, so stale, No more to be recalled than old wife's tale; And scorned him, saw him neither high nor low, Not villain and not hero, who would go Midway 'twixt baseness and nobility, And not be fierce, if fierceness hurt a flea Before his eyes. The man loved one thing more Than all the world, and made his mind a whore To minister his heart's need, for a price. All which she loathed, yet chose not to be nice With the snug-revelling ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... excited; but again they remained vague. The autopsy showed a state of things not precisely to be called peculiar to poisoning cases the intestines, which the fatal poison had not had time to burn as in the case of the d'Aubrays, were marked with reddish spots like flea-bites. In June Penautier obtained the post that had been held by ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... ten miles off, on Anderson's Creek, that was superseded, as improvement marched, by a horse-power one. To this Lincoln, as a lad of sixteen or seventeen, would carry the corn in a bag upon an old flea-bitten gray mare. One day, on unhitching the animal and loading it, and running his arm through the head-gear loop to lead, he had no sooner struck it and cried "Get up, you de——," when the beast whirled around, and, lashing out, kicked him in the forehead so that he fell to the ground insensible. ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... honour, to drive with him. He is such a queer fellow; he's cracked, you know, and his nickname is the Flea. I don't know how you ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... in the manner to which a set of blockhead land-men submitted. 'None of your coquette airs, therefore, with me, madam,' said he, 'for I am resolved to have you this night. No struggling nor squalling, for both will be impertinent. The first man who offers to come in here, I will have his skin flea'd off at the gangway.' He then attempted to pull me violently towards his bed. I threw myself on my knees, and with tears and entreaties besought his compassion; but this was, I found, to no purpose: I then had recourse to threats, and endeavoured to frighten him with the consequence; ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... French. Talk mostly with those three or four Frenchmen going on permission to somewhere via New York. One has an accordion. Like second class. Wait till you see the gratte-ciels, I tell 'em. They say "Oui?" and don't believe. I'll show them. America. The land of the flea and the home of the dag'—short for dago of course. My spirits are constantly improving. Funny Christmas, second day out. Wonder if we'll dock New Year's Day. My God what a list to starboard. They say a waiter broke his arm when it happened, ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... Norwegian, and squeezed little notes out of it not bigger than a cambric needle, and as smooth as a book agent. The female singer was fair, though nothing to brag on, while the male grasshopper sufferers sang as well as was necessary. But the most agile flea-catcher that has been here since Anna Dickinson's time, was sixteen-fingered Jack, the sandhill crane that had the disturbance with the piano. We never knew what the row was about, but when he walked up to the piano smiling, and shied his castor into the ring, everybody ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, Thou thimble, Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail! Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou! Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread! Away! thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant, Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard As thou shalt think on prating ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... finishing my breakfast, I walked out with them to the tavern yard, where I had my pick among the sorriest-looking dozen of nags in England, and finally bought from the red-haired man, for five pounds, bridle, saddle, and a flea-bitten grey that seem'd more honestly raw-boned than the rest. And the owner wept tears at the parting with his beast, and thereby added a pang to the fraud he had already put upon me. And I rode from the tavern door suspecting laughter in the eyes ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... snug as a flea, Lay all this time a snoring, Nor dream'd of harm, as he lay warm, ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... I suspected!" she exclaimed furiously. "You are waiting here to find that out! How can you play the spy for him! You talk about shooting a man! Why, you haven't the moral courage to kill a flea! The kindest interpretation I can put upon your actions is to assume that you ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... "That's a flea in his ear," said Bunce chuckling, as Sir Francis went one way, Philip the other. "What do you think of ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... his side. "None but the brave deserve the fair," said his cousin. "I shall stick to it," said Tom Spooner. "Labor omnia vincit," said his cousin. But what should be his next step? Gerard Maule had been sent away with a flea in his ear,—so, at least, Mr. Spooner asserted, and expressed an undoubting opinion that this imperative dismissal had come from the fact that Gerard Maule, when "put through his facings" about income ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... face. Something in it I felt was like my own sensation when Simson in the midst of his scepticism was struck dumb. Jarvis felt satisfied that his veracity had been put beyond question. I never spoke to a servant of mine in such a peremptory tone before. I sent him away "with a flea in his lug," as the man described it afterwards. Interference of any kind was intolerable to ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... when the summer sun was still sleeping an Elf came up from below, tickling an oak-tree's foot, skipping like a flea, and whispering mischievously ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... die, to expire. yew (yu), a kind of tree. dye, to color. eye, the organ of sight. draught (draft), drawing I, myself. ay, yes. draft, a bill of exchange. aye, an affirmative vote. dun, a dark color. flee, to run away. done, performed. flea, an insect. fate, destiny. flew (flu) , did fly. fete, a festival. flue, a passage ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... Sandburr's bony, spectacled face was thrust forward. "I would not have missed it for a great deal. I would like to capture a specimen of a Patagonian alive and take him home in a cage. The Patagonian dog-flea, too, I ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... upstairs, and hide under the bed. I'll send him off wid a flea in his ear, whoever ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... again! Turmoil and flurry may be characteristic of the manners of to-day; both are far from the ideal of beautiful manners which should be as assured, as smooth, as controlled as the running of a high-grade automobile. Flea-like motions are no better suited to ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Russia, Dec. 14, 1830, of a multitude of small, black insects, said to have been gnats, but also said to have had flea-like ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... chance. I've fought tooth and nail, myself, for my place at the top, and I like a game scrapper, even if he is on the wrong side. You've tried to get me for years, but as I knew you couldn't, I didn't bother with you, any more than I would with a trained flea, and I bear no malice. D—d if I don't ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... going to say, looked back upon that deadly, monotonous, starved, dusty, flea-bitten coach-ride of three days and two nights as a species of Elysium, and in the result was perennially importuning Laurence to take a stroll down to Booyseus, "Just for a constitutional, you know." And ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... "Well," firmly, "I shall put a flea in Edith's ear. She must call a halt. She is simply letting that crazy imagination of hers run rampant. I shall ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... and perhaps our purses, perhaps our lives, by taking a Turkish soldier as a combined guide and guard. We sent to the proper official, and two savage-looking fellows came to the monastery. They swore by the beard of Mohammed that our lives would be worth less than that of a Tiberian flea if we went alone, or even with one soldier; they talked our few remaining powers of resistance to death, and we took them at their own price, less one-half, which was conceded to be very liberal on our part. We felt we had a new lease of life, and spent the rest of the afternoon in sweet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... preparations she opened fond eyes, that smiled and winked in advance of the little secret thrills, sneezes, squints, and trances of the page who was about to lie at her feet, separated from her by the jump of an old flea; and in fact she advanced so much and so near the square of velvet where the poor child should kneel, whose life and soul she trifled with, that had he been a saint of stone, his glance would have been constrained to follow the flexousities ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... say: "You must come out and tighten the tent ropes with this gale blowing, it won't be funny if the whole thing blows over in the night." But none of the horrors she depicted ever persuaded me to turn out once I was safely tucked up in my "flea bag" with "Tuppence" acting as a weight to keep the top blankets in place. In the morning when I awoke after a sound night's sleep, I would exclaim triumphantly: "There you are, 'Squig,' what price the tent blowing down? It's as safe as a rock and ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... remarks on the chigo, or sand-flea (Pulex penetrans). It is very minute, not exceeding one twenty-fifth of an inch in length. It burrows between the cuticle and true skin, and there lays its eggs—producing a swelling containing a bluish white sac, about the tenth of an inch in diameter, filled with ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... or boy, That long life and happiness all may enjoy; May they of potatoes and herrings have plenty, With butter and cheese, and each other dainty; And may their sleep never, by night or day, Disturbed be by even the tooth of a flea: Until at the Quaaltagh again we appear, To wish you, as now, all a happy ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... times a day; so at last he went by the name of 'Old Duty.' I think I see him now, walking up and down with his spy-glass under his left arm, and the hand of the other pushed into his breast, as if he were fumbling for a flea. His hat was always split and worn in the front, from constantly taking it off, instead of touching it, when he came on the quarter-deck; and, as soon as it was too far gone in front to raise the purchase off his head, he used to shift it end for end, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... man. "I know the guy, and how to handle him. You just watch him like he's watching you, Mr. Mershone, and if anything happens you skip as lively as a flea. I can use that two hundred in ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne |
