"Flop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then he held me while I skinned. It was very awkward. The tiny landscape almost directly beneath us was blue with the atmosphere of distance. A solitary raven discovered us, and began to circle and croak and flop. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... in the middle of the beck. Lydia, clinging with one hand to a stump of willow, caught up a stick lying on the bank with the other, and, hanging over the stream, tried to head back the truant. All that happened was that her foot slipping on a pebble went flop into the shallow water, and part ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... there was a loud flop by the window in the rear, and the Tennessee Shad rose slowly from the floor. At the same moment Doc Macnooder, ambling innocently by on the farther sidewalk, turned, dashed across the street, bounded into the shop and, returning to the ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... same moment a loud flop was heard on the quarter-deck. It was the forgotten mermaid, who, emerging from her state-room and ascending the companion-way at that moment, had fainted at the spectacle. The Pirate Prodigy rushed to her side with ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... Penrod's little old dog, and, besides, Duke wouldn't act like that. It crept rapidly out into the upper hall, and then, as she recovered the use of her voice and began to scream, the animated cape abandoned its creeping for a quicker gait—"a weird, heaving flop," she ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... moose lying down, it is rather risky to fire at it in that position, as it is then hard to hit a vital spot. The better way is to stand with cocked gun covering the game, and then break a twig—not too sharply though, or you may scare away your quarry. Watch its ears: if they flop back and forward, it has heard nothing, but if both ears point in your direction, keep still and be ready, for it has heard you, and now with one great spring it may disappear into a thicket. Instead of breaking a twig, some hunters prefer ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... calculated to make one flop than a bullet," she laughed. Not yet did the tragedy of the broken kegs appeal ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... themselves, 'that villain's got his dose at last, and serve him right too.' They want to enjoy his struggles, while the heroine stands grimly at the door taking care that he doesn't get away. Then when my fist comes down flop on the stage and they realise that I am indeed done for, the yell of triumph that goes up is ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... mucilage and blotting-paper. A small drawer, filled with postage stamps and bright steel pens, has crawled out on the desk. Packages of folded missives are tucked in the pigeon-holes, winking at us from the back of the desk, and scores of half-opened letters, mixed with seedy brown envelopes, flop lazily about the table. Old papers lie gashed and mangled about his chair, the debris of a literary battle field. A clean towel hangs on a rack to his right. A bound copy of The Tribune Almanac, from 1838 to 1868, swings from ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... could do 'most anything—and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... one, 'here it is! I say I saw the Devil himself fly off Drachenfels, and flop into Cologne. Fritz here, and Frankenbauch, saw him too. They'll swear to him: so 'll I. Hell's thunder! will we. Yonder fellows will have it 'twas a flash o' lightning, as if I didn't see him, horns, tail, and claws, and a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... out, and you think you never saw such a nice bass, and that it weighs at least six pounds, and just as you are reaching out with the landing net, to take him in, he gives one kick, chews off the line, you fall over backwards, and the bass disappears with a parting flop of the tail, and a man who is fishing a little ways off asks you what you had on your hook, and you say that it was nothing but a confounded dogfish, anyway, and you wind up your reel and go home, and you are so mad and hot ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... bread in hand, pulled him to her, and patted his back. That was the price he had always to pay for bread or butter or jam. Finally, she gave him the bread and let him go. Down the back steps he came, running eagerly and calling Frank. Once more in the kitchen began the flop of the churn, once more rose the wail ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... a pillow, down whose front a ghastly slit soon showed itself; but Philip fought well, and Harry was getting worsted and driven into the corner amongst the boots, where the footing was rather bad for bare feet "Flop!" Harry caught it then and staggered back. "Flop" again, for Philip was surpassing himself, and Harry having received the last blow full upon the top of his head went down upon one knee; but he rallied again, ducked to avoid the next blow, and diving under Philip's arm came up behind, and "Whooz!" ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... what to do with him. He cannot be put on a shelf. He cannot be hung on a nail. He will not go out of the house. There is no escape from him, and he is always the same. A smile of a certain dimension, moustaches of this inevitable measurement, hands that waggle and flop like those of automata—these are his. He eats this way and he drinks that way, and he will continue to do so until he stiffens into the ultimate quietude. He snores on this note, he laughs on that, dissonant, unescapeable, unchanging. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... South having their "man" to feed. I had several men to feed. My "gang" was still looking for work and not finding any. Times were desperate. For five cents a man could get a glass of beer and floor room to sleep on in a lodging-house for homeless men. This was called a "Five Cent Flop" house. My pals were not able at times to raise the five cents a day to buy sleeping quarters. It was late fall and too cold to sleep in the "jungle" down by the levee. The poor fellows were able to stave off starvation by visiting various free lunches during the day. Every night I arrived with my ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... retched as his stomach turned a flip-flop to end all flip-flops. The VX-3 had reached the peak of its trajectory at over 1000 miles altitude and now turned down, lazily at first. He gulped oxygen from the emergency tube at his ...
— Shipwreck in the Sky • Eando Binder
... caterwaul and fuff the creature sprang down the shrouds on the opposite side as if it had been born and bred a sailor. Unfortunately it made a wild leap at a pendant rope in passing, missed it, and came down on the deck with a prodigious flop. Only one of its nine lives, apparently, was damaged. With the other eight it rushed to the opening in the bow, and soon gained the shore, where it immediately sprang to the leafy head of a cocoa-nut palm. At the same moment a black-and-white cat was sent flying in the same ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... don't know what he's doing with the curling iron, but I think—wait a minute till I can speak—oh, oh, oh—I think he tripped over the apron while he was trying to flop an omelet and the omelet came down on his head. Don't speak ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... startling humanity by erratic leaps, and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat, and apparently dying a la Forrest; a gasp—a squirm—a flop, and so on, till the street was well blocked up, the drivers all swearing like demons in bad hats, and the chief actor's circulation decidedly quickened by every variety of kick, cuff, jerk, and haul. When ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... too. Roy Blakeley says I get lost at C when I sing. He's crazy, that feller is. He started the Silver Foxes. There's a feller in that patrol can move his ears without touching them. I should worry as long as I can move my mouth. I'll show you how to flop a fried egg in the pan only you have to look it doesn't come down on your head. You can scramble eggs but you can't unscramble them. Once one came down on my head. I took a ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... watched the lower trail. Ten days had gone by since he had fled across the Valley, but the danger of pursuit had not passed and, as he saw a great owl that was nesting down below rise up blindly and flop away he paused ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... the doorway. Something touched the blanket as though seeking support. Then it slid down, its movement visible in the bulging of the drenched cloth. This was followed by a heavy, squelching flop. The body, whatever it was, had fallen into the streaming water pouring from within the hut. Then came a long-drawn, piteous moan that held the men gazing silently and stupidly at ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... her undyin' love for Dick was holy an' godly an' a thing to be kept in a glass case an' looked at every hour in the day—I say when you throwed all that guff at her you sealed yore doom. Them words kicked every prop from under her, an' down she come with a flop that knocked the breath out of all her calculations. She looks fresh and rosy this morning, but she rolled and tumbled the most of the night. I don't sleep sound, an' I heard her. I wondered what step she'd take, an' the breakfast-table grins an' rose-bud ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... opened fire. Mac had a Winchester automatic rifle, and he got off five shots so fast that before the first one left the muzzle the other four were chasing it. He dropped a large bull, which gave a convulsive flop and rolled into the water with a splash. I hit a couple, and with hoarse grunts of pain and fury they all wriggled off the ice and dived out of sight. The boat was hurried to within five yards ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... artists at achieving and momentarily living up to romantic settings, but quickly flop down to the lower levels of decent fairness between the high spots of their sentimental flare-ups. Others cannot utter a poetic phrase, make a romantic gesture, or let their eyes show the quick intensity of their tender emotions if they must die for it. This ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... me," Peggy returned confidently. "He knows I'm his friend, don't you, poor old fellow?" Hobo, realizing that the loved voice was addressing him, even though the trend of the question was beyond his comprehension, gave a feeble flop of his tail, and raised to Peggy's face eyes full ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... yesterday,—because that Burr girl has made me sick of curls, with that great black flop of hers stringing down her back. She'd make me sick of anything. I haven't worn my red blouse since she came out with that fiery thing ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... stage entrance the old doorman with his look of sea dog recognized her, admitting her with a nod. The titter of music came back through the wings and quick, loud thumps of a tumbling act in progress. The smell of grease paint, like the flop of a cold, wet hand to her face, smote her with a familiarity out of all proportion to her limited ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... opened his eyes the next morning, he couldn't think where he was. He tried to flop over, as he could so easily do when sleeping on his wolf-skins in the cave. But he found himself securely tied. He lifted his head and looked out. The sun was just rising over the blue hills across the river. He looked down through the tree-branches ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... don't really want to have a great crowd of friends, do you? It is only weak-minded people like myself who flop on any stranger's neck with protestations of undying affection. It is the easiest thing in the world for any Douglas that ever was to make friends: I think because we are always willing to laugh at the feeblest jest. Nothing endears one so quickly to one's fellow-beings ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... on the Pie-ho in junks. Ain't that a funny name fer a river? Pie-ho? Every time I got homesick I'd say that river, an' then I'd see Hogan's Dairy Lunch fer Ladies an' Gents on the ol' Bowery an' hear the kid Mick Hogan yellin': 'Draw one in the dark! White wings—let her flop! Pie-ho!' an' it helped me a heap." Bill settled ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... last night. I just fell flop over in the bathroom where I was washing my hands and was led to bed when I recovered, by a nurse. I lost. consciousness just as I got there again. I felt horribly faint until 12 o'clock, ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... to think about it any more, thank goodness," Jane exclaimed, rising from the grass and laying a hand on the bag. "Let's put an end to the whole thing now and go home. Take a holt of the other end, and we'll flop it in." ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... hear you have been doing your influenza also. It's a beastly thing, as I have it, no symptoms except going flop. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... sum exceeds the capacity of the Accumulator Register, the overflow flip-flop will be set ...
— Preliminary Specifications: Programmed Data Processor Model Three (PDP-3) - October, 1960 • Digital Equipment Corporation
... retrograduation^, retroaction; reculade^; retreat, withdrawal, retirement, remigration^; recession &c (motion from) 287; recess; crab-like motion. refluence^, reflux; backwater, regurgitation, ebb, return; resilience reflection, reflexion [Brit.] (recoil) 277; flip-flop, volte-face [Fr.]. counter motion, retrograde motion, backward movement, motion in reverse, counter movement, counter march; veering, tergiversation, recidivation^, backsliding, fall; deterioration &c 659; recidivism, recidivity^. reversal, relapse, turning point &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... had ceased. It was the business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm. "Sit down," he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the Leas I sat—scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the band rushed together into a blast of music, the promenaders ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... "Squat, Jacky. Don't flop off your base like that. Always keep a cool head. Look at me. If the ghost of my own dad was to pop out of that lamp chimbley there, noose and all, I wouldn't bat ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... would be drownable, and translation into unaccustomed situations—with the peril of a week's notice. Wherefore let the seal perpetuate his race—his obstacle race, as one might say, seeing him flounder and flop. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... sad! oh, dire to tell!" (Said BAINES). "Be good enough to stop." And senseless on the floor he fell, With unpremeditated flop! ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... it in fifty,' says Joe, careless. 'I takes hold of him 'cause he's bad in front, 'n' he's likely to do a flop when he gets tired. So long, Bud!' Joe says to me, 'n' I takes the bird to ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... in rabbit, and 'flop' she went into the pond and struck out for the sunken log in the middle. Rag flinched but plunged with a little 'ouch,' gasping and wobbling his nose very fast but still copying his mother. The same movements as on land sent him ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... I saw three tiny old females stumble forward, three very formerly and even once bonnets perched upon three wizened skulls, and flop clumsily before the priest, and take the wafer hungrily into ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... their wings outspread, sailed close to the surface of the ocean, undulating over the waves and into the hollows exactly paralleling, at a height of only a few feet, the restless contour of the sea. Occasionally they would all flop their wings two or three ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... an' once we're tied up at the dock and we hear Mac's been talkin' we'll just spread the word that he was so soused he jumped overboard an' swum ashore without waitin' to see if we could back off. Lordy, Gib, don't work me to death. I'm that weary I could flop on this wet deck an' be off to sleep in ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... much encumbered for a curtsey, she pretended not to see him and his friend at all, and so passed, flip-flop, within three yards of them, onward down towards the village. The Vicar watched her slow transit in silence, and ripened a ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... jurors expressed their appreciation of his sympathy and one answered: "Tired o' talkin'! Wall, I reckon so. I'm jes' tireder an' dryer 'n if I'd been tailin' down beef steers all day. My ol' tongue's been a-floppin' till thar ain't nary 'nother flop left in her 'nless I could git to ile her up with a swaller o' red-eye, an—" regretfully—"I reckon thar ain't no sort o' ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... The big folks kick 'em out of the way. But you've got to be real strong an' have a big foot. You just give it to 'em by the side of the jaw and they flop down in the water. That big Jimmy Lane has seen them lots ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... interrupted Slone. The bullet missed, but Slone made a pretense, a convulsive flop, as ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... the other, you single out the cur you are after, make proper advances, and when he comes sniffling and snuffling and all the time keeping at a safe distance, you drop the sheet-iron on the snow, the brute makes a dive, and you make a flop, you grab the nearest thing grabable—ear, leg, or bunch of hair—and do your best to catch his throat, after which, everything is easy. Slip the harness over the head, push the fore-paws through, and there you are, one dog hooked ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... Windsor, or in fact, any of the hotels on the Bowery were good enough for me—that is, if I had the price, fifteen cents. You can get a bed in a lodging-house for ten cents, or if you have only seven cents you can get a "flop." You can sit in some joint all night if you have a nickel, but if you haven't you can do the next best thing in line, and that is "carry the banner." Think of walking the streets all night and ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney
... "That would be some sort of reward. But, as for myself, I must confess I would prefer a smile of gratitude. Just fancy the girl receiving back her ring! Won't she flop over in ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... it makes a man feel sorry for them the way they lose their heads. Big, burly drummers and farmers and ex-soldiers and high-collared dudes and sports that, a few moments before, were filling the car with noise and bragging, get so scared that their ears flop. ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... on him and followed him about, and this had such an effect upon him at last that he began to feel as if he really had done something, and he got to slinking down the by-streets and hiding in dark doorways when he heard the regulation flip-flop approaching. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... free action of the arms, began to wear on me. Try as I may, I cannot master the little sidewise shift of the pack which the captain showed us, and which Godwin says makes shooting prone "just as easy!" Looking at the other men, I often saw them flop on their faces to rest; they were working as hard as on the range. The pretense of firing, when our cartridges were gone, took away some of the excitement. Then at about the fifth dash, which the others took with some briskness but which I had to ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... have been overcome by the heat (it was a land breeze and it drew like the breath of a furnace over the hay-cocks and the clover), or it may have mistimed the wheel, which passed over its head and left it to flop a moment in the dust and then fall still. The poor little tragedy was sufficiently distressful to me, but I bore it well, compared with my driver. He could hardly stop lamenting it; and when presently ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... shadow. In the shade cast by the bridge, trout rose at the dancing gnats and flies. She could see them rush upward through the brown water. Sometimes they leapt clear of it, exposing their silver bellies, pink-spotted sides, and the olive-green of their backs. They dropped again with a flop, and rings circled outward from ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... lot, is BUCHANAN, slops over tremenjous, he do; Kinder poet, dear boy, I believe, and they always do flop round a few, Make a rare lot o' splash and no progress, like ducks in a tub, dontcher know, But cackle and splutter ain't swimming; so ROBERT, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... him six yards off; never missed one; you would have thought the fish ran along a wire up to him and down his throat. And I saw the penguin swim under water, and the sea lions sit up, four of them on four wooden chairs, and catch fish also; but they missed sometimes and had to flop off their chairs into the water and then flop out ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... and mother. It was named in Dutch, Stoom. It grew fast and soon showed that it was as powerful as its parents had been; yet it was much worse, when shut up, than when allowed to go free in the air. Stoom loved to do all sorts of tricks. In the kitchen, it would make the iron kettle lid flop up and down with a lively noise. If it were confined in a vessel, whether of iron or earthenware, when set over the fire, it would blow the pot or kettle all to pieces, in order to get out. Thinking itself a great singer, it would make rather ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... "If we were at the Emerald City we could then move directly southward, and so reach our destination. But we dare not go to the Emerald City, and the Gump is probably carrying us further in the wrong direction with every flop ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... other side. Shorty daubed his rope and made a fair catch, but when his hoss set back the rope busted plumb in two. Now, Shorty, he had an idea that he could ease the work of his hoss a whole pile if he laid holts on the rope whenever his hoss set down to flop a cow. So Shorty, he had holt on this rope and was pulling back hard when the rope busted, and Shorty, he spilled backwards out'n that saddle like he'd ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... jump in and get me out. He told me not to go to a certain part of the lake. He had been all over it and tried it before I got my skates on, but I forgot and went. A boy was with me, a skunky little rat, who, when he saw the ice was cracking, tried to pull me back, and then he let go my hand and flop I went in and flop came Billy behind me while the little Fur Coat stood off and bawled for help and said afterward he didn't know how to swim. Having on heavy clothes, I went down quick and was hard to get ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... dar; he wuz er good man, and he pray tree times eby day. At de fus peepin' uv de day, Brer Dan'l he usen fur ter hop outn his bed and git down on his knees; and soon's eber de horn hit blowed fur de hans ter come outn de field fur dinner, Brer Dan'l he went in his house, he did, and he flop right back on 'is knees. And wen de sun set, den dar he wuz agin er prayin' and er strivin' wid ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... features were fixed in an expression of nameless dread. A mass of red-gold hair tumbled in confusion about her face and shoulders and when the pilot smoothed this back his heart did a most peculiar flip-flop. Sort of jumped into his throat and stuck there. This Rulan maiden was a vision of feminine loveliness if there ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... stone, saddle and bridle. That's right, down goes my pipe; flop! crash falls the tumbler into the fender! Break away, my boy, and remember, whoever breaks a glass here pays ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... heavy flop of the side Cloister door as it closed behind them, and then silence once more and the thin angry voice of Canon Foster, "Let ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... and the slender rod bent. Clay gave a quick pull, and something shiny whizzed through the air, landing with a dull flop some ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... run—you saw it—across the Theatre into the park, and I prayed she'd rise before she hit high timber. I set her all I dared for a quick lift. I told Mankeltow that if I gave her too much nose she'd be liable to up-end and flop. He didn't want another inquest on his estate. No, sir! So I had to fix her up ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... his father's men as Ram—Shackle trotted up over the hill, stopping once to flop down on the grass to gaze at the cutter, lying a mile out now from the shore, and thinking how different she was with her trim rigging and white sails to the rough lugger of his father, and the dirty three-masted vessels that ran to and fro across the Channel, ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... sand. There was a monotonous clank of chains, and an occasional deep abdominal rumble like distant thunder. All over the camp there was a confused subdued medley of sound. A hum from 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 ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Forsytes, favouring herself, with the exception, perhaps, of Imogen. Her brother's "little girl" Fleur frankly puzzled Winifred. The child was as restless as any of these modern young women—"She's a small flame in a draught," Prosper Profond had said one day after dinner—but she did not flop, or talk at the top of her voice. The steady Forsyteism in Winifred's own character instinctively resented the feeling in the air, the modern girl's habits and her motto: "All's much of a muchness! Spend, to-morrow ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... literature. I drew one of the queer high-backed chairs scattered about the room, towards the table, and sat down to enjoy a "feast of reason and a flow of soul." As I turned the mildewed page, something suddenly fell with a dull "flop" upon the paper. It was a drop of blood! I stared at it with a strange sensation of mingled horror and astonishment. Could it have been upon the page before I turned it? No; it was wet and bright, and presented the uneven, broken disc which ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... "Flop!" went the fish, and Snoop awakened with a jump. Up to her feet she leaped like a flash, and then she saw the fish. Snoop was very fond of fish, and made a spring for the one Bert had caught. But the fish was wet and slippery, and no sooner had Snoop pounced on it with her claws than the fish slid ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... struggles he made to get free! Alas! he became more entangled than ever. You can guess what it was—a spider's web, hung out from the overhanging branch of a tree. Then—flipperty-flopperty, flipperty-flopperty, flop, flip, flop—down his stairs came cunning Father Spider and quickly gobbled up the little Gnat for his supper, and that was the end ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... "but if I'd been through what I reckon you've been through, I'd fall flop on the ground, an' Jim Hart would have to come an' feed me or I'd starve to death ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the big toe. 'Hands up, Hans'! I said, and he didn't argue, all that he did was to swear like one of ourselves and flop down. 'Why don't ye bury yer sausages, Hans?' I asked (p. 079) him. 'I smelt yer, me bucko, by what ye couldn't eat. Why didn't ye have something better than water in yer bottle?' I says to him. Dang a Christian ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... an' bend over, an' reach up backwards. No? Well, try and get on top o' the pile, and flop over." ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... you! I'm as nimble as a sixpence. By the way I'll show you the advantage of having a bit of whalebone in one's composition;" and with these words the Whale curled himself up, then flattened out suddenly with a tremendous flop, and, shooting through the air like a flying elephant, disappeared with a ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... toe it!" growled the now irate farmer. "And don't whimper if I break a bone or two when I flop ye!" ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... speed, I do not suppose he had a drop of any kind in him. If I wanted him to go on one side of the road he was sure to be possessed of an equal desire to go on the other side. Finally I and my mule fell out. I got a big hickory and would frail him over the head, and he would only shake his head and flop his ears, and seem to say, "Well, now, you think you are smart, don't you?" He was a resolute mule, slow to anger, and would have made an excellent merchant to refuse bad pay, or I will pay your ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... pleasurable business. We feel now that there are romantic possibilities about letters setting forth on their journey from our floor. To start life with so many flipperties might lead to anything. Each time that we send a letter off we listen in a tremble of excitement for the final FLOP, and when it comes I think we both feel vaguely that we are still waiting for something. We are waiting to hear some magic letter go flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty ... and behold! there is no FLOP ... and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... he said. "I reckon ez how that settles it. Old Eph Yeates'll share fair, powder and lead, parched corn and pan-meat with the man that can flop him that-away. Whilst ye're a-needing a friend in the big woods—a raw-meat-eating Injun-skinner that can jest or'narily whop his weight in wildcats—why, old Eph's your man; from now on, if ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Now that their attention was no longer strained by watching her the great brutes filled the place with all sorts of sounds, grunts and grumbles, puffs and snorts like the escape of steam from a locomotive and now and then the flop of a great body changing position. There was another sound she got to know and recognize, after a while, the grumbling and rumbling of their interiors. Infested with sea-lice they were always scratching. Quite close to the cave mouth three great ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... advantageous position, it was necessary to shoot with extreme accuracy. A bullet directly through the back of the head would kill cleanly. A hit anywhere else was practically useless, for even in death the animals seemed to retain enough blind instinctive vitality to flop them into the water. There ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Mr. James said afterwards, 'like my old mare Betsy, a step and a stumble, a nod and a flop, and home in the Lord's own time—that's ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... through it once before? Of course. I remember now; you started as an ultra-Calvinist, and came over with a flop. Whittenden of Saint Luke's told me. He always claimed he was the man ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... crude lab that spawned a dud. Their necks to Truman's ax uncurled Lo, the embattled savants stood, and fired the flop heard ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum
... oddest of all to Betty was that he knew the squirrels and deer and rabbits as well as he seemed to know little girls or little boys. There was a story told in those woods about his taming even a trout so that one morning it hopped out of the water and followed him everywhere he went—hop, hop, flop behind him. And in the evening, as Ben Gile and his tame trout were passing by the pond again, the trout fell in and was drowned. But, dear me, that is a fish story, and you mustn't believe any fish stories whatever except those ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... and Fritz would very likely have lost one of his eyes, or perhaps both of them, had it not been for an arrow springing from the bow of the shikaree; which, transfixing the great bird right through the gizzard, brought it down with a "flop" upon the ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... was brought; too short and too narrow. A spoon; better, but still inadequate. An outsider suggested that all hands lay hold of the thing on one side and flop it over suddenly. But the jealous proprietors demurred, fearing that the movement might not be simultaneous and that thus a flap-jack rupture might ensue, followed by possible skedaddling of the shrewd operators bearing off the ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... a 'sooty' (cornicoides). We put him down on the deck, where he strutted about in the proudest way, his feet going flop—flop—flop as he walked. He was a most beautiful bird, sooty black body, a great black head with a line of white over each eye and a gorgeous violet line running along his black beak. He treated us with the greatest contempt, which, from such a beautiful creature, we had every appearance ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... beat him off. Then all my strength seemed to go. He was laughing himself, but it frightened me a little to see his pupils so big that his eyes looked black. I felt like a lamb in a lion's jaw, Dinky-Dunk is so much stronger than I am. I lay there quite still, with my eyes closed. I went flop. I ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... the back o' my neck had time to lie down. They stood on end again once or twice in the afternoon, when we'd some more repairin' under fire to do; an' then to wind up the day they turned a maxim on just as we was comin' away from the post, an' we had to flop on our faces with the bullets zizz-izz-ipping just over us. We took a trench, I hear; an' the Jocks in front of us had thirty casualties, and the Guards on our left 'ad some more, 'cos I seed 'em comin' back ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... sullen trout yields. In all gentleness you float him within reach of your net. Quietly, breathlessly you walk ashore, and over the beach, and yet an unnecessary hundred feet from the water lest he retain still a flop. Then you lay him upon the stones and lift up your ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... feller'd ort 'o jes' to-day Git down and roll and waller, don't you know, In that-air stubble, and flop up and crow, Seein' sich craps! I'll undertake to say There're no wheat's ever turned out thataway Afore this season!—Folks is keerless tho', And too fergitful—'caze we'd ort 'o show More thankfulness!—Jes' ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... nests, and fill them with pretty downy chicks, they can be happy and beautiful in life and mean; they can spend their lives in jest as honerable and worthy a way as if they wuz a flyin' round, and make a good honerable appearance from day to day, till they begin to flop their wings, and fly — then their mean is not beautiful and inspirin'; no, it is fur from it. It is tuff to see 'em, tuff to see the floppin', tuff to see their vain efforts to soar through the air, tuff to see 'em fall percepitously down ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... with ominous steel-like lustre where its coppery surface reflects the moist blue sky, now fills the whole bed, shaking its short fringe of foam, tossing the spray as it swirls round each still projecting stone, angrily tugging at the reeds and alders which flop their draggled green upon its surface; eddying faster and faster, encircling each higher rock or sandbank, covering it at last with its foaming red mass. Meanwhile, the sky is covered in with vaporous grey clouds, which enshroud the hills; the clear runnels, dash over the ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... he required. This rather interrupted the work of the office as, whenever the Assistant-Resident turned to any employee to ask how far such and such a place might be distant, or the tariff of carriages, etc., the person so addressed, no matter how engaged, would, before reply, immediately flop on to his knees. The Regent was also calling on the representative of the Government, and to him the Englishman was introduced. This native functionary was fat and well-looking, but did not seem to ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... don't. But, I say, look. I saw a fish rise with a regular flop. That must be a carp. They are fond of leaping out of the water with a splash. I say, this isn't a lake, is it? Looks ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... soon's I've got The hang o' the thing, ez likely's not, I'll astonish the nation, And all creation, By flyin' over the celebration! Over their heads I'll sail like an eagle; I'll balance myself on my wings like a sea-gull; I'll dance on the chimbleys; I'll stan' on the steeple; I'll flop up to winders ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... no shrieking midnight joy-riders; not one of the hundred sounds which make night hideous in the city. What bliss to lie there, hour after hour, in a delicious half-waking, half-sleeping, wholly exquisite stupor, only rousing myself to swallow egg-nogg No. 426, and then to flop back again on the big, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... mould as are its men. Sons of the open, deep-chested, tall and straight, they ride like conquerors and walk—like bears. Slow to anger and quick to act, they carry their strength and health easily and with a dignity which no worn trappings, faded shirt, or flop-brimmed hat may obscure. Speak to one of them and his level gaze will travel to your feet and back again to your eyes. He may not know what you are, but he assuredly knows what you are not. He will answer you quietly and to the point. If you have been fortunate enough to have ridden ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... till the ghost enters, and here another calamity occurred. Padger was acting ghost, dressed up in a long sheet, and with flour on his face. Being rather late in coming on, he did so at a very unghostlike pace, and in the hurry tripped up on the bottom of his sheet, falling flop on the platform, which, being none of the cleanest, left an impression of dust on his face and garment, which greatly added to the horror of his appearance. He recovered the perpendicular with the help of two soldiers and a few friends, and was about to proceed with his part, when the door ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... bunk-house staring absently at the skyline, "There's a word uh praise I've been aiming to give yuh. I've seen riding, and I've done a trifle in that line myself, and learned some uh the tricks. But I want to say I never did see a man flop his horse any neater than you done that morning. I'll bet there ain't another man in the outfit got next your play. I couldn't uh done it better myself. Where did you learn that? Ever ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... safe to put an inexperienced or nervous rider on a horse that has not been taught to carry a habit, which a groom can do by riding the animal with a rug or dark overcoat on the near side, and letting it flop about. Horses rarely object to the presence of a skirt, though I have known cases in which the animal went almost wild with terror when the right leg was put over the crutch. It is, therefore, wise to accustom a horse to the skirt and leg by means ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... up, Ginger!" Peter called lustily, but Ginger only seemed to flop in deeper, through his efforts to ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... his hotcakes with a vicious flop that spattered more batter on the stove. He had been a father only a month or so, but that was long enough to learn many things about babies which he had never known before. He knew, for instance, that the baby wanted its bottle, and that Marie ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... bass, as he worked in the back-yard, 'All people that on earth do dwell,'—the dear homely Old Hundredth. It was no wonder that a light, very light, footstep on the gravel outside did not rouse me. The door behind me opened, and Tinker turned his head lazily, and his tail began to flop heavier against the floor. The next moment two soft arms were ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... There was a flop in the water, and when Bumper turned he saw a queer looking fish swimming toward the shore, using his hind legs instead of fins to propel him along. He had big, staring eyes, and a green head, with white ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... out of her chair, whisked her across the room. "There!" he said, setting her down flop. "'En't her a perty ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... pitchy black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence. It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the windows, and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their foreheads ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... huddling in affright, like Odin's hounds," go baying down the valleys and clamouring amongst the pines, like a legion of invisible fiends after a strange cat. Then again all is hush, and tramp, and sanctity, and flop, and holy meditation! And so the pilgrimage ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... surprised, I should immediately have flounced back again to my ocean bed "quick shot," as I afterward heard a sailor say. But dear, deary me! I hesitated just a moment too long, and when I made a flop intending to bounce away, lo! a stout rope was about my body, and another about my tail, ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... no complaints.' And even the ice, the very emblem of purity, has not escaped the touch of the dinner-table decorator. Only a few days ago I helped myself with my fingers to what looked like a lovely peach, and let it flop down into the lap of a bishop who was sitting next to me. This was the hostess's ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... he keeled right over and gosh, how he did flop around! It was a fit all right. I bet he died, too, because he went limp all at once. He acted like he'd seen a ghost. He yelled, 'What did you give him?' to the other fellow. What did he call him?" he asked Beany. "I heard ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... and Pterodactyls—those ravenous bat-winged dragons of the air—hovered above the surface of the earth,—in this epoch we can imagine a pair of long-tailed, half-winged creatures which skimmed from tree to tree, perhaps giving an occasional flop—the beginning of the marvellous flight motions. Is it not likely that the Teleosaurs who watched hungrily from the swamps saw them disappear at last in a hollowed cavity beneath a rotten knothole? ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... bannock bake — how restful is the air! You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty-three, Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care. The man-size mountains palisade us round on every side; The river is a-flop with fish, and ripples silver-clear; The midnight sunshine brims yon cleft — we think it's the Divide; We'll get there in a month, maybe, or maybe in ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... and frayed, like the fat, shaggy, gray mare that drew it; her unchecked, despondent head lowering before her, while her incongruous tail waved incessantly, like the banner of a storming party. The editor did not hear the flop of the mare's feet nor the sound of the wheels, so deep was his reverie, till the vehicle was nearly opposite him. The red-faced and perspiring driver drew rein, and the journalist looked up and waved a long white hand to ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... as his friend fired and saw the Indian flop down and crawl aimlessly about on hands and knees. "What's he doing ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... and hunting outlets some more, took our time. Ran across geese this A.M. I went ashore and George and Wallace chased them close by. Shot leader with rifle. Then two young ones head close in shore. I killed one with pistol and two others started to flop away on top of water. Missed one with pistol, and killed other. While exploring a bay to N.W., we landed to climb ridge. George found three partridges. I shot one, wounded another, pistol. Camped to- ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... almost imperceptible halt. The result was the rope was drawn under the low limb. A quick leap on the part of the mustang, that exhibited almost human intelligence by this manoeuvre, caused Chunky to do a picturesque flop over the limb, falling flat on his back on the other side. This brought the mustang to a quick stop, for the rope had taken a firm hitch around ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... and a ham sandwich and five cents' worth of pickles." Slabs of rye bread, no butter, large, generous slices of sausage and ham which hang down curtainlike around the bread—twenty-one cents. Feet take me back to the factory lunch room. At last I flop on a chair. Sing songs to chairs; write poems ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... tree top, When the shell comes the runners all flop, When the shell busts, good-bye to our station, We're up in a tree, bound ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... unbelief but what Hank was a corpse already. So I slams the trap door shut over that there cistern without looking in, fur I hearn Hank flopping around down in there. I hadn't never hearn a corpse flop before, and didn't know but what it might be somehow injurious to me, and I wasn't going to take ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... "flapper" to "meet mother," and to carry on a violent flirtation, without the slightest danger, with any Gay Lothario in lavender socks who kind o' tickles them with his eyes and makes them giggle. But for myself, who have no mamma to meet, nor any desire to flop about with "flappers," piers are deadly things. Their great excitement is when the sea washes half of them away at a moment when, apparently, five thousand people living in boarding-houses had only just vacated ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... cried Herbert, just like a real ringmaster in a real circus, "the next trick will be when my Monkey does a flip-flap-flop!" ...
— The Story of a Monkey on a Stick • Laura Lee Hope
... had. Aunt Emma held Milly, and father held Olly, while they dived their hands under the water and pulled hard. And some of the lilies came out with such short bits of stalk you could scarcely hold them, and sometimes, flop! out came a long green stalk, like a long green snake curling and twisting about in the boat. The children dabbled, and splashed, and pulled, to their hearts' content, till at last Mr. Norton told them they had got enough and now ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... can supply the wants of His creatures, even in such a situation as ours; for during the forenoon a shoal of flying-fish rose out of the water alongside, and passed directly over the raft, nearly a score being intercepted in their flight by our sail, and caught before they were able to flop off into the water again. I thought that any attempt to preserve them would be sure to end in failure by their quickly becoming unfit for human food, and therefore proposed that they should be at once eaten, which proposition, I need scarcely say, met with the cordial approval ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... shots went at him rapidly, one after another. In spite of the volley the man still crawled upwards, but as he reached the top of the low house and passed his legs over he gave a feeble moan and then.... flopper-ti flop, flopper-ti flop, he crashed down the other side and ended with a dull thud on the ground. On the other side there he was dead as a door-nail and all covered with blood. It was our first proper work. But he was not a soldier, he was a Boxer; and in place of the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale |
