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More "Scratch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... think that was much kinder of her than to ask us to dinner. I hate going out to dinner in the country almost as much as I hate not going out to dinner in town. Besides with that great hook nose of hers, I'm always afraid that in an absent moment I might scratch her on the head and say 'Pretty Polly.' Is she a great friend of yours, Mr Pillson? I hope so, because everyone likes his best friends being ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... phrase "your scratch team" pleased him. His aunt's energy had infected him, and he began to marshal ...
— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various
... native, or that the native understood the meaning of the monkey's chattering. At length Kallolo got within reach of Quacko, when, gently stretching out his hand, he began to tickle the monkey's nose. Then he got a little nearer, till he could scratch its head and back. All this time the monkey sat perfectly still, although its companions were climbing here and there, some swinging backwards and forwards on the vines, others making all sorts of grimaces at us. At length, to our surprise, we saw Kallolo take Quacko in his arms, and quickly ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... understood; I think he saw everything that happened. The girls at my stall were sulky because no one bought of them, while I was surrounded; and one, in lifting a handful of roses, drew them towards her with a spiteful jerk that left a long thorn-scratch across my hand. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... was out of patience. "All money's honest, after you get it!" he cried. "It's gettin' it that draws blood. I never knew the silver bird to fly off a dollar and scratch a guy, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... shook him vigorously. "Shut up," he said, roughly, partly to hide his own feelings, "Charley's comin' back without a scratch. The good Lord, I reckon, don't make lads as true and white as he to be killed off by a pack of jail vermin. Come to the wall as he told us to. Maybe we'll get a shot at those murderers before the day is done. Come along an' stop that blubberin'," and he grabbed the soft-hearted ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... that Association is the pure caseine, and must be eaten by the human race if it would save its soul alive, which, indeed, it will; only don't you think me a good fellow for not crying out, when I never had more to do than scratch myself and away went the fleas. But you all were real bricks; and if you were riled, why let him that is without sin cast the first stone, or let me cast it for him, and see if I don't hit ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... where only eight had been before. The mounted men hurried on the daubed and wearied droves of Commissariat beasts. Smoots Beste drove the scratch team of bullocks, but his heart was as water within his belly, and there was no resonance in the smack of his whip. When the convoy came to a town, he vanished, and the story thenceforth knows him no more. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... incessantly at work; the phenomenon would have been had they stopped. From time to time Mademoiselle du Guenic took a long knitting needle which she kept in the bosom of her gown, and passed it between her hood and her hair to poke or scratch her white locks. A stranger would have laughed to see the careless manner in which she thrust back the needle without the slightest fear of wounding herself. She was straight as a steeple. Her erect and imposing carriage might pass for one of those coquetries of old ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... amusements of the ghosts came very opportunely to my aid, and immediately I put into execution what now appeared my only hope of its safety. Just as a corner of the paper was entering the flame I gave a pretty loud scratch, at the same time anxiously observing the effect it might produce. I was overjoyed to find the enemy intimidated at least by the first fire. Another volley, and another succeeded, until even the sceptical Gilbert was dismayed. My uncle seemed riveted to the spot, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... often noticed how pussy can stretch out her claws when she wishes to climb or to scratch, but you know they are most often hidden within this velvet sheath. If you have ever watched your cat creeping cautiously nearer and nearer to her prey, and then suddenly springing upon the poor little mouse or bird, you will know exactly how such great and terrible cats ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... dumb astonishment, now on the grey unknown, and now on the writing. In the mean time he had dipped a new pen in a drop of my blood, which was flowing from a scratch made by a thorn in my hand. He handed the pen ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... behind it for the street's amusement. At the hour when the crowd issued from the matinee at the Hyperion Theatre, our wittiest students paced on all fours up and down behind this grill and roared for raw beef. E—— was the wag of the building and he could climb up to a high place and scratch himself like a monkey—an entertainment of more humor than elegance. Elated with success, he and a companion later chartered a street-organ—a doleful one-legged affair—and as man and monkey they gathered pennies ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... irritability we should ignore it, as we would ignore a little snapping dog across the street, while at the same time removing its cause as quickly as we can. There is nothing that delights the devil more than to scratch a man with the irritability of hunger, and have him respond to it at once by being ugly and rude to a friend; for then the irritation immediately becomes moral, and every bit of selfishness rushes up to join it, and to arouse whatever ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... of the man of action, who does not bite his nails or scratch his head in doubt and indecision. Sparing of gestures as of words, he always stood motionless like a soldier before his superior; but when he moved, his step showed a firmness, a freedom of movement, which proved the confidence and ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... thought to stanch so simple a wound, and so lose all this blood—bad Tressilian blood though it be." He laughed in the immensity of his reaction from that momentary terror. "Stay thou there whilst I call Nick to help us dress this scratch." ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... after I had turned this over in my head. Then I put them back in the holsters, and I examined my little mare, she jerking her head and cocking her ears the while, as if to tell me that an old soldier like herself did not make a fuss about a scratch or two. The first shot had merely grazed her off-shoulder, leaving a skin-mark, as if she had brushed a wall. The second was more serious. It had passed through the muscle of her neck, but already it had ceased to bleed. I reflected that if she ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the thing contracted, pulling itself lower into the sand. At the same instant something thin and sharp lashed out through a fold in the skin, striking at Brion's boot and withdrawing. There was a scratch on the hard plastic, beaded ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... "Hunt for x and report. Hunt for the spirit of the coming ruction and try to scrag it! Live in the open when I can, sleep with the lice when it rains or snows, eat dead goat and bad bread, I expect; scratch myself when I'm not looking, and take a tub at the first opportunity. When you see me on my way back, have a bath made ready for me, ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... and ends of ideas that we have already mastered, on to which we can hitch our new ones; but to multiply them in respect of such a matter as thought, is like scratching the bite of a gnat; the more we scratch the more we want to scratch; the more we define the more we shall have to go on defining the words we have used in our definitions, and shall end by setting up a serious mental raw in the place of a small uneasiness that was after all quite endurable. We know too well what thought ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... forcing them down the slope, for when the freckled-faced lad thrust his hand in to grasp the nest a sharp prick made him withdraw it, while this action brought it in contact with a natural chevaux de frise, scarified the back, and made a long scratch on his thumb. ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... pushing up her sleeve and displaying a scratch at least an inch in length, and still roughened and red. "I suppose you don't remember trying to MURDER me?" she inquired, sweetly triumphant. "If you could shoot as well as Jack, I'd have been killed very likely. And you'd be in jail ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... day, he thought, for to accompany the stranger they had lighted a lamp; he had heard the scratch of the match, and through the brass fretwork had ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... rain squall hid her from view in a thick white mist, and, with agony and despair in his heart, he gave up all hope of life, knowing that the only other boat was turned bottom up on the main hatch of the barque, and that the ship was only half-manned by a scratch crew of long-shore loafers. ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... Great Isabel so that he should have some means to help himself if nothing could be done for him from the shore. And here she had come out to meet him empty and inexplicable. What had become of Decoud? The Capataz made a minute examination. He looked for some scratch, for some mark, for some sign. All he discovered was a brown stain on the gunwale abreast of the thwart. He bent his face over it and rubbed hard with his finger. Then he sat down in the stern sheets, passive, with his knees close together ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... concluded gravely, "there's only one man I know or ever heard of to whom I would have considered it worth while even to think of sending that telegram, and you are he. Somehow I knew you'd come to the scratch." ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... darling. No horse could scratch a foothold in the place where our mules are as safe as in a meadow. Come, dear heart, let us be going." But Hedwig hung her head, and did not stir. "What is it, Hedwig?" he asked, bending down to her and softly stroking her hair. "Are ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... begged of him. But he was on top of me in a breath and we rolled over and over in the sloop's cockpit. Why it was that he did not seriously injure me, I cannot tell to this day! He struck at me viciously a dozen times; but by a miracle I escaped even a scratch. ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... afflicted Persons in order to their healing or recovery out of a sick Fit, why may not the Diseased Person be as well ordered to touch the Witch for the same cause? And if to touch him, why not to scratch him and fetch Blood out of him, which is but an harder kind of touch? But as for this Mr. Perkins doubts not to call it a Practice of Witchcraft. It is not safe to meddle with any of the Devils Sacraments or Institutions; For my own part, I should be loath ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... to six inches, and leave them at this distance, for Winter Spinach may be a little crowded with advantage, because the weather and the black bot will now and then remove a plant. Should ground vermin claim attention, the best way to proceed will be to scratch shallow furrows very near the plants, taking care not to injure them. This may be done with the hoe, but if time can be spared it will be better to do it with a short pointed stick, having at hand, as the work progresses, a vessel into which to throw the grubs as they ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... wheels ceased to be rotatory: I got cold and damp; and the moths found their way to my inside: one or two persons who came to inspect me declined becoming purchasers, and peering closely at my panels, said something about "old scratch." This hurt my feelings, for if my former possessor was not quite so good as she might have been, it was no ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various
... will fight on," said Etarcumul. Cuchulain dealt him a well-aimed edge-stroke. [4]With the edge of his sword[4] he sheared the hair from him from poll to forehead, from one ear to the other, as if it were with a light, keen razor he had been shorn. [5]Not a scratch of his skin gave blood.[5] [6]"Hold, fellow.[6] Get thee home now," said Cuchulain, "for a laughing-stock I have made of thee." "I go not," [7]rejoined Etarcumul.[7] "We will fight to the end, till I take thy head and thy spoils and boast over thee, or ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... in England last year," she said; "I—I saw A Woman of Honour in London. What could possibly be done with it by an Australian scratch company in a Calcutta ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... the honest first person, I was something of a fraud. The days when I believed everything I was told did not run much beyond my teething time. I soon began to question if fire was really hot, if the cat would really scratch. Presently, as we have seen, I questioned God. And in those days my religion depended on my mood. I could believe anything I wanted to believe. I did believe, in all my moods, that there was a God who had made the world, in some fashion unexplained, and who knew about me and ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... up came somebody with a kit, or a bag, or a box of tools, and they were as good as new before you could wink your eye. Indeed, so great was the desire to keep things up that it was only necessary (so a wag said) to scratch a match on old Seymour's front door to have its ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had no sheep, the sight was a very fine one (so far at least as the weather permitted any sight at all); yet for us, with our flock beneath it, this great mount had but little charm. Watch began to scratch at once, and to howl along the sides of it; he knew that his charge was buried there, and his business taken from him. But we four men set to in earnest, digging with all our might and main, shovelling ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Woods this morning. Now I must wait until to-morrow morning. I hate night trains. My best razors are, of course, at the bottom of some unidentifiable trunk. It is a plot to drive me to bay rum and a monologueing, thumb-handed barber. Give me a pen that doesn't scratch. I hate ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... for a scratch or two of no account. More was Kynan, and that was a wonder, or his luck, as he would have it. But Jefan said, trying ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... vital necessity of his visiting the site of ancient Memphis and the Tombs of Sakkara on the morrow. This was in the interests of his archaeological researches, and he pleaded special leave. One officer only came up to scratch, which was but a minor difficulty. Other means could be resorted to for ensuring comparative safety. Military police and some of the sergeants, especially if friends, ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... were borne from the roundhouse at Conemaugh, two miles away, are conspicuous. Amid the general wreck, beneath one of these heavy iron tanks, a looking glass, two feet by one foot in dimensions, was discovered intact, without even a scratch on the quicksilver. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... that when Sir Burne Jones' little daughter was once in such a specially angry mood as to scratch and bite and spit, her father somewhat roughly shook the child and said, "I do not see what has got into you, Millicent; the devil must teach you these things." Whereupon, the little one indignantly flashed back this reply:—"Well ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... had indulged. She said it, however, rather too innocently on this occasion. Miss Farrar was not dull, and had suspected from the beginning who was at the bottom of the mischief; indeed, it was easy enough by this time to trace the noise to the right spot, for the kitten had begun to scratch, and lifted up its voice in a series of emphatic wails, evidently ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... up altogether than do it in a scratch way," said Ralph. "I've got into a fashion of having a second horse, and I ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... instinct," replied Mr. Tarbox. "The study of human nature comes just as natural to me as it does to a new-born duck to scratch the back of its head with its hind foot; just as natural—and easier. The pot-hunter is a study; ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the savages dashed in the door with sich force that three or four o' 'em fell sprawlin' on the floor. We jumped over these before they could rise, and fired a volley, which sent three or four o' the reptiles behind on their backs. We got into the bush without a scratch, an' used our legs well, I can tell 'ee. They fired a volley after us, which missed us all except poor Tommy. A bullet entered his brain, an' killed him dead. For some time his father would not drop him, though I told him he was quite ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... dig up the ruin by the roots, and closely examine it, and the earth about it. Never, while he lived! They offered money for it. They! Men of science, whom he could have bought by the gross, with a scratch of his pen! He showed them the garden- gate again, and ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... imagined that he was an idiot, or lacking in intelligence in any way, but he had some curious mental twists that marked him as something out of the normal. His chief peculiarity lay in his dread of pain to himself. An ache, a trifling bruise, a mere scratch upon himself, would hurl him into a paroxysm of terror which frequently terminated in a fit, or, at least, convulsions of a serious nature. This drove the girl, who was his only living relative, to ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... milk-white hide, on which it is seldom possible to discover a spot, wrinkle, or scratch, the full-grown white whale is an animal of extraordinary beauty. The young whales are not white, but very light greyish brown. The white whale is taken in nets not only by the Norwegians at Spitzbergen, but also by the Russians and Samoyeds at Chabarova. In former times they appear to have been ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... crowded universe, between all whose great verities moved countless small and smaller truths. Little notion had he that to learn these after the measure of their importance, was his business, with eternity to do it in! He made of himself but a cock, set for a while on the world's heap to scratch and pick. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... "it is only a scratch, and I will make you a present of some new trousers. Also, here is tobacco for you. Come to ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... for that row of gold bottles back of you, you brute of a farmer!" Tanrade counseled me, as the cure found his seat. "If you scratch those monograms the Baroness will ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... that Tolstoy was a combination of genius and insanity. Undoubtedly Tolstoy is actuated by a genuine desire to free Russia, but the idea was unmistakably imbedded in my mind that his Christianity was like Napoleon's description of a Russian. Scratch it and you would find Tartar fanaticism under it,—the fanaticism of the ascetic who would drive his own flesh and blood into the flames to save the soul of his domestics. This impression grew as I watched the attitude of ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... little note-books for impromptu jottings in pencil to refresh my memory of names and circumstances, and what was specially wanted, &c. In these, I brief'd cases, persons, sights, occurrences in camp, by the bed-side, and not seldom by the corpses of the dead. Some were scratch'd down from narratives I heard and itemized while watching, or waiting, or tending somebody amid those scenes. I have dozens of such little note-books left, forming a special history of those years, for myself alone, full of associations ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... game's been missus an' kids to me, Sir— Aye, an' a rare good girl she's been! I met her first at my father's knee, Sir, An' married her young on Richmond Green. An' as she's proved so true a lover, Never inclined to scratch or scold, When the long day's fun at last is over, I'll love her ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... ash, which already began to come off and soil my fingers; on the blank side had been written with the same material the one word "Depposed." I have that curiosity beside me at this moment; but not a trace of writing now remains beyond a single scratch, such as a man might make ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the border for divers years, Where he fou't the red-skins, and he fou't the bears And there wasn't a thing that could bite or scratch For which Tom Johnson wasn't a match, Excepting his wife, and she was the better Half by all odds—he'd often get her In a tight place, and give her a strapping. But somehow or other 'twould always happen, In every tussle and every bout, In every 'scrimmage' and every rout, She'd ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of the fifteen— amongst whom, he was glad to say, was one fellow who had had the pluck to act on his own judgment of what was due to the School—(loud and prolonged cheers, in the midst of which Corder perked up, and looked pleased)—they had held their own with a very scratch team. They couldn't expect to do as much again—(Why not?)—and it was not fair to the School to play matches without all their best men in the team. The proposal he had to make was that unless the fellows now standing out chose to return to ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... asked the old dumb servant to carry Sir Lancelot's shield to the tower. It was a large shield of silver, with three lions emblazoned upon it in gold and blue, but its polished surface was covered with dents and scratches. Elaine knelt before it, and made a story for each scratch and mark, picturing to herself the contests in which the good shield had taken part. For many weeks she stayed near it all day long in the turret, watching for Sir Lancelot and her brother ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... second time, he again came off second best, losing one of the button-holes of his collar in the melee. I rushed in from behind, and flirtatiously, perhaps, tried to grab hold of her hands, coming off the field minus a necktie, but plus that picturesque scratch you see on my nose. Stopping a moment to count up my profit and loss, I let Bradley make the next assault, which resulted in a drawn battle, Bradley losing his watch and his temper, the jewel losing her breath and her balance. So it went on for probably three ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... all. He did well. Then either there were no pictures in his book, or (if there were any) they were done by some other man that loved him not a groat and would not have walked half a mile to see him hanged. But now it is so easy for a man to scratch down what he sees and put it in his book that any fool may do it and be none the worse—many others shall ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... he could be induced voluntarily to enter a house; he seemed, like Mowgli, to have a suspicion of houses. And if he did come in he had no respect for the house at all. When first I had him he would dig and scratch out of a dog-house on the coldest night, if he could, and lay himself down comfortably on the snow. Cold meant little to him. Fifty, sixty, seventy below zero, all night long at such temperatures he would sleep quite contentedly. The ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... Linden; it was long before the Baron and Von Wetten could smooth its phrases to a suavity and deference which satisfied them. Coffee was brought them to lubricate their labors, but none to Herr Haase; his part was to write down, scratch out, rewrite, while beyond the windows the night marched up from the east and the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... except for a slight scratch on Billy's forearm, none of the arrows did much harm to the voyagers themselves, and borne on the swift current the ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... to tattle. Clatter, noise, tattle, talk, disputation, babble. Clatter, to make a noise by striking; to babble; to prattle. Claught, clutched, seized. Claughtin, clutching, grasping. Claut, a clutch, a handful. Claut, to scrape. Claver, clover. Clavers, gossip, nonsense. Claw, a scratch, a blow. Claw, to scratch, to strike. Clay-cauld, clay-cold. Claymore, a two-handed Highland sword. Cleckin, a brood. Cleed, to clothe. Cleek, to snatch. Cleekit, linked arms. Cleg, gadfly. Clink, a sharp stroke; jingle. Clink, money, coin. Clink, to chink. Clink, to rhyme. Clinkin, with ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... blanches white while I write; I start at the scratch of my pen; my own mad brood of eagles devours me; fain would I unsay this audacity; but an iron-mailed hand clenches mine in a vice, and prints down every letter in my spite. Fain would I hurl off this Dionysius that rides ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... melancholy exhibition, that scratch match; all the more melancholy that the other courts gradually emptied and a ring of Juniors formed, who stared silently now at the players, then round at Pontifex, and wondered what on earth he found to interest him in a miserable show like this. For our heroes mulled everything. ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... was fulfilled. On the following Wednesday there was a match between the Under Sixteen and a scratch side. Mike's name was among the Under Sixteen. And on the Saturday he was playing for the third eleven in ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... agent grew pale with jealousy, when Doctor Direful was announced. He rushed into the room like a whirlwind, but stood aghast at beholding the devout crowd that encircled me. Instead of the usual apophthegms, and serious discourse, he heard nothing but "Pretty Poll," "Scratch a poll," "What a dear bird," &c. The malicious moral agent chuckled, and explained that the bird had, for the moment, usurped the attention which should exclusively belong to his reverence, who had taken the pains to come so far to enlighten the dark inmates ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... Many times they surrounded the band, but Manuelito always escaped. Many shots were fired at him, but he was never hit; and once, when he was cut off from his men and surrounded, he broke through the line, and though fifty bullets whistled around him he did not receive a scratch. ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller
... of the young pilot amused me immensely, and all went on smoothly enough till the shades of evening closed in upon us; at which time, entering the Narrows, the satin-vested youth felt himself quite nonplused, despite his taking off his beaver, and trying to scratch for knowledge; in short, had it not been for Captain Harrison, who is a first-rate seaman and navigator, as all who ever sail with him are ready to testify, we might have remained out all night: fortunately, his ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Whitworth before my Cherry had befallen me as a gift, and which I had without thought brought into that prison with me, I parried the blow of the knife at my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner, but not in such a manner as to prevent a glancing of that knife, which inflicted a scratch of considerable depth upon my forearm under its sleeve of ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... had been more frightened than hurt by Antoine the bear. When Pepin Quesnelle had satisfied himself that there were no bones broken, and that the wound from which the blood flowed was a mere scratch, he, as usual, became ashamed of his late display of feeling and concern, and again assumed his old truculent attitude. He gave the breed time to recover his breath, then roughly asked him whom he thought he was that he should ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... discussions between Mrs. Ess Kay and Potter, and though she seemed so angry with Mrs. Van der Windt and several other members of the Ball committee, for trying to make a stand against her, she was perfectly ruthless about the names she would scratch off the lists her secretary was continually making out ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the face, they were struck dumb by its beauty, and I think tears sprang into the eyes of some of them. No such perfect piece of marble had ever been found before. There was not a scratch. The skin still glowed with the polishing that Praxiteles' own hands had given it. There was even a hint of color on the lips. The soft clay bed had saved the falling statue. Here was a statue that the ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... we say) struggles against this sweet enchantment of autumn, but Nature is too strong for us. Why is it that all these strikes occur just at this time of year? The old hibernating instinct again, perhaps. The workman has a subconscious yearning to scratch together a nice soft heap of manila envelopes and lie down on that couch for a six months' ear-pounding. There are all sorts of excuses that one can make to one's self for waving farewell to toil. Only last Sunday we saw this ad ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... subterfuge," Sommers answered hotly, "fit only for clergymen and beggars for charities. I am not sure, anyway, that I want 'to do for' people. I think no fine theories about social service and all that settlement stuff. I want to be a man, and have a man's right to start with the crowd at the scratch, not given a handicap. There are too many handicaps in the crowd ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... my dear fellow. Do something to rouse her heart. It is only suffering from shock and will come to the scratch when it is stirred by pity. The best thing to do is to get seriously ill. Too much grief—mental strain—has brought on a heart attack. Lie down to it and kick up a devil of a fuss. I'll tip the doctor ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... voice trembled with emotion, "there's no one in the wide world nearer my affections than you and the boys and Margaret. It hurts me to go, but it's best I should. I might scratch along here for a few years, but I was not born to the work and the time would come when I'd be a burden on some one, and it would make me unhappy. I know that I'll wish often enough to be back here with ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... scratch, but I tell you," enthusiastically, "it was a splendid hit. Any fellow would have done the same if another chap had ragged his friend. I say," he continued bashfully, "would you two chum up with me? It's beastly dull for ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... do it, eh?" He had misinterpreted my expression. "Well, let me tell you I did just a year ago and got over without a scratch. To get across no-man's-land you have to play dead, as you Yankees put it; you lie flat on the ground and pull yourself forward a foot at a time and keep your eye on the search-lights so that when they come ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... star to pass rapidly over the retina, you produce a row of coloured beads, the spaces between which correspond to the periods of extinction. Fine scratches drawn upon glass or polished metal reflect the waves of light from their sides; and some, being reflected from the opposite sides of the same scratch, interfere with and quench each other. But the obliquity of reflection which extinguishes the shorter waves does not extinguish the longer ones, hence the phenomena of colours. These are called the ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... some sort, be half so dangerous as a single touch with a finger which had been dressing a wound, picking a scab out of the nose, rubbing an ulcerated gum, or scratching an itching scalp. If it be a cut on the finger, or scratch on the hand, for instance, don't suck it, or lick it, unless you can give an absolutely clean bill of health to your gums and teeth. If not thoroughly brushed three or four times a day, they are sure to be swarming with ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... might have been kept up. As for Mahoudeau, still very shaky and growing dazed; he complained of a stiffness which he had not felt before; his limbs began to hurt him, he had strained his muscles and bruised his skin as if he had been caught in the embrace of a stone siren. Christine washed the scratch on his cheek, which had begun to bleed again, and it seemed to her as if the mutilated bathing girl had sat down to table with them, as if she alone was of any importance that day; for she alone seemed to interest Claude, whose narrative, repeated a score of times, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... "He can't play nothin' but two jig tunes and he plays them like the very Old Scratch," she snapped, ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... each dead man Dravot pours a little milk on the ground and waves his arms like a whirligig and, ‘That’s all right,’ says he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of each village by the arm and walks them down into the valley, and shows them how to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives each a sod of turf from both sides o’ the line. Then all the people comes down and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says,—‘Go and dig the land, and be fruitful ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... whence also the great length of its fore legs as compared with its hinder ones. Carnivorous animals, in like manner, have had their organs modified in correlation with their desires and habits. Some climb, some scratch in order to burrow in the earth, some tear their prey; they therefore have need of toes, and we find their toes separated and armed with claws. Some of them are great hunters, and also plunge their claws deeply into the bodies of their victims, trying to tear out the part on ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... constantly bathing in the blood of these turtles, the lepers become cured.[324-3] The turtles in infinite number come there three months in the year, June, July, and August, from the mainland, which is Ethiopia,[324-4] to lay eggs in the sand and with the claws and legs they scratch places in the sand and spawn more than five hundred eggs, as large as those of a hen except that they have not a hard shell but a tender membrane which covers the yolk, like the membrane which covers the yolk of the hen's egg ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... expressive smile, which caused Miss Tabitha's angular form, perched as it was on the high music-stool, to quiver with spite, and moved Miss Tabitha's neatly gloved fingers to clench like a cat's claws in their kid sheaths with an insane desire to scratch the fair face on ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... army-cutlers sell, and call it a sword-blade.' He held up a sort of apology for a sabre, all notched, and bent, and blunted; then he began to inquire if I had been hit at all. I had escaped with hardly a scratch; but I saw an ugly cut above his knee, and blood stealing down his bridle-arm. 'Bah! it's nothing,' Royston observed, answering the direction of my eyes; 'but—if the tulwar and the reprimand had both been sharper—confess, Hal, that this time, Le ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... which sensation is a factor are voided by its suppression. Besides, vivisection may be painless in cases where the experiments are very cruel. If a person scratches me with a poisoned dagger so gently that I do not feel the scratch, he has achieved a painless vivisection; but if I presently die in torment I am not likely to consider that his humility is amply vindicated by his gentleness. A cobra's bite hurts so little that the creature is almost, legally speaking, a vivisector who inflicts no ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... I did not date my last letter: I can date this: for it is my Birthday. {153} This it was that made me resolve to send you the Photos. Hey for my 65th year! I think I shall plunge into a Yellow Scratch Wig to keep my head warm for ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... of canvas and rode on listening to the sounds of the combat. A powerful figure stepped out of the bushes and stood beside his horse. It was Sergeant Whitley, who had passed through the battle without a scratch. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Nancie, ma petite!" she would cry, at sight of Nance. "What a hurry you are in. It is hurry and scurry and bustle from morning till night with you over there. The hens? Let them wait, ma garche, 'twill strengthen their legs to scratch a bit, and 'twill enlighten your mind to hear about Guernsey and Granville. Oh the beautiful country! Mon Dieu, if only I ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... the Honourable George, talking in whispers to Frank about his widow—"Not such a catch as yours, you know; but something extremely snug;—and have it all my own way, too, old fellow, or I shan't come to the scratch." And the Honourable John prepared to toady Frank about his string of hunters; and the Lady Amelia, by herself, not quite contented with these democratic nuptials—"After all, she is so absolutely nobody; absolutely, absolutely," she said ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... had been riding the rooster, this very gobbler called out, "You stupid fellow! Stop running round and round! Go under the fence and scratch that beast ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... Lombard-street to a china orange. The Masked Festival on the 18th is a subject of considerable attraction, and wigs of every nature, style, and fashion, are in high request for the occasion—The Bob, the Tye, the Natural Scratch, the Full Bottom, the Queue, the Curl, the Clerical, the Narcissus, the Auricula, the Capital, the Corinthian, the Roman, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch—oh! we are full of business just now. Speaking of the art, by the by, reminds me of a circumstance ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... mahogany face when 'Ugly' said that he had knocked his head against the hatchway, and I told a 'banger' by volunteering the statement that I had broken a plate on the mess-table, and one of the pieces had run into my arm. The wound in my side, which was really only a scratch, I never mentioned to any one, not even to Mick, who thought, and to this day knows nothing to the contrary, I believe, that I had guarded off 'Ugly's' thrust, and had been only stabbed ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... be hard and prepared for the flowing process, if the wagon is to stand the scrutiny of critical eyes. Too often the paint is laid on thickly—perhaps too thickly—over indifferent material, and the first shock or scratch makes it scale ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... this question, and while she continued to search out objects in the darkness she saw the stranger reappear around the corner of the cabin and approach the door. He fumbled at it for a moment and threw it open. He disappeared within and an instant later Sheila heard the scratch of a match and saw a feeble glimmer of light shoot out through the doorway. ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... I shud want to scratch me head or blow me nose? Or what if an earwig shud chance to have got inside this iron pot, and take a fancy to go into ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... Schilsky. "A ... a what do you call it?—a ... Meg ... a Meg—" He gave it up and went on: "By God, but Lulu knows how! Keep clear of her nails, boys—I'd advise you!" At this point, he pulled back his collar, and exhibited a long, dark scratch on the side of his neck. "A little remembrance she gave me to take away with me!" While he displayed it, he seemed to be rather proud of it; but immediately afterwards, his mood veered round again to one of bitter resentment. To illustrate the injustice she had been guilty of, and his own long-suffering, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... but I was not so confident that, should a grizzly scent me out, he might not poke in his nose. Still I could trust to Him who had hitherto protected me. I had my knife and my long stick, and, at all events, I might give Master Bruin an unpleasant scratch on the snout, should he come within ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... them a sprinkling of the general public, whose time apparently hangs heavily on their hands. In a Stage-box is the Author herself, with a sycophantic Companion. A murky gloom pervades the Auditorium; a scratch orchestra is playing a lame and tuneless Schottische for the second time, to compensate for a little delay of fifteen minutes between the first and second Tableaux in the Second Act. The orchestra ceases, and a Checktaker at the Pit door whistles ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... lives had one taste or sight of a generous, clean, unmixed and unulcerated joy. For it follows not that, if it be vexatious to have one's body itch or one's eyes to run, it must be therefore a blessing to scratch one's self, and to wipe one's eye with a rag; nor that, if it be bad to be dejected or dismayed at divine matters or to be discomposed with the relations of hell, therefore the bare avoiding of all this must be some happy and amiable ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... something grotesque in it. The chair and table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. Why should my landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a pimple on my nose which is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's nose, which has no pimple on it. His ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... shot a flight of arrows, and one slightly wounded the bank clerk on the arm. The wound was at once treated with antiseptics, after the window had been barricaded, and Ned declared that he was ready to renew the fight. Tom, too, got an arrow scratch on the neck, and one of the barbs entered Mr. Durban's leg, but the sturdy elephant hunter would not give up, and took his place again after the wound ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... amateur gardener should undoubtedly be the blue-flowered shrub known as "plumbago". This homely but hardy plant will grow anywhere. It naturally prefers a good soil, and a sufficient rainfall, but if need be it will worry along without either. Fowls cannot scratch it up, and even the goat turns away dismayed from its hard-featured branches. The flower is not strikingly beautiful nor ravishingly scented, but it flowers nine months out of the year; smothered with street dust and scorched by the summer sun, you will find that faithful old plumbago ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... all as right as possible," he said. "I am going up to bed as usual, and when mother and Alice and Dave are safe in their rooms I'll slip down again. I'll be in the hall. Don't ring when you come back; just walk up the steps and scratch against the door with your knuckles, and I'll hear you and let you in in a trice. I am awfully pleased about that sovereign; it will make me one of the greatest toffs in the school. I'll have more money than any of the other fellows. I'm ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... some one else; "think of Ippolit and his fate from this day forth. His wife will scratch his eyes out to-morrow ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... dared? What act proved all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshly screen? 60 We ride and I see her bosom heave. There's many a crown for who can reach. Ten lines, a statesman's life in each! The flag stuck on a heap of bones, A soldier's doing! what atones? They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. My riding is better, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... moment, and then began to scratch his head furiously, as he was in the habit of doing whenever his memory failed him and he wished to recall it to duty. "I'm not sure whether the number is eighteen or forty-six," he ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... "Nay, the merest scratch, Madame," I answered hastily, for it added to my pain to mark such anxiety in her face. "Not worthy your thought, but I will ask you to call the others at once, and have them load everything into the boat without ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... said: "I've had the luck to pick up two or three other agreeable people that I know will be glad to meet you. Usually it's such a scratch lot at Thanksgiving, for everybody dines at home that can, and you have to trust to the highways and the byways for your guests, if you give a dinner. But I did want to bring Mrs. Strange and you together, and so I chanced it. Of course, ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... 'for Jonah is in the sea.' In less than half an hour, mates, we were tossed ashore, without a bruise or scratch. We walked the beach till daylight, and then we saw that the mast had disappeared. None ever saw more a timber or a rope's-end of the Lively Nan. She had been staked and won; but the greasy cards, mates, lay wet and dank upon the beach, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... up," said the fellows of the Fortieth that night, a propos of the snub given Devers, and the pursuit by members of another troop of material witnesses, "but when he locks horns in dead earnest, the other party's got to scratch gravel; ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... I remember is the moment when I saw blood dripping from my hand, and she asked apathetically: "Did you scratch me?" ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... off the insignia of his rank, and was dressed like one of the other natives, would then, it was hoped, pass without discovery. Little Lionel, whose wound was slighter than at first supposed, and who seemed to look upon it as a mere scratch, some times trotted alongside them, and at others clambered up by the side of the driver, to whom he took an especial fancy. Denis frequently called him to sit in the corner at the other end of the waggon, and amused himself by trying to teach him English, which the boy acquired with wonderful ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... thoroughly was a blessing after all. While we were cooking supper the wagon passed us, its wheels and frame creaking, its great whip cracking like a rifle, its men shrieking at the imperturbable team of eighteen oxen. It would travel until the oxen wanted to graze, or sleep, or scratch an ear, or meditate on why is a Kikuyu. Thereupon they would be outspanned and allowed to do it, whatever it was, until they were ready to go on again. Then they would go on. These sequences might take place at any time of the day or night, and for ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... nicer to select one's own forebears than to allow them all the responsibility, and said it would save a world of trouble if the method could be universally adopted. He added that he should be glad to part with a good many of his, but doubted whether I would accept them, as they were 'rather a scratch lot.' (I use his own language, which I thought delightfully easy for a belted earl.) He was charmed with the story of Francesca and the lamiter, and offered to drive me to Kildonan House, Helmsdale, on the first fine day. I told him he was quite safe in making the proposition, for we had already ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... practiced during a long time such rigid poverty that he would neither receive nor touch a penny, either with leave or without it. For a considerable time he strove to attain such a high degree of purity that he would neither scratch nor touch any part of his body, save only ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... these earthy or tufaceous beds pass into jaspery and into beautifully mottled and banded porcelain rocks, which break into splinters, translucent at their edges, hard enough to scratch glass, and fusible into white transparent beads: grains of quartz included in the porcelainous varieties can be seen melting into the surrounding paste. In other parts, the earthy or tufaceous beds either insensibly pass into, or alternate ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... what they did for grammar before his day! Oh, the delicious blunders one sees when they are irretrievable! And the best of it is the critics never get hold of them. Thank Heaven for second editions, that one may scratch out one's blots, and go down clean and gentlemanlike to posterity." Smith asked him if he had ever reviewed one of his own books. "No, but I could! And then how I should like to recriminate, and defend myself indignantly! I think I could be preciously severe. Depend upon it, nobody ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... she plunged the sharp pointed knife into his body in the region of his heart and gave it a quick, sharp turn. So thoroughly and well did she do her work that the great, fierce brute could only throw up his paws and fall over dead. The brave squaw had killed him without receiving a scratch herself, and when her husband returned with his sled he found that, not only had his wife skinned the deer, but also a big ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... probably a part of the continent of Asia, were to be submitted to his sway if he had it, there was every reason why the sovereigns should be unwilling to maintain for him the broad rights which they had been willing to give when a scratch of the pen was all that was ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... becoming rare, as compared with those of remote ages, because nobody thinks it worth while to preserve them. It is almost as easy to get a personal memento of Priam or Nimrod as it is to get a harpsichord, a spinning-wheel, a tinder-box, or a scratch-back. An Egyptian wig is attainable, a wig of the Georgian era is hardly so, much less a tie of the Regency. So it is with the scenes of common life a century or two ago. They are being lost, because they were familiar. Here are two of them, however, which have limned themselves ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... was no doubt about its tameness. It suffered Ruby, who showed no fear of it whatever, to stroke it on its plated beak, and even to scratch it behind its bristly ears, with every sign ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... curtains have been dyed; but there, Unbroken, is the same, The very same cracked pane of glass On which I scratch'd her name. Yes! there's her tiny flourish still, It used to so enchant her To link two happy names ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... me more eggs, or I'll scratch your eyes out,' shrieked the owl, and began to whet its beak on a beam in such a savage manner that the three cocks fled in terror to the top ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Betty Fye; I live in the log shanty over the creek, at the back of your'n. The farm belongs to my eldest son. I'm a widow with twelve sons; and 'tis —- hard to scratch along." ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... are wrong, Muscula,' put in the third lady. 'The lord Basil cares naught for such things, and would not contradict you lest you should scratch his face—so dangerous you look, much more like a cat than a mouse. By the beard of Holy Peter! should not Heliodora know, who, though she is too young to remember it herself, has heard of it many a time from her father. You think too much of yourself, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... my masters," said Rienzi: "it is a good omen, and a true prophecy. It implies that he who girds on his sword for the good of the state, must be ready to spill his blood for it: that am I. No more of this—a mere scratch: it gave more blood than I recked of from so slight a puncture, and saves the leech the trouble of the lancet. How brightly breaks the day! We must prepare to meet our fellow-citizens—they will be here anon. Ha, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... post; rocket, blue light; watch fire, watch tower; telegraph, semaphore, flagstaff; cresset[obs3], fiery cross; calumet; heliograph; guidon; headlight. [sign (evidence) on physobj of contact with another physobj] mark, scratch, line, stroke, dash, score, stripe, streak, tick, dot, point, notch, nick. print; imprint, impress, impression. [symbols accompanying written text to signify modified interpretation] keyboard symbols, printing symbols; red letter[for emphasis], italics, sublineation[obs3], underlining, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Jock—and in his religious tenets we feel sure he was a Quaker. The English officers attached to the staff had immense difficulty in bringing the troops (if they deserve to be called so) to the scratch; and we trust that, in all future commentaries on the Art of War, the method adopted by Commodore Napier, of throwing stones at his gallant army to force them forward, will not be forgotten. The author before us had no sinecure, and after the news of Ibrahim's retreat, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Washington! Well, you must know, we marched up the g'yully that runs from the river; and bang went the savages' g'-yuns, and smash went their hatchets; and it came to close quarters, a regular rough-and-tumble, hard scratch! And so I war a-head of the Major, and the Major war behind, and the fight had made him as vicious as a wild cat, and he war hungry for a shot; and so says he to me, for I war right afore him, 'Git out of my way, you damned big rascal, till I git a crack at 'em!' And so I ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... always bears a nail or claw, which is sometimes very strong and hooked, as is the case with the birds of prey, while in other species it is only slightly curved and is not meant as a weapon of offense or defense, but chiefly to enable the bird to "scratch for a living." ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... him go to sleep in my lap. I used to put him in his basket by the table with all the care that you would put a baby. Then I made a dash for upstairs and closed the doors. Ha! ha! In two minutes he was scratching at the door. I let him scratch. "He must be disciplined," I said. There was a cushion at the door, and finally he would settle' down and in the morning he was there when I woke. "He will learn," I ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... statues within reach of swords and pikes, it was a continual scene of amusement to the licentious to knock off the ear of one angel, and scratch the face of another. Not an epitaph was left to retrace the patriotic deeds of an upright statesman, or the more brilliant exploits of a heroic warrior; not a memento, to record conjugal affection, filial piety, or grateful ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... log-impeded, losing itself in the dusky, fragrant depths of the hemlocks." They used to play hookey down at Stratton Falls, too, and get the green streaks in the old red sandstone rocks to make slate pencils of, trying them on their teeth to make sure they were soft enough not to scratch their slates. The woods have been greatly mutilated in which they used to loiter on the way to school and gather crinkle-root to eat with their lunches,—though they usually ate it all up before lunch-time came, he said. In one of his books Mr. Burroughs speaks of a schoolmate ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... that dunghill cock of mine in there, that used to belong to the old woman, had to come within an inch of ruining me, beginning to scratch and claw around where this (looking under cloak) was buried. Enough said. It just got me so worked up I took a club and annihilated that cock, the thief, the ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... three-fourths come off free; they are subjected to some kind of punishment (excepting a few cases of judgment respited); the others feel, no doubt, what they undergo, but it is only as a soldier in the fight considers a scratch—otherwise coming off with a whole skin, being ready for action again. Another evil arises out of this irregularity of judgments. All punishments are rendered severe and useful in proportion as the offender feels he deserves it, and is conscious of having only ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... hand is not always called the "miss." Some players designate it the "cat"; the term possibly originating from its un-certainty; hence the expression, often used in connection with the spare hand—"Let us hope she will not scratch us." ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel
... almost monstrous shortness of legs, so that they move by jumping rather than by walking; they are said not to scratch up the ground. I have examined a Burmese variety, which had a skull of ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... the young gnome was playing with the cat, and began to pull his tail. The cat, not liking this, began to scratch Class 81, Q. At this, the little fellow cried and yelled, while the cat scratched all the more fiercely. But Selma, who ran into the room on hearing the noise, was equal to the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... no pity for the Communists," Cuthbert said, "not one spark. They would not pull a trigger or risk a scratch for the defence of Paris against the Germans, now they are fighting like wild-cats against their countrymen. Look there," he exclaimed, suddenly, "there is a fire broken out close to the Place de la Concorde, a shell must have fallen there. I fancy it ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... step when the barking of Cesar alarmed me. He was tearing along from the wood. The sight of the dark shadow on the gymnasium appeared to the faithful dog to bode no good. He was furious, and began to scratch the ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... all, Captain. I cut myself while I was shaving this morning—just a scratch," was the ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... A pair of boot-hooks will be required for putting them on, and a boot-jack for taking them off. A little Lucca oil used occasionally prevents patent leather from cracking. The dry mud should be brushed off soiled boots with a soft brush that will not scratch the leather, and they should then be sponged over with a damp sponge and polished with a selvyt or chamois leather. Patent leather, which has lost its brightness from wear, can be polished with Harris's Harness Polish or any similar preparation which does not cake ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... was takin' some things from the shelves in the delicatessen store, I rips my coat and get this scratch on a nail stickin' out from the shelf. The nail is three shelves up from the floor near the last showcase on the right ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... had paused to stretch himself, setting his claws deep into the bark. These claw-marks the lynx appeared to take as a challenge or a defiance. Rearing himself against the tree, he stretched himself to his utmost. But his highest scratch was two inches below the mark of the stranger. This still further enraged him. Possibly, it might also have daunted him a little but for the fact that his own claw-marks were both deeper and wider apart ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... on either side of him with gun and bayonet and instructed to kill him if he attempted to escape. He went through the battle. Most of his regiment was annihilated, including the two guards by his side. When the battle was over this Christian brother had not a scratch. Again he was put in a similar position; and again he went through another battle without injury. He was then charged with being insane because he would not fight and placed in an insane asylum and ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... Petie! I have not seen this wiz my eyes, no! but in my heart I have seen, I know! Then Mere Jeanne run at that woman, that devil; and she pull off her cap and tread it wiz her foot; and she pull out her hair,—never she had much, but since this day none!—and she scratch her face and tear the clothes—ah! Mere Jeanne is mild like a cherub till she is angry, but then— And that devil scream, scream, but no one come, no one care; they are all glad, they laugh to hear. Till Jeannot run in, and catch his mother and hold her hands, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... not have said afterward just how it did happen that in half a second the manila portfolio was in the hands of Mr. Adolph Meyers, who also bore upon his left cheek a long and profusely bleeding scratch. ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... could reach every part of his fur with his teeth and claws at once. He would seem to pull great folds of skin from his back around under his breast, where he could comb it the more thoroughly. It was no trouble at all for him to scratch his left ear with his right hind foot. He went about his task with such zeal that in a very few minutes his fur was as fluffy and exquisite as that of a boudoir kitten. Then he rubbed his face, eyes, and ears vigorously with both forepaws at once in a half-childish ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... was by far the smartest. He learned more quickly than did his brothers and sisters, how to run to the trough to eat, when his mother called him, and he learned how to stand up against one side of the pen and rub himself back and forth to scratch his side when a mosquito had bitten him in a place he could ...
— Squinty the Comical Pig - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... remain where I was, I pushed forward. It was with an intense feeling of relief that I caught sight, far away before me, of a slight ruddy tinge on the trunks of the trees, which, I was convinced, was produced by the camp-fire of my friends. I advanced, not without many a scratch, while my clothes were well-nigh torn to pieces. Suddenly the thought occurred to me that the distance was greater than I had come, and that the fire might possibly be that of an Indian camp. I stopped to listen, but no sound reached me. Then again I went forward. The glow increased, and ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... in this poem add much to its effect; the grey sea, the black land, the yellow moon, the fiery ringlets, the blue spurt of the match, the golden light of morning. The sounds and smells are realistic; one hears the boat cut harshly into the slushy sand; the sharp scratch of the match; one inhales the thick, heavy odor radiating from the sea-scented beach that has absorbed all day the hot rays of ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... deposited his reserve of lozenges in the ground and hastily swept some earth over them. "Look, Jacob!" he said, at last. Jacob paused from his clinking, and looked into the hole, while David began to scratch away the earth, as if in doubtful expectation. When the lozenges were laid bare, he took them out one by one, and gave them to Jacob. "Hush!" he said, in a loud whisper, "Tell nobody—all for Jacob—hush—sh—sh! ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... turban Percival had got Bobby safely into the hotel lobby. He was exasperated beyond measure that this very evening, of all, should have ended in his participation in a vulgar street brawl. So far he had succeeded in keeping Bobby from knowing that he was wounded, but the beastly scratch was bleeding furiously, and he had to keep his hand behind, him to prevent ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... the spirit of the new era in farming. It no longer sufficed to scratch the earth with a stick and drop in a seed; the earth itself must be studied as to its weaknesses and the seed must be chosen with intelligent care. One of the experts from the state agricultural school, in the field to gather data for statistics, passed ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... it caught fire,' he replied gloomily, and he suddenly arranged the collar on the off-side horse with such indignation that it was almost pushed over, but it stood its ground, snorted, shook itself, and tranquilly began to scratch its foreleg below the ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... short-sighted Major has taken his pipe out of his mouth as I have drawn near and has as good as saluted me. When he saw I was only a Captain (and a temporary Captain at that) he tried to cover his mistake; but he didn't deceive me; he didn't need to take his pipe out of his mouth in order to scratch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... when 'Ugly' said that he had knocked his head against the hatchway, and I told a 'banger' by volunteering the statement that I had broken a plate on the mess-table, and one of the pieces had run into my arm. The wound in my side, which was really only a scratch, I never mentioned to any one, not even to Mick, who thought, and to this day knows nothing to the contrary, I believe, that I had guarded off 'Ugly's' thrust, and had been only stabbed in ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... latter, who had been strangely silent all day, speaking only when directly addressed. "I can assure you that in my way I'm as much cut up as you are. I wish now that I had made an attempt from the rear to head off this distracted woman, even if I had been obliged to scratch my hands to pieces tearing a ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... use them. They possess violins, guitars, lutes (all with strings or wires), dulcimers, wind instruments, ordinary and kettle-drums, and cymbals, but are neither skilled in composition, melody, nor execution. They scratch, scrape, and thump upon their instruments in such a manner, as to produce the finest marrowbone-and-cleaver kind of music imaginable. During my excursions up and down the Pearl stream, I had frequent opportunities of hearing artistic performances ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... or two. She knew how difficult it must be to write, yet longed to hear, and each morning looked for a letter. When it did not come she scanned the papers in fear and trembling. She little knew the narrow escapes he had already experienced, and he came out of terrible frays with hardly a scratch. When horses were shot under him a trooper was always ready with another for him with a "take mine, sir." Alan reveled in the fury of the charge; his whole body thrilled as he galloped down on the Uhlans at headlong speed. ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... bravely he distributed rice that had been colored pink among his followers on the eve of a battle, and assured them that all who carried it would pass through the fiercest battle without a wound or scratch. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 46, September 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... summoning the burghers to a mass meeting to be held some thirty miles from the town. These meetings, it must here be noted, were scarcely attended by invitation. A large number of the people appeared on compulsion, brought "to the scratch" by threats. One of the menaces, a favourite one according to Mr. Rider Haggard, was that those who did not attend should be made "biltong" of when the country was given back. Biltong is meat cut into strips and hung in the sun to dry. The result of the notices, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... said Lord Grosville, in evident annoyance. "The rascal hadn't a scratch, but Kitty must needs pick him up and drive him home with a nurse. 'I ain't hurt, mum,' says the boy. 'Oh! but you must be,' said Kitty. I offered to take him to his mother and give him half a crown. 'It's my duty to look after him,' says Kitty. And she lifted him up herself—dirty little vagabond!—and ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a scratch on her," he said at last. "She's suffering from shock alone, as far as I can judge. Say, ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... on till the time for going. Never in my life up to that time had desire been so strong in me. When I knew she must go I insisted on again doing it, but could not come up to the scratch, until with a sharp frig it stiffened and again it was put up her. What a long hard poke it was, what a test of my manhood, how proud was I when with a sharp and sudden pleasure I felt my spunk squirting up her dear quim, and a spasmodic clutch, a sharp sob and "dear ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... savant regards Prussia as German only in her nobility and upper-middle classes, while the substratum of population is a composition of Slav and Finn, and hence thoroughly anti-German. As, according to the old saying, if you scratch a Russian you will find a Tartar beneath, so, according to M. Ouatrefages, we may suppose that scraping a Prussian would disclose a Finn. The political inferences which he draws are very fanciful. He traces shadowy analogies between the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... were able to look at the matter from the former point of view. Physical damage was not severe. There was a scratch on Alf's shoulder. Arnold examined it carefully, but decided that no danger was likely to follow, since the claws had passed through the leather jacket before touching the flesh. As a precaution against blood-poisoning, he insisted upon sucking the wound, ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... He watched it a moment, passed up the steps, and noiselessly went in. The hall was bright and solitary; from above came the sound of voices, from a room to the right, the stir of papers and the scratch of a pen, from one on the left, a steady rustle as of silk, swept slowly to and fro. To the threshold of this door the ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... when Doctor Direful was announced. He rushed into the room like a whirlwind, but stood aghast at beholding the devout crowd that encircled me. Instead of the usual apophthegms, and serious discourse, he heard nothing but "Pretty Poll," "Scratch a poll," "What a dear bird," &c. The malicious moral agent chuckled, and explained that the bird had, for the moment, usurped the attention which should exclusively belong to his reverence, who had taken the pains to come so far to enlighten the dark inmates of Sourcraut Hall. Dr. Direful stood ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... out, it looked like, till she got through her education. All through the fights he had and the scrapes he run into the last ten years he never got a scratch. Bullets used to hum around that man like bees, and he'd ride through 'em like they was bees, but none of 'em ever notched him. Curious, ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... moment, almost as though her thought had called him to her, she heard him at the door. He did not scratch the panel, after the manner of many of his kind, but stood upright and rattled the handle with his nose; and Toni ran to open the door, feeling a positive criminal beneath the warmth and confidence of ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... good man society, and all the female nobility, with the Queen at their head, show her every mark of civility." Hamilton writes further: "Hitherto, her behaviour is irreproachable, but her temper, as you must know, unequal." Lady Malmesbury (with a decidedly sly scratch) says of her: "She really behaves as well as possible, and quite wonderfully, considering her origin and education." Sir George Elliot says: "Her manners are perfectly, unpolished, very easy, but not with the ease of good breeding, but of a barmaid; ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... laughed a little. "You will see many a bandaged arm before the twenty-four hours are up; few of us finish without a scratch or strain or blister. This is a man's game, but it's not half so destructive as foot-ball. You wished me good luck for the Georgia race; will you repeat the honor before I ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... men are behind, dearest! Let me pretend to scratch my nose with this hand that is tied to yours, which I can thus bring ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... is white. All collectors of this plant know that to preserve the white fruiting surface in a perfect condition it must be handled very carefully. A touch or bruise, or contact with other objects mars the surface, since a bruise or a scratch results in a rapid change in color of the injured surface. Beautiful etchings can thus be made with a fine pointed instrument, the lines of color appearing as the instrument is drawn over ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... household goods and other belongings fought for with tooth and claw by their 'dearest' relations. Dearest relations are, according to my experience, very much like wild cats: give them the faintest hope of a legacy, and they scratch and squawl as though it were raw meat for which they have been starving. In all my long career as a solicitor I never knew one 'dearest relation' who honestly ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... that was enough. Of course, I was very angry, by reason of the scratch to my pride; for it does hurt to think that one is not wanted, and for a while I brooded over it just as I had done the other day. Then it came to me that at least I had no reason to be angry with Erpwald, who could know little or anything about me, being a newcomer, and it was not his fault if the ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... hundred—there is another which I often use, and that is, as I do now, I make the plate rigid, but free to vibrate, so as to allow those mysterious motions play, and I place my ear at one extremity whilst I scratch or scrape, or move the rosined bow ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... sick within me. On the boy's cheek was a faint red scratch, just as might have been caused by a slight, very slight contact with ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... noisy match, Taff," he exclaimed, as, after a loud cracking scratch, there was a flash of light, and then a clear glow was shed around by the lantern, whose lamp Josh had just lit, its rays showing dimly the rugged walls of granite, all wet with trickling water, while the shadows of the boat ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... his lunch on blueberries and then rather sheepishly he started for home to tell of all the strange things that had happened to him in the Old Pasture. Two or three times, as he trudged along, he stopped to scratch his head thoughtfully. "I guess," said he at last, "that I'm not so smart as I thought I was, and I've got a lot ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... crying, however, but thinking, thinking, thinking, and trying to find some way out, when he heard a little scratch, scratching on the corner of the shed. He sat up and listened. The scratching went on. He held his breath. Could it be that some one was trying to get in to help him? Nonsense, of course it was only a rat. Next ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... Scandinavian and northern nations. Before their communication with the Latin missionaries, wood appears to have been the material upon which their runes were chiefly written: and the verb "write," which is derived from a Teutonic root, signifying to scratch or tear, is one of the testimonies of the usage. Their poems were graven upon small staves or rods, one line upon each face of the rod; and the Old English word "stave," as applied to a stanza, is probably a relic of the practice, which, in the early ages, ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... young pilot amused me immensely, and all went on smoothly enough till the shades of evening closed in upon us; at which time, entering the Narrows, the satin-vested youth felt himself quite nonplused, despite his taking off his beaver, and trying to scratch for knowledge; in short, had it not been for Captain Harrison, who is a first-rate seaman and navigator, as all who ever sail with him are ready to testify, we might have remained out all night: fortunately, his superior skill got us safe in, and ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... had expected to see England and the English as their rulers; but like the well-known saying, "Scratch a Russian and you discover the Tartar," they might have "scratched an Englishman and have found the Turk," in the actual regime that we were bound to maintain according to the conditions ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... I have no right to say anything,' he said. 'Discipline is discipline, and I am only a private soldier. Are you busy, sir? If you are, I will go away. But, owing to this scratch, I am at a loose end, and—and—I'd like a chat with you, sir, ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... me, sir," said the injured man; "it don't hurt much, on'y feels like a scratch; but it's orfly ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... down, Tom and Sam uttered cries of chagrin and horror. The eldest Rover had been struck on the chin, and the blood was flowing from a deep scratch. ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... months have been known to scratch at any attempt to withdraw the breast from them, and to retaliate ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... where they were going, but they registered themselves from Boston. Name was Wyett—young lady's name was Helen. He hoped they wouldn't leave for a long time—travelers weren't any too plenty at Bowerton, and landlords found it hard work to scratch along. Talked about locating at Bowerton if they could find a suitable cottage. Wished 'em well, but hoped they'd take their time, and not be in a hurry to leave the Bowerton House, where—if he did say it as shouldn't—they found good rooms and good board ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Perry took off his coat and plugged the hole with it. But for the temporary veil the American commander could not have made half the brief distance between the Lawrence and the Niagara. As it was, however, he reached the latter without a scratch. He hoisted his pennant and the flag bearing the immortal words of the gallant Lawrence. Then an officer was sent in a boat to communicate the orders of the Commodore to the other vessels. This was hardly ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... Monroe had to tell, how he and Daniel Townsend fired, and each brought down a redcoat, and then ran into a house; how the British surrounded it, and killed Townsend; how he leaped through a window and ran, with a whole platoon firing at him, riddling his clothes with bullets, yet escaping without a scratch. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... spare led horses I had to go about afoot. My camels and baggage were with the column. It was more of a hardship tramping from place to place in the hot dusty camp than roughing it upon the bare ground and living upon scratch and scrappy meals of biscuit, "bully beef," and sardines, till my men came in, put up my tent, and cooked my food. The British division was at the south end of the long rectangular encampment. An interval of a mile or more separated the ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... the snow, which at this point was rather deep; so none of them was seriously hurt, although somebody stepped on one of Randy's hands and Spouter got a scratch on his ear from ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... snout, and hair that itches. 'This is exactly like a fairy tale of my youth,' he dreams. And indeed, it is a dream! The mountain opens, the captive princess comes forth and leads him in, and he rests his head in her lap all strewn with blossoms. The lovely trolls come and scratch his head and music sounds from the rocks. It is characteristic of Shakespeare that the lovers do not dream fairy tales of their childhood. Higher culture has given them deeper passions, more intense personal relations; in dreams they but continue ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... or sixteen together) the old woman comes with a nutshell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what vein you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her, with a large needle, (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch) and puts into the vein as much matter as can ly upon the head of her needle, and after that, binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell; and in this manner opens four or five veins. The Grecians have commonly the superstition ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... a facer for Sadie. She'd been keeping a stiff lip up to this, but she came to the scratch wabbly in her voice. "You wouldn't want me to do that, would ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... is all right!" cried one, who might have been a clerk or a student; "he asks questions. You wish to know about Bussy, eh? You ought to have seen him gallop from the field without a scratch, while his enemies pulled themselves together and took to ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... my mother asked, her solicitation over a scratch I had received ten months before not disguising a light of pride that ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... Moon, now turned back to see what had happened to the Glutts party. They found the cadets who had been spilled picking themselves up and brushing the snow from their garments. One was nursing a bruised ankle, and another a bruised elbow, while Bill Glutts was wiping some blood from a scratch on his chin. ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, 10 And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... the Gray Ape. He was then as he is now. At the first he made a wise face for himself, but in a little while he began to scratch and to leap up and down, and when Tha came back he found the Gray Ape hanging, head down, from a bough, mocking those who stood below; and they mocked him again. And so there was no Law in the Jungle—only foolish talk ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... mused on the general untruths of first impressions. He had written down the captain as a pompous, self-centered individual. One never could judge a man until he came to the scratch. It heartened him to find that there was a man on board who respected his misfortune, whether he believed it or not. He sought Elsa, and as they promenaded, lightly recounted the episode ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... with healthy blood to the bone, and time will quickly heal the wound and scarcely leave a scar, but if the man's blood be corrupt the scratch of a thorn may involve consequences demanding the ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... you," said Lizzie; "but one waits At home alone for me: So, without further parleying, If you will not sell me any Of your fruits though much and many, Give me back my silver penny I tossed you for a fee." They began to scratch their pates, No longer wagging, purring, But visibly demurring, Grunting and snarling. One called her proud, Cross-grained, uncivil; Their tones waxed loud, Their looks were evil. Lashing their tails They trod and hustled her, Elbowed and jostled her, Clawed with their nails, Barking, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... Josh," said Raffles, affecting to scratch his head and wrinkle his brows upward as if he were nonplussed. "I'm very fond of you; by Jove, I am! There's nothing I like better than plaguing you—you're so like your mother, and I must do without it. But the brandy and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... say it was a secret, and she trusted it to me!' said Gabriel, putting his wig on one side to scratch his head with greater ease, and looking ruefully at the fire. 'I have no more readiness than old John himself. Why didn't I say firmly, "You have no right to such secrets, and I demand of you to tell me what this means," instead of standing gaping at her, like an old moon-calf as I ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... admirably. True, good food was not strewn in plenty just where he could most easily see it. He had to look for his acorns or his beechmast by the good old domestic-fowl plan of scratching among the leaves; roots also he was forced to scratch for; and the noisy mistle-thrushes with the tempers of Eblis had to be driven off the berries he would look after in ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... ringing, from what I can learn. That is no wedding at all. Doubt not this knight of thine will never return; they never do return, my lassie. Neither doubt but that Falve will wed thee faster than any ring can do. And as for thy scratch and crying heart, my child, trust Falve again to stanch the one and still the other. For that is a man's way. And now get into ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... orter be thrown together with the right kind o' young lady and kept up to the scratch. That's wot orter be done. I'll look up the cards for 'im and see wot 'is Signs is. I'd like to see 'im married and ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... socialists would vote for us. Instead, we discovered that the percentage of votes for woman suffrage was about the same in every party, and that whenever the voter had cast a straight vote, without independence enough to "scratch" his ticket, that vote was usually against us. On the other hand, when the ticket was "scratched" the vote was usually in our favor, whatever political party the man ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... weeks us two was twin brothers. Old Percy told me in confidence he hadn't had a real friend for years before. And I liked him, you bet. We all has got our faults—why, even Mrs. Scraggs isn't free from 'em—but you scratch them off the top of Percival and you found a white man—the most trusting little critter in God and man, the kindest-hearted and the best-natured that ever lived. Honest, I couldn't sleep nights sometimes, thinking of the lies I told him, and if I'd never slept I couldn't 'a' quit—it ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... I am weak and must submit Yet I but scratch you with this poisoned blade, And you are dead as if I clove with it That false fierce greedy heart. Betrayed! betrayed! I fling this phial if you seek to pass, 35 And you are forthwith ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... doing. Besides, Asensio wouldn't let him be hurt. I took pains to tell him that if ever he permitted Esteban to suffer so much as a scratch I would disembowel him with his own machete. He knows me. Now, then, it is growing cool and the night air carries fevers. Creep into your bed and dream about that handsome ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... bridle to a tuft of grass, or a slender twig, rather than to a tree or to the saddle-bags. Mounting an ox is usually a troublesome business, on account of his horns. To make ride-oxen quiet and tame, scratch their backs and tails—they dearly love it—and hold salt in your hands for them to lick. They soon learn their names, and come ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... spoken,' said Alice; 'dig here, and that with courage and despatch.' We didn't quite see how to dig, but we all began to scratch on the floor with our hands, but the priestess said, 'Don't be so silly! It's the place where they come to do the gas. The board's loose. Dig an you value your lives, for ere sundown the dragon who guards this spoil ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... baby-buggy through the iron gate she heard some one call, "Wait a minute!" and Mrs. Archie came running around the house from the back door, her apron over her head. She came to help with the buggy, because she was afraid the wheels might scratch the paint off the gateposts. She was a skinny little woman with a great pile of frizzy light hair on ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... tried to scratch out half a line; but he only made a hole in the paper, and was obliged to let the line stand. Then he found he had strangely forgotten to put in the chief thing of all,—about friends telling one another of their faults,—though, ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... of shell in his left thigh. He'd been through the whole campaign without a scratch ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... after the opera; it is an odd ceremony. Bankes and I took tickets of it, and buffooned together very merrily. He is gone to Firenze. Mrs. J * * should have sent you my postscript; there was no occasion to have bored you in person. I never interfere in anybody's squabbles,—she may scratch your face herself. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... times he sticks a hand in the armlet of his waistcoat; he brandishes in the other a thickish bit of smooth cherry-wood, sometimes dressing his hair withal; and again giving his head a slight scratch behind the ear, while he takes occasion at the same time for an oblique glance at a fat boy in the corner, who is reaching down from his seat after a little paper pellet that has just been discharged at him from some unknown quarter. The master steals very cautiously and quickly ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... in a fight en los' de bes' part er he tail; en w'at make he scratch hisse'f dat away? I lay I'll let 'im know who he ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... with some of the old mysterious patterns that, in almost every part of the world, remain inscribed on slabs and faces of rock? Who incised similar patterns on the oyster-shells, some old and local, some fresh—and American! Why did any one scratch them? What is the meaning, if meaning there be, of the broken figurines or stone "dolls"? They have been styled "totems" by persons who do not know the meaning of the word "totem," which merely denotes the natural ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... could have seen him scratch his head in bewilderment when he saw us hand over the star brand of tobacco he kept in stock! Still he refused to say whether we could start early in the morning, and then I got good and mad. If it wasn't for Ken, here, kicking me in the ribs, I'd ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... a turn that way. I remember the queer things you used to scratch in the mud in the court, when you were a ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... responsibility, and said it would save a world of trouble if the method could be universally adopted. He added that he should be glad to part with a good many of his, but doubted whether I would accept them, as they were 'rather a scratch lot.' (I use his own language, which I thought delightfully easy for a belted earl.) He was charmed with the story of Francesca and the lamiter, and offered to drive me to Kildonan House, Helmsdale, on the first fine day. I told him he was quite safe in making the proposition, ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the little doubts and nagging nervous qualms which had assailed him from time to time during his long vigil were swept away. Cautiously drawing his gun into position, he felt for a match with the other hand and prepared to scratch it against the side ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... have a guardian spirit, I am sure that to numberless other good qualities he adds the skill of an accomplished motorist; for if he did not get the car to Madrid, without a single scratch upon her brilliant body, I do not know who did. I have no distinct memories, after the first, yet when we arrived at our destination, Gotteland generously complimented, and as I did not care to go into psychological explanations, I accepted his eulogium. It was Jack, not Molly, who paid for the ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... thought, for to accompany the stranger they had lighted a lamp; he had heard the scratch of the match, and through the brass fretwork had ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... to see you wandering about here, alone," he said. "The men on the road are a scratch gang, picked up anyhow, not like the regular miners. I hope you are not going to ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... slightest military training, by study and zeal, he soon made himself an accomplished staff officer. Of singular coolness in battle, he never blundered, and, though much exposed, pulled through without a scratch. My aide, Lieutenant Hamilton, grandson of General Hamilton of South Carolina, was a cadet in his second year at West Point when war was declared, upon which he returned to his State—a gay, cheery lad, with all ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... fool," he told himself. "She seems to have been loaded for bear. Glad it was a thirty-two instead of a forty-five Colt. I didn't think it was anything, just a bad scratch, after the first sting of it, but it feels like fire and brimstone now. It's an infernal nuisance. Good Lord! Suppose she'd plugged herself instead of me. That would have been a fix ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... not to scratch when you're cleaning plate," Willie observed. "I sometimes help Simpkins, and there's only one spoon that he'll let me clean, for fear I should scratch; and that's quite an old one that doesn't matter. So I have to clean it over and over again. But ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... snow-slip landed on the cabin on the Point, burying both father and son. By some inexplicable means little Snjolfur managed to scratch his way out of the drift. As soon as he realised that for all his efforts he could not dig his father out single-handed, he raced off to the village and got people out of their beds. Help came too late—the old man was suffocated ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... shuffling into the cabin, looking like gleaming ghosts in their chameleon-suits, which repeated the color of the walls. "Someday," growled Johnny, "there'll be a type suit where you can scratch your—" ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... smile and stopped whistling long enough to scratch his chin, which was somewhat in need of a razor. He had seen many women smile that way. He had learned to read it. It was an ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... fight then?" said his antagonist; "though I am thinking it would be hard to bring you to the scratch ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... The scratch was so sudden, so fierce, so feline that for a moment Lady St. Craye could only look blankly at her hostess. Then she ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... extraordinary shot or a "scratch," probably the latter. The Duke was as much astonished as any of us at the result, but we gave him three rousing cheers, and when the ambulance came up we had a second round of champagne in honor of the prowess of our distinguished fellow hunter. ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... discovered that something about Badger's delivery bothered Ready. Badger himself saw this, and he tried a change of pace, but the batter caught it on the handle of his "wagon-tongue," and drove out a "scratch hit" that ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... it is, we cannot conceal the fact that in spite of our companionship with flowers we have not risen very far above the brute. Scratch the sheepskin and the wolf within us will soon show his teeth. It has been said that a man at ten is an animal, at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, and at fifty a criminal. Perhaps he becomes a criminal because he has never ceased to be ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... where the sun goes down Without a scratch, was once inhabited By trees that injured him — an evil trash That made a cage, and ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... though he would like to scratch his thigh where his Colt's chafed him, but postponed the event and listened to Mr. Cassidy, ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... electric spark, and thus allowed the engine to "die." As the propeller slowed up and stopped, the water behind the craft calmed down, and then the pounding on the rocks was reduced to a gentle rub that did little but scratch the paint. ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... the ledge of rocks, paying no attention to Keith's remarks. Kitty solved the difficulty by diving into Keith's pockets after the packages, and emptying the brown sugar and chocolate into the saucepan. She handed the wrapping-paper and bag to Rob, saying if that was not enough she would scratch the label off the can ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Scratch-tch-ch! The check was made out with a flourish. "Here you are. I'll come round when I'm ready and tell you where to send the stuff. By the way, where do you bank? Want to send in checks ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... a Farmer's near this place, was infected with the Cow Pox from her master's cows in May, 1796. She received the infection on a part of the hand which had been previously in a slight degree injured by a scratch from a thorn. A large pustulous sore and the usual symptoms accompanying the disease were produced in consequence. The pustule was so expressive of the true character of the Cow Pox, as it commonly appears upon the hand, that I have given a representation of it in the annexed plate. The two small ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... we gave the land a wide berth, and met nothing we need fear, till at last, with the French flag flying, we sailed merrily into Brest Harbour, safe and sound, without a scratch on our hull or a hole in ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... is not the sound of a scratch that you hear. It cannot be any insect nor any process of moving life in the stone or beneath it. Can you liken it to any thing but the equal motion of a ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... possession of his mind. He saw her standing before him at his house, posing her little nervous, fidgety hand on his breast at the very spot occupied by this rosette; again he saw her smiling mysteriously, accompanying it with a caress which seemed to suggest the desire to end in a scratch. ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... was all Lombard-street to a china orange. The Masked Festival on the 18th is a subject of considerable attraction, and wigs of every nature, style, and fashion, are in high request for the occasion—The Bob, the Tye, the Natural Scratch, the Full Bottom, the Queue, the Curl, the Clerical, the Narcissus, the Auricula, the Capital, the Corinthian, the Roman, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch—oh! we are full of business just now. Speaking of the art, by the by, reminds ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... specially distinguishing themselves. As staff officers, they had often to carry messages to troops engaged in stubborn fight, and in doing so to dash across open spaces, and run the gantlet of a score of musket balls; both, however, escaped without a scratch. They had not been present on the occasion of the taking of the palace, for they had been at early morning on the point of going in to the headquarters for orders, when Captain Hodgson came out. They had dined with him on the day previous ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... way to git you, ain't it?" he inquired, in jovial good humor. "You can't scratch with the youngster between us. You can't cut an' run. By thunder, Tira! you're as handsome as you were that day I see you first an' followed you home? Remember? You're like"—his quick mind saw it at a leap—"you're like this cherry tree, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... the business on any terms, and bolts on principle; while the rider of the black horse remains in stationary meditation.) Go on—that black horse—go on! (The chestnut is at length brought up to the scratch snorting, but again flinches, and retires with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... were clinging to Cope, who had rushed out in undershirt and trousers, Peter had a short tussle on the porch with the intruder. He came in showing a scratch or two on his face, and he reported the ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... to look closely at a huge stone that lay by the highway. Then she picked up a smaller stone and seemed to rub it on the larger one, as if she wished to remove a scratch or stain. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... size, and somehow got him smuggled up to the top story of the house. I don't know how in the world we managed to let go of him, for as soon as we opened the window and held him over the sill he knew his danger and made violent efforts to scratch and bite his way back into the room; but we determined to carry the thing through, and at last managed to drop him. I can remember to this day how the poor creature in danger of his life strained and balanced as he was falling ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... udder,—mighty good lookin' apples, too—de kin' you git two dollars a bar'l fur at the store. But Ebe, she wouldn't hab neider ob 'em, an' when she done took one bite out ob each one, she frew it away. Den de ole debbil-sarpint, he scratch he head, an' he say to hese'f: 'Dis yer Ebe, she pow'ful 'ticklar 'bout her apples. Reckin I'll have ter wait till after fros', an' fotch her a real good one.' An' he done wait till after fros', ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... determine which bait was most attractive to cottontails and least attractive to birds, rodents, skunks, raccoons, and opossums. All of these animals hindered operations by stealing bait and springing traps. Corn, scratch-feed, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes, lettuce, apple, cabbage, raisins, sorghum, sugar candy, and onions were used as bait. Corn and scratch-feed attracted cottontails best in all seasons. Corn was superior to scratch-feed, which was quickly stolen by small birds and rodents. Eighty-nine cottontails ...
— Home Range and Movements of the Eastern Cottontail in Kansas • Donald W. Janes
... try to bite me," he thought. "Perhaps it will scratch me with its sharp claws. But I will be brave. I will not cry out. I will choke it with my strong arms. Then I will drag it out of the bushes and call mamma to come and ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... stared down the road after the Droschkes, shook his head, began to scratch it, jerked himself round again to his horses, drove on a few yards, pulled them up a second time, looked back, shook his head, and ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... to quit the place where that hope has soothed their hearts, they experience the mortal regret which the banished man feels when he places his foot upon the vessel which is to bear him into exile. It appears that the heart already wounded so many times suffers from the least scratch; it appears that it considers as a good the momentary absence of evil, which is nothing but the absence of pain; and that God, into the most terrible misfortunes, has thrown hope as the drop of water which the rich bad man in hell ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... could do was to scratch my thin iron-grey hair and light a cigar and meditate in front of the fire. I knew all about it—or at any rate I thought I did, which, as far as my meditation in front of the fire is concerned, comes to ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... and Richard redoubled their attentions to the poor sufferer. For a few moments she remained quiet, but with her eyes constantly fixed on Alizon, and then said, quickly and fiercely, "I have been told, if you scratch one who has bewitched you till you draw blood, you will be cured. I will plunge my ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with the conviction that she had slept long and soundly. The voices were hushed under the shed. Madame Antoine's step was no longer to be heard in the adjoining room. Even the chickens had gone elsewhere to scratch and cluck. The mosquito bar was drawn over her; the old woman had come in while she slept and let down the bar. Edna arose quietly from the bed, and looking between the curtains of the window, she saw by the slanting ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... least I am glad that in their death-pain they were able to scratch her—she still tugs and mauls. I walk on. We reach the meadow. Well, at least to-day we are in time. It has the silence and solitude of the dawn of Creation's first still day, broken only by the sheep that ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... tell, Captain Drake had never once contemplated any attack on San Joseph; he valued the place at less than a scratch on an Englishman's skin. His stay in the harbour was dictated solely by a desire to glean information concerning the Orinoco and the land of gold that he sought. The delta of the great river lay, the nearest land, to the south ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... are all their motions! There! one has reared herself half way out of the water; another stretches forth a delicate web foot to scratch her ear, as handily as a dog on dry land; and now the drake reflects his purple neck to preen his ruffled wing, and now—bad luck to you, Peacock, why did you snort and stamp?—they are off like a bullet, and out of ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... lines, To elegies in mournful tone, Or prologues sent from hand unknown; Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline; Be mindful, when invention fails, To scratch your head, and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... for breakfast lumps of boiled beef with peppered holcus-scones. We were kindly looked upon by one Sultan, a sick and decrepid Eunuch, who having served five Amirs, was allowed to remain in the palace. To appearance he was mad: he wore upon his poll a motley scratch wig, half white and half black, like Day and Night in masquerades. But his conduct was sane. At dawn he sent us bad plantains, wheaten crusts, and cups of unpalatable coffee-tea [40], and, assisted by a crone more decrepid ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... the world could manage it. Let me look again. Hem, hem—the first phrase to alter is this: 'I know her enough to feel deep solicitude and anxiety for your happiness if centred in a nature so imperious and vain'—scratch out 'your,' and put 'my.' All the rest good, good—till we come to 'affections which you ascribe to her, and suppose devoted to yourself'—for 'yourself' write 'myself'—the rest will do. Now, then, the date—we must change it to the ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Worley, striker of the Amaranth! My mother lives in St. Louis. Tell her a lie for a poor devil's sake, please. Say I was killed in an instant and never knew what hurt me—though God knows I've neither scratch nor bruise this moment! It's hard to burn up in a coop like this with the whole wide world so near. Good-bye boys—we've all got to come to it ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... we had a conversation upon cunning. M'Leod said that he was not afraid of cunning people; but would let them play their tricks about him like monkeys. 'But,' said I, 'they scratch'; and Mr M'Queen added, 'they'll invent new tricks, as soon as you find out what they do.' JOHNSON. 'Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Europe, over Australia, Canada, India, and New Zealand. During my ministry I have published about 3,200 of these articles. Many of them have been gathered into books, many of them translated into Swedish, Spanish, Dutch, and other foreign tongues. They have made the scratch of a very humble pen audible to Christendom. The consecrated pen may be more powerful than the consecrated tongue. I devoutly thank God for having condescended to use my humble pen to the spread of his Gospel; and I purpose ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... with their own understanding. You might teach him the mad dance, set to the mad howl. Madge Owlet would be nothing to him. "My, how he capers!" (In the margin is written "One of the children speaks this.") ... What I scratch out is a German quotation, from Lessing, on the bite of rabid animals; but I remember you don't read German. But Mrs. P. may, so I wish I had let it stand. The meaning in English is: "Avoid to approach an animal suspected of madness, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... that meant more to him than all the earth beside. It was the fierce, mother-look of changeless affection, the companion to that savage cry. She held him in a pinching grip, and made sure that he was unhurt, save for that scratch ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... scrape or other. He was old enough, certainly, to know better, and pleasant enough, in other respects, to be liked very much by all who knew him. He was full of fun, perfectly fearless, and bore an accidental scratch or tumble like a man. But, dear me! what a heedless, careless little scamp! That very morning, before school began, his mother had sent him into the garden to gather vegetables. He cut the carrots ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... hardly read my note over a second time before Cousin Amelia bounced into the room without knocking. I should have locked the door had I known she was coming; as it was, I had only time to pop the note into my dress (the seal made a great scratch just below my neck) before she was upon me, and throwing herself into my arms with a most unusual excess of ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... free from moss, as they always said; the rude scratch, as of a sharp-pointed instrument. Did it mean anything? He dropped beside it for a minute, and studied the stone; then rose and went his way again, still wandering on and on, he ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... a piece of luck, Bertie," Harry said when they had reached their room in the hotel. "In the first place, because neither of us got a scratch, and in the second, because it will bind Dias more closely to us. Before, he was willing to assist us for Barnett's sake, now it will be for our own also, and we may be quite sure that he will do his ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... and then back at him again with eyes at once quizzical and cunning. Then his face broke into a grin that might hardly be called of drollery. "Accident!" quoth he. "By the blood! d'ye see 'tis a strange accident, indeed, that lays two men by the heels and lets the third go without a scratch!" Delivering himself thus, he came forward into the room, and, taking the last victim of Jonathan's adventure by the arm, with as little compunction as he would have handled a sack of grain he dragged the limp and helpless figure from where it lay to the floor beside the first victim. ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... "standing room" problem is still removed from us by such uncounted generations that we need give no thought to it. The physical resources of the globe are as yet only tapped, and not exhausted. We have done little more than scratch the surface. Because we are crowded here and there in the ant-hills of our cities, we dream that the world is full. Because, under our present system, we do not raise enough food for all, we fear that the food ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... hardened steel armor, curving smoothly upward to a needle prow. Countless hundred of fine vertical scratches marred every inch of her surface, and here and there the stubborn metal was grooved and scored to a depth of inches—each scratch and score the record of an attempt of some wandering cosmic body to argue the right-of-way with the stupendous mass of that man-made ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... fire filled our rude tent; to which were added the fresh, sick smells from the great newly-butchered carcass of the walrus. The boys were sound asleep, breathing heavily. Guard roused up at our feet to scratch himself, then snuggled down again. The wind howled dismally, throwing down gusts of rain. It dripped and pattered off the skin-covering on to the boat and on to the rocks. Now and then a faint scream from high aloft declared the passage of some lonely seabird; and the ceaseless ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... his body to perceive what injuries he had sustained, but not a sprain nor a scratch could he discover. "Where are you, ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... times have changed since then. The social whirlpool has engulfed the boys; Robb'd of their simple, hardy, rowdy joys, They start from scratch as men. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... she closed the door and leaned against it, "I know what we will do. We will wear our cotton stockings underneath these horrors! They won't scratch us then, will they? And our holidays won't be spoilt, and Aunt Pike won't know, and—don't you think it's a perfectly ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... rattled him. He shifted from foot to foot, twirling his hat on his fingers. He half expected, half hoped, and half waited for another opening. None came. Through the muffled roar of the stamps he was conscious of the sharp scratch of the superintendent's pen. Then came the boom of the big whistle. It was change of shift. The jar of the office door closing behind him was not heard. At the ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... old planetary flames. To destroy is still the strongest instinct of our nature. Nature is still 'red in tooth and claw,' though she has begun to make fine flourishes with tooth-brush and nail-scissors. Even the mild dog on my hearth-rug has been known to behave like a wolf to his own species. Scratch his master and you will find the caveman. But the scratch must be a sharp one: I am thickly veneered. Outwardly, I am as gentle as you, gentle reader. And one reason for our delight in fire is that there ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... you!' says I (for I had never a want of wit); and so we fell to work at the gooseberry-bush, laughing and talking as happy as might be. In the course of our diversion Nora managed to scratch her arm, and it bled, and she screamed, and it was mighty round and white, and I tied it up, and I believe was permitted to kiss her hand; and though it was as big and clumsy a hand as ever you saw, yet I thought the favour the most ravishing one that was ever conferred upon me, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... some information," and suddenly stooping, he seized one of the seeming dead men by the neck and jerked him to his feet. "Answer the Knight, rogue," he said. "Raynor Royk has seen too many dead bodies to be fooled by one that has not a scratch upon it." ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... all round, the only difference that I found between old and young women is that the older ones are less selfish, and more complaisant, and less inclined to resent one's being unable to attain to the height of their desire, for from time to time I have been unable to "come up to the scratch" after a heavy night's labor, or when I was afraid of being caught in the act of coition, a fear which, in my experience, acts as a stimulus to desire in women, unlike its action in men. Of all the women with whom I ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... my heart turned sick within me. On the boy's cheek was a faint red scratch, just as might have been caused by a slight, very slight ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... "I should scratch him out of the pedigree, if I were you. But pray, have you not discovered the proper chamber of that great Sir William about whom my father is ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... putting the three circuits together, I had contrived to spell out the letter C—as in a telegraph office the operator would write a letter, though probably not the same one, with a long, a short, and a long scratch upon the paper slip. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... better than nothing, and, like your lovely wreaths and pious devices, they made one feel as if the old black wood were bursting into life and leaf again for very Christmas joy; and, if only one knelt carefully, they did not scratch his nose. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... stories,—one way you work with your foot, and the other way you work with your fingers, but I rather guess there's more headache in the stories than there is in the stitches, because you don't have to think quite so hard while your foot's going as you do when your fingers is at work, scratch, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... perhaps his stronger enemies. It is a noble composition, with archaic writing, and a stately figure of the king climbing the mountains and slaying his enemies; it shows an art that might well have developed into the best that Greece has produced. But De Morgan has only begun to scratch the surface of the mounds of Elam, and a multitude of scholars believe that out of Elam came the first civilization of Chaldea. We shall find out yet; for the record is in the earth, and only waits the man who will dig it out, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... rubbing her cheek. There was a deep scratch there, still red and swollen. "Then how do you explain—it? According to your theory the inhabitants must have died in their skins, fried like yams. But who fired on us? Somebody detected us, made ...
— The Gun • Philip K. Dick
... with the thumb on one side and the fingers and palm on the other, in the same manner as we do. They can thus also lift rather large objects, such as the neck of a bottle, to their mouths. Baboons turn over stones, and scratch up roots with their hands. They seize nuts, insects, or other small objects with the thumb in opposition to the fingers, and no doubt they thus extract eggs and young from the nests of birds. American monkeys beat the wild oranges on the branches until the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... that Desgenais has a heart, since he lives. In what respect does he differ from you? He is a man who believes in nothing, fears nothing, who knows no care or ennui, perhaps, and yet it is clear that a scratch on the finger would fill him with terror, for if his body abandons him, what becomes of him? He lives only in the body. What sort of creature is that who treats his soul as the flagellants treat their bodies? Can ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... of that vast apartment was disturbed by the sounds of Monsieur de Tressan's slumbers, the scratch and splutter of the secretary's pen, and the occasional hiss and crackle of the logs that burned in the great, cavern-like fireplace. Suddenly to these another sound was added. With a rasp and rattle the heavy curtains of blue velvet flecked with silver fleurs-de-lys ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... were I but otherwise fitted (As I am ingeniously wilted) For pulling things out of the flame, Would stand but a pitiful game." "'Tis done," replied Ratto, all prompt to obey; And thrust out his paw in a delicate way. First giving the ashes a scratch, He open'd the coveted batch; Then lightly and quickly impinging, He drew out, in spite of the singeing, One after another, the chestnuts at last— While Bertrand contrived to devour them as fast. A servant girl enters. ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... rather see any image than their own.' These are not my observations, but were made by Sir Everard Starkeye, who likewise did remark to Monsieur Dubois, that 'cats, if you hold them up to the looking-glass, will scratch you terribly; and that the same fierce animal, as if proud of its cleanly coat and velvety paw, doth carefully put aside what other animals of more estimation take no ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... we landed and looked bery fierce, and de Frenchmen thought we had come to eat dem; so dey say, no use fighting; and so, after firing a great many shot at us; but doing no harm, dey say when we land, 'We give in, we no fight more.' So we take de island, and no one hurt except one man scratch anoder's nose wid his bagonet, and make blood come. When de generals and de admirals see we done so well, dey say we go and take anoder island; so we all sets sail for to take Guadeloupe. Some of de ships got in one day, some anoder, and anchored in Grozier Bay. Ah, de enemy thought ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... absorbing parental love, she has very serious deficiencies,—deficiencies occasioned by the same lack of modification which I have before mentioned. Devoted to her little ones, she will scratch vigorously and untiringly to provide them food, yet fails to remember that they do not stand before her in a straight line out of harm's way, but are hovering around her on all sides in a dangerous proximity. Like the poet, she looks not forward nor behind. If they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... choked up with dust, and for a while I couldn't make no sound. Finally I called, "Lu! Lu! here, Sir!" and if ever you heerd a dumb creature laugh, he barked a real laugh, and come springin' along over towards me. I called ag'in, and he begun to scratch and tear and pull,—at boards, I guessed, for it sounded like that; but it wa'n't no use, he couldn't get at me, and he give up at length and set down right over my head and give another howl, so long and so dismal I thought I'd as lieves hear ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... have one scratch my head i' the sun When the alarum were struck, than idly sit To hear ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... later how many. But the last six didn't get off without a scratch, I assure you. They must have had a sentinel watching. We saw no one, but as we were hoping to surprise the bordj these six men, who looked from a distance like Touaregs, rushed out, mounted horses and camels and dashed away, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... swear to that, Katherine. To be called an ugly name may have the same effect as a pin-scratch in the lung. And that hateful name—I can't get quit of it. It is sticking here in the pit of my stomach, eating into me like a corrosive acid. And ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... for all that not even a scratch! Ah, but what is the matter with your hand, d'Artagnan? It ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... morning walk, and her ever-regardful father, having an hour's leisure, offered to walk with her. The breeze was fresh and quite steady, filtering itself through the denuded mass of twigs without swaying them, but making the point of each ivy-leaf on the trunks scratch its underlying neighbor restlessly. Grace's lips sucked in this native air of hers like milk. They soon reached a place where the wood ran down into a corner, and went outside it towards comparatively ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... all-cotton clothing should touch the baby's skin, unless he is sick, when a very light part-wool band may be needed. In general, neither wool nor starch should be allowed in the baby's clothing in summer. Wool is too hot and irritating and starched garments scratch ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... as though everyone besides ourselves is hurt or lost or dead or kidnapped? I have been thinking what I would do if anyone kidnapped me. I would try so hard to leave some sort of a message. I think if I had my diamond ring on, I would try to scratch something ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... for during the ceremonies their veils must not touch their faces. We were warned that we must not quarrel or use bad language; that we must not kill game or cause animals to fly from us; that we were not to shave, or cut or oil our hair, or scratch, save with the open palm; and that we must not cover our heads. Any breach of these and numerous other rules would have to be atoned for by the sacrifice ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... cries and lamentations. After a few minutes she rises and approaches his wife and seats herself on the ground in front of her; the two now encircle one another with their left arms, resting their heads on each other's shoulders, whilst they scratch their faces with their right hands and cry and wail in a tone which excites in the minds of all who hear them sensations of deep grief; indeed I know of no sound (not even excepting the Irish howl) which so fully expresses the passion of deep sorrow as this lament of the ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... away, madame," said an agent, in a low voice, to the stupefied woman thus assailed. He laughed at her discomfiture. "It is waste kindness and waste time. You can't do anything with that sort of riffraff. It's only a stray cat fed to scratch you. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... you how she acted," said Harry, with a laugh, "and old Scratch isn't half bad 'nough. Say! She wanted to have a wedding for her best doll the other day, and she cut a lace curtain off a yard from the floor to make ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... rather than pleasure, come to this mor- 212:9 tal sense? Because the memory of pain is more vivid than the memory of pleasure. I have seen an unwitting attempt to scratch the end of a finger which had been cut 212:12 off for months. When the nerve is gone, which we say was the occasion of pain, and the pain still remains, it proves sensation to be in the mortal mind, ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... Channel fleet, when to our great joy, after tacking and half-tacking for six weeks, we were ordered with some more ships of the line under Admiral Collingwood to proceed off Cadiz to watch the motions of the Spanish and French fleets, after the scratch they had with our fleet under Sir R. F. Calder. We occasionally ran into Gibraltar for refreshments and stores. On one of these occasions the Port-Admiral took it into his head to hoist his flag on board of one of the active ships, and ordered ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... but he will afterwards find to his sorrow that he exchanged them for something far more tenacious in these microscopic Harvest-mites. If he has obtained a good supply of them, he will in a few hours begin to suffer from severe itching, and for the next two or three days will be likely to scratch until his limbs ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... had faced about all the famous ones of first force. His agility was amazing; his wrist like steel; his anticipation masterly. For every time I touched him, he touched me twice; though none, on either side, would have been more than a scratch. Then, in the midst of a fierce rally, I forced a pretty opening and I thrust. No guard seemed possible—it was a sure coeur. The next instant, there came a wrench, that almost tore off my fingers, ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... they let measure out justice. Justice!" He laughed sardonically. "Poor old lady, she couldn't stop within forty miles of Perkins' Committee if she had forty bandages over her eyes, and both ears plugged with cotton! You wait till their farce of a trial is over. You may get off, by a scratch—I hope so. But ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... of hard fighting. But he never writes much of that. He's much more interested in a run he had with a queer scratch pack near their billets. I can't quite gather how it was organized, but it comprised two beagles and a greyhound and a fox-terrier and a pug. He said they ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... will but felt the fleshy screen? We ride and I see her bosom heave. There's many a crown for who can reach. Ten lines, a statesman's life in each! The flag stuck on a heap of bones, A soldier's doing! what atones? They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. My riding is better, by ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... There's to be a match on Saturday, and I'll ask Miss Latimer to let you be in it. It's a scratch team from the Lower School against prefects and monitresses. I've no doubt we shall be badly beaten, but it really doesn't matter. It's only ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... you back, you know, awfully—because you won't come. And the more he wants you the less he'll say so. That's the pride of the cobbler's dog. If he's uncomfortable, he'll scratch until he's comfortable again. And he says, "If you can't get the best take the next best"; and runs about with Mrs. Wilmot at his heels, and is bored all the time. That's Nevile all over." His eyes grew rounder. "You'll have to go, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... was very ill-treated by his companions; they used to scratch and bite him, and jump on him till they were tired, while he never offered to resist, but cried in the most heart-rending manner. One young squirrel, however, was his secret friend, and whenever an opportunity offered of doing it without ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... you?" she asked with real concern. It ran into her mind that the conventional hero of romance makes his wound a scratch before his lady. If she expected that from Bertram Chester, ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... and pointed a revolver at the reporters. I regret to say that I gave no better account of myself then, and for a man who was so hot to go to war I own it is a bad showing. Perhaps it was as well I didn't go, even on that account. I might have run the wrong way when it came to the scratch. ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... the scratch of the match in Frank's hand. He held it up first in order to see what was going on; and then with a burst of laughter began to apply the flickering flame to the wick of the ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... a corner and saw him. 2nd Lieut. Brooke at once left the trench and took shelter as quickly as possible in a shell hole outside. A perfect shower of bombs and rifle grenades were thrown after him, but he was untouched, and regained our lines without a scratch. ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... bite and scratch This funny looking thing; But now they thought it might have hid A ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous
... study hard; to be what is denominated a grub, or hard student. "The primary sense," says Dr. Webster, "is probably to rub, to rake, scrape, or scratch, as wild animals dig ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... were traversing strange latitudes. And in autumn airy spheres of thistledown floated into the same street, lodged upon the shop fronts, blew into drains, and innumerable tawny and yellow leaves skimmed along the pavement, and stole through people's doorways into their passages with a hesitating scratch on the floor, like the skirts of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... individuality and tosses him towards a perhaps better range of sentiment than his private one. Again, if I rose carelessly and confidently, with an expectation of going through the business entirely at my ease, I often found that I had little or nothing to say; whereas, if I came to the scratch in perfect despair, and at a crisis when failure would have been horrible, it once or twice happened that the frightful emergency concentrated my poor faculties, and enabled me to give definite and vigorous expression to sentiments which an instant before ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... count me," he said, a trace of recklessness in the answer. "I have n't even a scratch so far as I know. ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... destructive effect; one of our guns being dismounted, the foremast struck in two places within a foot of each other, and the wheel smashed to pieces. Singularly enough the helmsman escaped without a scratch, but one poor fellow fell forward ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... dairymaid at a farmer's near this place, was infected with the cow-pox from her master's cows in May, 1796. She received the infection on a part of her hand which had been previously in a slight degree injured by a scratch from a thorn. A large pustulous sore and the usual symptoms accompanying the disease were produced in consequence. The pustule was so expressive of the true character of the cow-pox, as it commonly appears upon the hand, that I ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... that the dead man may take revenge on his murderer, as every death is considered to have been caused by some enemy. These bones are naturally full of the poisons of the corpse, and may cause tetanus at the slightest scratch. On the arrows they are extremely sharp and only slightly attached to the wood, so that they stick in the flesh and increase the inflammation. Besides, they are often dipped in ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... for a moment, and then began to scratch his head furiously, as he was in the habit of doing whenever his memory failed him and he wished to recall it to duty. "I'm not sure whether the number is eighteen or forty-six," he said, at ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... and refused to budge an inch. The Elder got mad. He first coaxed and patted, and soft sawdered him, and then whipt and spurred, and thrashed him like any thing. Pony got mad too, for hosses has tempers as well as Elders; so he turned to, and kicked right straight up on eend, like Old Scratch, and kept on without stoppin' till he sent the Elder right slap over his head slantendicularly, on the broad of his back into the river, and he floated down thro' the bridge and scrambled out at ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... extreme rapidity of my pace, and also probably because, their numbers being so great, each thought that I could not avoid his comrades farther on; so that I escaped them all, and reached the 14th regiment without either myself or my excellent mare having received the slightest scratch. ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... but he made the most of them. Pelle was not only hideous: he was formidable. The big square head and ravaged face were set on a strong throat. Chest and shoulders were immense, the arms too long, the slightly bowed legs too short. Up went a sledgehammer hand, coated with red hair, to scratch the heavy jowl contemplatively, and Max ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... tour should carry some sort of first-aid equipment. It need not be elaborate, but should include bandages, a clean dressing (a first field dressing is the best and most compact), iodine and adhesive plaster, and some vaseline or boracic ointment. Even a scratch will go on bleeding on a cold day and be very tiresome. Accidents are miraculously few and far between in Ski-ing, considering the falls and the large number of people who ski. But they happen occasionally, and it is ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... obviously useful to have adhesive fruits and seeds: for when sheep or other animals get them caught in their coats, they carry them away to other bushy spots, and there, to get rid of the annoyance caused by the foreign body, scratch them off at once against some holly-bush or blackthorn. You may often find seeds of this type sticking on thorns as the nucleus of a little matted mass of wool, so left by the sheep in the very spots best adapted for the free ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... little more attentively than ordinary, since I watch if I can purloin anything that may adorn or support my own? I have not at all studied to make a book; but I have in some sort studied because I had made it; if it be studying to scratch and pinch now one author, and then another, either by the head or foot, not with any design to form opinions from them, but to assist, second, and fortify those I already have embraced. But whom shall we believe in the report he makes of himself in so corrupt an age? considering ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... will do that. I was wondering if it has ever struck you how prettily and kindly your little hands behave to each other. Right hand is the cleverest and quickest, of course, but left hand is always willing and ready too. They take care not to hurt or scratch each other, and if by chance one is ever hurt, the other is as tender as possible not to rub or touch the ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth
... bureau. "Try a nail-file. See if you can't scratch off the lettering. How's this?" He read what he had written for the wire. "'Culver Covington, and so forth. Come quick. First train. Native Son making love to Jean.—Wally.' Ten words, and it tells the whole story. I can hardly explain why ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... of mutual menace, which, from the wild shouts and flourishing of scimitars, seemed as if it could only end in a general lopping off of heads, somewhat to the astonishment of the sailor, tranquillity became restored without any one receiving scratch or cut. ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... he strove to reassure her. "It isn't anything; only a little scratch—from a Yank—that tried to get me. But he didn't, though," the soldier added with a smile. ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... bright with the promise of a glorious day, but with no mind to lift the pall from the water, it looked ill for a ready passage. We had four turns of a foul hawse to clear (the track of a week's calms), and our windlass was of a very ancient type, but our scratch crew worked well and handy, and we were ready for the road when the screw tug Escort laid alongside and lashed herself up to our quarter. They tow that way on the Pacific Coast—the wily ones know the advantage of having a ship's length in front of ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... the dew-bedabbled wretch Turn, and return, indenting with the way; Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch, Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay: For misery is trodden on by many, And being low never relieved ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... There was a scratch and a splutter, and the match flared bravely. Its yellow rays illumined a cellar very much like any other cellar. It was walled with stonework, well cemented, and there were two or three small windows at the sides. But these, which at first filled Roy with a ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... sizes and characters. There were some that adopted all the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and the comforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were also small scratch groups of foot and horse, and groups of peasants and landowners that remained unknown. A sacristan commanded one party which captured several hundred prisoners in the course of a month; and there was Vasilisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Lizzie: 'But one waits At home alone for me: So without further parleying, If you will not sell me any Of your fruits though much and many, Give me back my silver penny I tossed you for a fee.'— They began to scratch their pates, 390 No longer wagging, purring, But visibly demurring, Grunting and snarling. One called her proud, Cross-grained, uncivil; Their tones waxed loud, Their looks were evil. Lashing their tails They trod and hustled her, Elbowed and jostled her, 400 Clawed ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... reach, and rearing up, succeeded in getting a slight hold of my right foot. I clung to the tree with the desperation of despair, and the moccasin giving way, I soon drew myself above his reach, with no other injury than a severe scratch. In a few seconds I was safely ensconced among the branches, about thirty feet from the ground, while my baffled antagonist was walking round and round it, uttering growls of rage, and stripping the bark from the ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... I have a new writing-table with a fine surface of red leather. I am prepared to swear, and so is Bannister, that it was smooth and unstained. Now I found a clean cut in it about three inches long—not a mere scratch, but a positive cut. Not only this, but on the table I found a small ball of black dough or clay, with specks of something which looks like sawdust in it. I am convinced that these marks were left by the man who rifled the papers. There ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lend himself to the business on any terms, and bolts on principle; while the rider of the black horse remains in stationary meditation.) Go on—that black horse—go on! (The chestnut is at length brought up to the scratch snorting, but again flinches, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... Eileen, "I am afraid they scratched the car." She got out hastily, and caught her lips between her teeth as she saw the long jagged scratch on the door where Betty's sharp heel ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... public do not long delay, But give it, (I don't mean to be ironical,) A prominent position in the CHRONICLE. My wife and children cry to me for corn With feeble earnestness and chirp forlorn, My eye is dim, my heart within me pines, My claws so numb I scarce can scratch two lines, My head—no more will I your feelings harrow, But sign me, Truly yours, Till death, All ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... muttered Sam half apologetically. "I couldn't see it that way myself, as you say, but o' course it's your fun'ral! Ef you kin scratch up enough grub bein' a tree, why that's your own lookout. Moss is good 'nough fer me ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... inside. "You'll scratch my eyes out. I shan't see— anything!" His mouth apparently was full of earth. They watched the retreating soles of his heavy shooting-boots. Slowly the feet were dragged in after him. They disappeared from sight. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... him vigorously. "Shut up," he said, roughly, partly to hide his own feelings, "Charley's comin' back without a scratch. The good Lord, I reckon, don't make lads as true and white as he to be killed off by a pack of jail vermin. Come to the wall as he told us to. Maybe we'll get a shot at those murderers before the day is done. Come along an' stop that blubberin'," and he grabbed the soft-hearted ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... said, "he will come to within time, and come up to the scratch again. He has not got half ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... she prepared to lie down, she wondered how he could have borne such suffering without one murmur. Hatty had a perfect horror of pain. Her skin was thin and delicate, and even the grasp of a rough hand on her arm was sure to leave a bruise. Her usually pleasant face was clouded over by a scratch or a pin-prick, and her tears often fell fast for a wound that many children would have met with a smile. Hatty was naturally very sensitive to pain, and that was not her fault; but she had never yet begun to try to bear it patiently, as a part of her christian duty. As she lay down that night, ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... bleach him bare; here, within walls, he rages, shows his teeth, blasphemes, or sinks into sloth. You will find him heaped against the walls like ordure, hear him howl for blood in the bull-ring, appraise women, as if they were dainties, in the alamedas, loaf, scratch, pry where none should pry, go begging with his sores, trade his own soul for his mother's. His pride becomes insolence, his tragedy hideous revolt, his impassivity swinish, his rock of sufficiency ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... have been anything but pleasant. Two people in the sleeper were killed outright, and three were injured, while the engineer and fireman of the freight were badly hurt by jumping. I didn't get a scratch. ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... been worse. You were struck down with a mace, but the leech says that the wound on your head is of no great consequence, and that you fainted rather from loss of blood from other gashes than from the blow on the head. I have got off with a scratch on the shoulder. Hal Carter, who fought like a tiger over your body, has come off worst, having fully half a dozen wounds, but it was not before he had killed at least twice as many of his assailants with that ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... want to be all helpmate, practical comrade; she had fed herself with this delusion during the years of loneliness. She had adopted the veneer, convinced herself that it was true, but she knew now that it was false. It had taken a Gorgeous Girl to scratch beneath the veneer in true feminine fashion. Mary did wish to be dependent, helpless—to have Gorgeous Girl propensities. The cheap phrases of the shopwomen kept interrupting her attempts to think of practical detail. ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... Majesty's visits to the Crystal Palace. Among the American manufactures were some fine soaps, and among these a small head, done in white Castile, and so exactly like marble that the Queen doubted the soap story, and in her impulsive, investigating way was about to test it with a scratch of her shawl-pin, when the Yankee exhibitor stayed her hand, and drew forth a courteous apology by the loyal remonstrance—"Pardon, your Majesty,—it is ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... I don't care much for society—especially when it breaks into our bungalow and begins to scratch my furniture with its high-heeled shoes. But just to please Peaches I promised to go in the parlor and not be ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... been six years of such far-flung internal preparedness in our history. And this has been done without any dictator's power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of the Bill ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... package, the older children would, of their own accord, put away the paper and twine neatly, instead of throwing them in the fire, or tearing them to pieces. If the little ones wanted a piece of twine to play scratch-cradle, or spin a top, there it was, in readiness; and when they threw it upon the floor, the older children had no need to be told to put it ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... pretty soon, or the bugs'll have the 'taters," declared her cousin. "Say! you'd ought to have somethin' besides your fingers ter scratch around them plants." ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... we harbored, We'd a hundred Jews to larboard, Unwashed, uncombed, unbarbered— Jews black, and brown, and gray; With terror it would seize ye, And make your souls uneasy, To see those Rabbis greasy, Who did naught but scratch and pray: Their dirty children puking— Their dirty saucepans cooking— Their dirty fingers hooking Their swarming ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... things. The water-tanks of three locomotives which were borne from the roundhouse at Conemaugh, two miles away, are conspicuous. Amid the general wreck, beneath one of these heavy iron tanks, a looking glass, two feet by one foot in dimensions, was discovered intact, without even a scratch on the quicksilver. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... with long ears, a snout, and hair that itches. 'This is exactly like a fairy tale of my youth,' he dreams. And indeed, it is a dream! The mountain opens, the captive princess comes forth and leads him in, and he rests his head in her lap all strewn with blossoms. The lovely trolls come and scratch his head and music sounds from the rocks. It is characteristic of Shakespeare that the lovers do not dream fairy tales of their childhood. Higher culture has given them deeper passions, more intense personal relations; in dreams they but continue ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... was excessively difficult for Mrs. Eddy. She found it grinding hard work to dig out anything to say. She realized, at the above stage in her life, that with all her trouble she had not been able to scratch together even material enough for a child's Autobiography, and also that what she had secured was in the main not valuable, not important, considering the age and the fame of the person she was writing about; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... did it," said Harry; "they had an hour to do Themistocles on the hearth of Admetus, and there he beat them all to shivers. 'Twas all done smack, smooth, without a scratch, in Alcaics, and Cheviot heard Wilmot saving, 'twas no mere task, but had poetry, and all that sort of thing in it. But I don't know whether that would have done, if he had not come out so strong in the recitation; ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Plaster for.—"Antiphlogistine is fine for bronchitis, where there is any inflammation, pleurisy, any kind of a scratch, especially rusty nails; pneumonia, Set can in water long enough to heat, but not hot, spread on with case knife as thick as a silver dollar, spread cotton batting over it, keep on twenty-four hours, before changing. This is a very useful remedy to keep on hand." Antiphlogistine ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... in all such matters went on increasing till about the seventh decade of the century. After that time a number of remonstrances and protests may be found against the brown coats, the plaid or white waistcoats, the white stockings, the leathern breeches, the scratch wigs, and so forth, in which clerical fops on the one hand, and clerical slovens on the other, were often wont to appear. A writer at the very end of the century pointed his remarks on the subject by calling the attention of his brother clergy to the distinctly anti-Christian purpose which ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... the day, he thought, for to accompany the stranger they had lighted a lamp; he had heard the scratch of the match, and through the brass fretwork had seen the lines ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... see me without bruise or scratch. Only Yorick and I got tangled up with a herd of buffaloes on the Kajiar Road. In his fright, the little fool slipped half over the khud, and if a knight-errant had not fallen from heaven, in the nick of time, we should both be lying somewhere in the valley by now, 'spoiling ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... time. To break the spirit of his men will not do—it would unfit them for service—so what he seeks to do is merely to bend their minds so as to match his own. Gradually they grow to both love and fear him. In time of actual fight he transforms cowards into heroes. He holds his men up to the scratch. In battle there are often certain officers marked for death—they are to be shot by their own men. It is a time of getting even—and in the hurly-burly and excitement there are no witnesses. The sergeant is ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... destruction. Gilbert's dissertation on the occupations and amusements of the ghosts came very opportunely to my aid, and immediately I put into execution what now appeared my only hope of its safety. Just as a corner of the paper was entering the flame I gave a pretty loud scratch, at the same time anxiously observing the effect it might produce. I was overjoyed to find the enemy intimidated at least by the first fire. Another volley, and another succeeded, until even the sceptical ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... over the big man eyed the surveyor. "Humph! This is not a scratch beside what that greaser did to you with his knife in Arizona. You didn't even stop work for that. Your ride to San Felipe and back ordinarily would call for about twelve hours sleep and that's all. Come, lad, what's ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... was told by the children that she lived with niggers till she came to Crompton Place, and they guessed her mother was one, and nobody knew anything about her anyway. There was a fierce fight in which Dora came off victorious, with a scratch or two on her face and a torn dress. That afternoon the Colonel was confronted by what seemed a little maniac, demanding to know if her mother was black, and if she had lived only with negroes until ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... he delayed finding a place, would not be able to keep her. But certain reasonable ideas, certain necessary things, never reached his heart, and reached his head very late, and when they did Don Rocco would either give himself a knock on the forehead, or a scratch behind, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... here, he knocked me there, knocked me into the hedge, and knocked me out again. I was at my last shifts, and my poor wife saw it. Now my poor wife, though she is as gentle as a pigeon, has yet a spirit of her own, and though she wasn't bred upon the roads, can scratch a little; so when she saw me at my last shifts, she flew at the villain—she couldn't bear to see her partner murdered—and scratched the villain's face. Lord bless you, young man, she had better have been quiet: Grey Moll no sooner saw what she was about, than, springing out of the cart, where ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... we have described him, was enthroned as a monarch, in an elbow-chair, placed, on the dining-table, his scratch wig on one side, his head crowned with a bottle-slider, his eye leering with an expression betwixt fun and the effects of wine, while his court around him resounded with such crambo scraps ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... produced his "makings" while the other stood gazing straight before him, the dead cigar still gripped in the corner of his mouth. The scratch of the match roused him and quick as a flash he reached beneath the bar and the next instant had Purdy covered with a six-shooter. With his finger on the trigger Cinnabar Joe hesitated, and in that instant he learned ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... expanded in "Farley Heath" near Albury. At Charterhouse there was a great slope or semi-mound which had in old times been utilised as a wholesale grave for the victims of plague and other epidemics. It strikes me now as most perilous, but we boys used to dig and scratch among bones and other debris for on occasional coin or lead token, whereof I found several; it is only a wonder that we did not unearth pestilence, but mould is fortunately very antiseptic. Another playground peculiarity was that after the hoop season, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... a game. Two-Paws play at the same thing for hours and hours. I've often tried to scratch paper gently, as He does, but the pleasure doesn't last long. I prefer newspapers torn into shreds that rustle and fly ... There is a little pot of dark-violet, muddy water on his table. I never sniff it without horror, since the day a rather foolish curiosity ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... "Not a scratch, though our plane was hit a lot," said Jack. "But we ran out of gas, and had to come down here. Glad we did, too, or we'd have missed seeing you. Cousin Emile is in the same boat as ourselves. Here he comes! He'll be ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... compared with those of remote ages, because nobody thinks it worth while to preserve them. It is almost as easy to get a personal memento of Priam or Nimrod as it is to get a harpsichord, a spinning-wheel, a tinder-box, or a scratch-back. An Egyptian wig is attainable, a wig of the Georgian era is hardly so, much less a tie of the Regency. So it is with the scenes of common life a century or two ago. They are being lost, because they were familiar. Here are two of them, however, which have limned ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... returned Ben, with a benignant smile. "Young chaps like you are always, accordin' to your own showin', worse than the devil himself when your blood's roused by indignation at cruelty or injustice, but you sing a good deal softer when you come to the scratch with your enemy in ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... thy wedding stopped at the ringing, from what I can learn. That is no wedding at all. Doubt not this knight of thine will never return; they never do return, my lassie. Neither doubt but that Falve will wed thee faster than any ring can do. And as for thy scratch and crying heart, my child, trust Falve again to stanch the one and still the other. For that is a man's way. And now get into bed, child; ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... surrounded the band, but Manuelito always escaped. Many shots were fired at him, but he was never hit; and once, when he was cut off from his men and surrounded, he broke through the line, and though fifty bullets whistled around him he did not receive a scratch. ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller
... and there was a most ferocious leopard growling at me. I tried to bite, and to scratch his eyes out, but the pain in the small of my back made me quite giddy. The spotted scoundrel seized my left arm—how it aches!—and gave me a crunch or two. I hear, I feel the teeth against my bones as I write. My whole body is full ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... I can't do it, eh?" He had misinterpreted my expression. "Well, let me tell you I did just a year ago and got over without a scratch. To get across no-man's-land you have to play dead, as you Yankees put it; you lie flat on the ground and pull yourself forward a foot at a time and keep your eye on the search-lights so that when they come your way you can drop on your face ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... heresy. Moreover, they agreed that the conquests made by each country during the preceding eight years should be restored. Thus all the gains of Francis I. and Henry II. of France were given up, and Philibert Emmanuel of Savoy was transposed by a scratch of the pen from the condition of a landless mercenary into that of a sovereign prince. Would that he had been free to rule as his own disposition and that of his evangelical consort, Margaret of Navarre, would have prompted! But the provisions of the treaty ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... Paddy, attempting to seize it; when at that instant it struck out with its hinder claws, one of which tore a large rent in the Irishman's trousers, giving him at the same time a severe scratch, which, had he not sprung back, might have been serious. In a moment his knife was in his hand, and before the kangaroo could repeat the blow he had plunged it ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... the junior hundred yards. I say, Cusack, your gov—your father's just in time for the final heat. In the first I had a dead heat with Watkins, you know," continues he, addressing the captain. "Watkins was scratch, and I had five yards, and the ruck got ten. It was a beastly shame giving Filbert ten, though—wasn't it, Telson?— after his running second to me in the March gallops; they ought to have stuck ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... fortunes, shaved him in the face of the whole camp.[9] I very soon found that this exhibition of my abilities and profession might be productive of the greatest advantage to my future prospects. Every fellow who had a head to scratch immediately found out that he wanted shaving, and my reputation soon reached the ears of the chief, who called me to him, and ordered me to operate upon him without loss of time. I soon went to work upon a large head that exhibited ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... He was still panting. That glimpse full into the boy's face had almost undone him. He was hungry for food, and hungry for human companionship. He wanted to go to the car, to rear up on the side to scratch at the curtains. But yonder, a hundred feet away, back and forth before a fire they had built, moved the men. And against the box they had taken from the car ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... night of the lawn, his sombre questioning, for the house. The candles had been extinguished in the drawing room. A square, glass lamp hung at the foot of the stairs; and there he encountered a man in a scratch wig, with a long nose flattened at the end. He bowed obsequiously—a posturing figure in shirtsleeves with a green cloth waistcoat and black legs. The Italian servant, Howat concluded. He passed ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... it, it will be the last bear you ever scratch; look at those paws! did you ever see such nails? didn't you hear them rattle against the logs when ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... he'll put you on leather pads and things, and tap you soft like, and show you how to bow, s'loot, and cut capers like a Frenchman, and when he's done with you I could cut you up into mincemeat without you being able to give me a scratch." ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... questions, ask'd More easily than answer'd,—that he had tried His best to obey in what he had been task'd; But there seem'd something that he wish'd to hide, Which hesitation more betray'd than mask'd; He scratch'd his ear, the infallible resource To which embarrass'd people ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... middle with such scrupulous exactitude as to imply that you suspect the umpire's eyesight, take one of the bails and scratch a block deep enough to plant something in. Then beckon to the square-leg umpire to come and replace the bail. In this you will be strictly within the law, and nobody can suspect you of the surreptitious use ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... was not to look about her. She kept her head bowed and was forbidden to see the world and the sun. Some tribes covered her with a blanket. Many of the customs in this connection resembled those of the North Pacific Coast most strongly, such as the prohibition to the girl to touch or scratch her head with her hand, a special implement being furnished her for the purpose. Sometimes she could eat only when fed and in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the Ramper came up and hailed the Gentleman. "Here you old swine! Are you sober enough to scratch off a letter?" ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... up the blaze-faced horse and pointed to the right stirrup. "Spurs would scratch like that if you jerk your foot, maybe. You're a good rider, Mr. Hunter, you can tell. That's a right stirrup, ain't it? Fred Thurman, he's got his left foot twist around, all broke from jerking in his stirrup. Left foot in right stirrup——" He pushed back his hat and ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... Persimmon Bill ever comes across Wild Bill, his goose is cooked! Mark that. There is not a surer shot, or a deadlier foe on earth then Persimmon Bill. He has defied the whole border for the past three years—ridden right into a military post and shot men down, and got away without a scratch. They say he has been adopted by the Sioux, and if he has, with such backing he'll do more mischief ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... Gallowes, and be hang'd ye Rogue: Is this a place to roare in? Fetch me a dozen Crab-tree staues, and strong ones; these are but switches to 'em: Ile scratch your heads; you must be seeing Christenings? Do you looke for Ale, and Cakes heere, you rude Raskalls? Man. Pray Sir be patient; 'tis as much impossible, Vnlesse wee sweepe 'em from the dore with ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... at 'an intimation which threw him so far from his expectations; the truth being, that he calculated upon receiving the money the moment he read his recantation. He looked at Mr. Lucre again as significantly as he could—gave his head a scratch of remonstrance—shrugged himself as before—rubbed his elbow—turned round his hat slowly, examined its shape, and gave it a smarter set, after which he gave a dry hem ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... house on a street that means Asses street, and our front room is a saloon but not a drinking one, and it runs right through the up-stairs to the skylight. You have to pay for that. Think of charging for daylight! We went to a bird show and I saw a cockatoo sitting on a pole asleep. 'Scratch its back with your parasol, Gladys,' said mother, so I did, and it opened one eye when I stopped, and said, 'Encore,' I was put out to think even the birds didn't talk American, but when I said so, mother laughed ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... horns and hoofs and stings, all the misfortunes of life seemed to come upon him at once. Bankruptcy, bereavement, scandalization, and eruptive disease so irritating that he had to re-enforce his ten finger-nails with pieces of earthenware to scratch himself withal. His wife took the diagnosis of his complaints and prescribed profanity. She thought he would feel better if between the paroxysms of grief and pain he would swear a little. For each boil ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... praised! I have custom enough to keep me busy from morning till night. There are three of us in the shop, and what with shaving and combing and hair-cutting, not one of the three has the time to stop and scratch his head, and I least of all. Many of my customers are so kind as to prefer my services to those of my two young men; perhaps because I amuse them with my little jokes. And, what with lathering and shaving this face and that, and combing the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... description of glass manufacture," said Preston. "What wouldn't scratch something else, makes a confounded fracture in your feelings. I'll try and remember what brittle ware ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... you will, as in duty bound, be civil to them. If you are not, ugly capacities will flash out fast enough, and too fast. If any one says of the Negro, as of the Russian, 'He is but a savage polished over: you have only to scratch him, and the barbarian shows underneath:' the only answer to be made is—Then do not scratch him. It will be better for you, and ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... barefooted. Some wore rags roun dere heads an some wore bonnets. Marster lived in de great house. He did not do any work but drank a lot of whiskey, went dressed up all de time an had niggers to wash his feet an comb his hair. He made me scratch his head when he lay down so he could go to sleep. When he got to sleep I would slip out. If he waked up when I started to leave I would have to go back an' scratch his head till he went to sleep agin. Sometimes I had to fan de flies way from ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... and took off his hat to scratch his head perplexedly. Then his face lightened as he ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... and his determination to get out after the robbers, and made it plain also that he would not expect salary for the time he spent in the chase. He ended by saying tersely, "My reputation and standing of company here at stake," and signed his name in a hasty scrawl that made the operator scratch his ear reflectively with his pencil when he had counted the words down to the signature. After that, Luck gave every ounce of his energy and every bit of his brain to the outfitting ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... ones, turned out well. I found the smuggler's life pleasanter than a soldier's: I could give presents to Carmen, I had money, and I had a mistress. I felt little or no remorse, for, as the gipsies say, 'The happy man never longs to scratch his itch.' We were made welcome everywhere, my comrades treated me well, and even showed me a certain respect. The reason of this was that I had killed my man, and that some of them had no exploit of that description on their conscience. But what I valued most in my ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... Men's intellects are at present so various that we cannot even realise the idea of equality, and here in England we have been taught to hate the word by the evil effects of those absurd attempts which have been made elsewhere to proclaim it as a fact accomplished by the scratch of a pen or by a chisel on a stone. We have been injured in that, because a good word signifying a grand idea has been driven out of the vocabulary of good men. Equality would be a heaven, if we could attain it. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... will master get better from his sickness; only the sour heart that sour sickness breeds made him serve Babo so; cutting Babo with the razor, because, only by accident, Babo had given master one little scratch; and for the first time in so many a day, too. Ah, ah, ah," holding ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... consequence of a curious thickening of their already rich circumference. Her professions and explanations were mixed with eager challenges and sudden drops, in the midst of which Maisie recognised as a memory of other years the rattle of her trinkets and the scratch of her endearments, the odour of her clothes and the jumps of her conversation. She had all her old clever way—Mrs. Wix said it was "aristocratic"—of changing the subject as she might have slammed the door in your face. The principal thing that was different was ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... Scratcher—To avoid matches being scratched on the wall-paper almost as much as on the match-scratch, try the idea of removing the glass from a small oval or square picture frame and framing a piece of sandpaper just as one would a picture. Put a small screw-eye on top of the frame, thus allowing ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... ingeniously wilted) For pulling things out of the flame, Would stand but a pitiful game." "'Tis done," replied Ratto, all prompt to obey; And thrust out his paw in a delicate way. First giving the ashes a scratch, He open'd the coveted batch; Then lightly and quickly impinging, He drew out, in spite of the singeing, One after another, the chestnuts at last— While Bertrand contrived to devour them as fast. A servant ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... however, two suspicious facts. The first is the puncture made in Monsieur Jacques Dollon's left leg: this puncture is aggravated by a scratch. According to the doctors, soporific, injected into the human body by the de Pravaz syringe, acts violently and efficaciously. It is beyond a doubt that Monsieur Jacques Dollon has been rendered unconscious ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... JOB" TOOL.—A most useful special tool, which combines in its make-up a level, plumb try-square, miter-square, bevel, scratch awl, depth gage, marking gage, miter gage, beam compass, and a one-foot rule. To the boy who wishes to economize in the purchase of tools this is an article ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... Babe a few days after he was going home after a scratch game of football. 'MacArthur,' said he, 'you pass Mr Dacre's House, do you not, on your way home? Then would you mind asking him from me to take preparation tonight? I find I shall be unable to be there.' It was the custom ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... man emptied the basket on the floor and went over its contents carefully. He found three communications from the unknown writer. Each of them was printed by hand on a sheet of cheap lined paper torn from a scratch pad. He smoothed them out and put them side by side on the table. This ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... rapidly in recent years and at the time of report, measured 1.15 and 1.02 meters. In 1874 they were under the care of the Royal Geographical Society of Italy. They were intelligent in their manner, but resented being lionized too much, and were prone to scratch ladies who ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... which he was immensely proud, as proving that he was not obliged to work for his bread. In Annam, in China and other countries, this singular and ridiculous fashion is common. A single finger is kept with a shorter nail, being the one used to scratch with, a very frequent occupation ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... one of our oldest and simplest marble games. It is played in this way: Make a ring eighteen inches or two feet in diameter; ten feet back draw or scratch a taw line to shoot from. If four boys are playing, each places a marble, as indicated, or if there are more players the marbles are placed at equal distances about the ring. The order of the play having been decided on, by shooting or rolling towards ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... shone brightly on the floor, sending its clear rays obliquely through the window. The sharp eyes which now covered every inch of the yellow-painted floor discovered something else. They discovered that this red thread curved slightly and had a continuation in a fine scratch in the paint of the floor. Muller followed up this scratch and it led him over towards the window and then back again in wide curves, then out again under the desk and finally, growing weaker and weaker, it came back ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... manner of things. The water-tanks of three locomotives which were borne from the roundhouse at Conemaugh, two miles away, are conspicuous. Amid the general wreck, beneath one of these heavy iron tanks, a looking glass, two feet by one foot in dimensions, was discovered intact, without even a scratch on the quicksilver. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... WITCHES: Come away! come along! The way is wide, the way is long, 170 But what is that for a Bedlam throng? Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom. The child in the cradle lies strangled at home, And the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... ambition. It next will be right To describe each particular batch: Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite, From those that have whiskers, and scratch. ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... called her "little;" but she got very few privileges on account of her youth and littleness. In those days, and especially in a family like Josiah Thayer's, where there were so many children that each had to scratch for itself at an early age or go without, six years was considered comparatively mature, and the child who had lived that long was ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... in the last sentence and her proud soul rebelled, but smoothly as ever she spoke: "I have searched and there is not the littlest scratch. But Ananda is weeping because the deer is dead, and his mother is angry. What ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... Its solution seemed to be for the handsome young leader of the union to marry the daughter of the capitalist; and Paret remarked, with his dry smile, "No doubt if the capitalists and their daughters are willing, the union-leaders will come to the scratch." Again, Darrell was telling about the ten years' struggle he had waged to waken the Church to the great issue of the time; and how at last he had given up in despair. Paret remarked, "For my part, I never try to talk economics with preachers. When you talk to a business-man, he understands ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Richambeau as though to scratch his eyes out, but Ranulph held her back. "—And you are condemned, gunner," continued Richambeau dryly, "to marry the said maid before sundown, or be carried out to sea a prisoner of war." So saying, he laughed, and bade them begone ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... there was a third party which entered into the fray. The Tory party said they would run seven of the nine candidates; the Liberals claimed to run the whole nine; so this third party came up to the scratch and said they would run three candidates for the sole purpose of splitting the votes. The names of those who composed this little party were Joseph Fieldhouse, Bill Spink, "Little" Barnes, Adam Moore, James Leach, Dick Royston and myself. Our meetings ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... seems an age since I saw you. I want to catch our first post ... (this phrase I ought to get stereotyped—I need it so constantly). The day is fine ... you will profit by it, I trust. 'Flush, wag your tail and grow restless and scratch at the door!' ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... hand out of his breeches-pocket and stuck it in his back hair for a scratch, giving his hat a tilt over his nose, his one method of invoking wisdom. He stared at the ground with a ludicrously puzzled look, and presently looked up and met East's eyes. That young gentleman slapped ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... FIESCO. Then scratch this arm with thy dagger, till the blood flows. I will pretend that I have just now seized thee in fact. 'Tis well. (Hallooing violently). Murder! Murder! Guard the passages! Make fast the gates! (He drags the MOOR out ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... said the chaplain, not able to forego giving the girl a scratch of his claws. 'Mr Pendle's visits here must be ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Walton was Leigh Hunt. Here, again, I fancy that partizan prejudice had something to do with the dislike. Hunt was a radical in politics and religion. Moreover there was a feline strain in his character, which made it necessary for him to scratch somebody now and then, as a relief to ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... curly-haired lad, with big brown eyes and a lamentably noticeable scratch on his nose—acquired in less stately but more profitable pursuits. (It seems that he had peeled his nose while sliding to second base in a certain American game that he was teaching the juvenile aristocracy how to play.) His wavy hair was brown and ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... their own genuine English dress, and treat the French modes with the same philosophical contempt, which was shewn by an honest gentleman, distinguished by the name of Wig-Middleton. That unshaken patriot still appears in the same kind of scratch perriwig, skimming-dish hat, and slit sleeve, which were worn five-and-twenty years ago, and has invariably persisted in this garb, in defiance of all the revolutions of the mode. I remember a student ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... found a small case which contained books, the latest astronomical data sheets, and a space computer and scratch board. These were obviously for Rip's personal use. He examined them. There were all the references he would need for computing orbit, speed, and just about anything else that might be required. He had to admire the thoroughness of whoever had written the order. The unknown Planeteer ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... of exploring a specimen of these chasms (as we often select for minute examination a single painting out of an entire picture gallery) we made the descent to the Colorado by means of a crooked scratch upon a mountain side, which one might fancy had been blazed by a zigzag flash of lightning. As it requires four hours to wriggle down this path, and an equal amount of time to wriggle up, I spent ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... approaching up the path were indeed those of Fisher, splashed with the mire of travel and carrying a scratch like that of a bramble across one side of his bald forehead, and of the great and gray-haired statesman who looked like a baby and was interested in Eastern swords and swordmanship. But beyond this bodily recognition, March could make neither head nor tail of their presence or demeanor, ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... three hundred such do I Raise every year, her sisters; Go, in the woods your fortune try, All day for one poor earth-worm pry, And scratch your toes to blisters!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... there been six years of such far-flung internal preparedness in our history. And this has been done without any dictator's power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... produced her pocket-book again. "I shall scratch out your mark," she said sternly, "if I hear any more talk ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... on the part of women to form a new party, nor to favor their own sex. They are more inclined than men to scratch the ticket and, as illustrated in the case of Judge Lindsey, they sometimes rally efficiently around an independent candidate, especially on a moral issue. On the whole, women vote with their husbands, just as sons vote with ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... this means that he lied as to the perfect observance of this commandment. Hence Origen says (Tract. viii super Matth.) that "it is written in the Gospel according to the Hebrews that when our Lord had said to him: 'Go, sell all thou hast,' the rich man began to scratch his head; and that our Lord said to him: How sayest thou: I have fulfilled the law and the prophets, seeing that it is written in the law: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself? Behold many of thy brethren, children of Abraham, are clothed in filth, and die of hunger, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... through the narrow streets and lanes below. How small men seem, how like a swarm of ants sweltering in endless confusion on their tiny hill! How petty seems the work on which they are hurrying and skurrying! How childishly they jostle against one another and turn to snarl and scratch! They jabber and screech and curse, but their puny voices do not reach up here. They fret, and fume, and rage, and pant, and die; "but I, mein Werther, sit above it all; I am alone with ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... temper; they object to the ballet-skirts supplied by the Management as skimpy, and one of them throws up her part, which almost reduces Lulli to tears. The other undertakes it at a moment's notice, whereupon the first lady tries to scratch her eyes out, and then has a fit of hysterics. Both ladies have hysterics. A bell rings and, suddenly remembering that a Royal Ante-room is rather a public place to dress in, they catch up the ballet-skirts and flee, Attendants remove the dressing-tables. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... will," replied Kitty. "Isobel Carson rang up just now to ask if Nan would come over. It appears that, barring the injury to his back, he escaped without a scratch. He didn't even know he was hurt till he found he couldn't use his legs. Of course, he'll be in bed. Isobel says he seems almost his usual self, except that he won't let anyone sympathise with him over his injury. He's just savage ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... drab, Who there doth scratch herself with filthy nails, And crouches now, and now on ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... gesticulating complaint, who was literally soaked in blood. We had had our experience and so sending for an interpreter, we soused this fellow into a bathtub. Every dab came off and there was not a scratch under." ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... "I'm making a statement! He's not only a liar—he's a thief! He robbed me, the dastard; he got two thousand dollars of my money without giving me the scratch of a pen. Oh, ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... Feeling exceedingly hurt at such treatment, at a moment when I expected encouragement for having maintained the honour of my country while acting as a naval officer should have done, I wrote to him, 'You may scratch and be d——d.' This letter was, I think, very unfairly quoted against me some time afterwards in the House of Commons. However, my name was erased from the list of naval officers, and was not replaced there for several ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... from father to son, says, we bears (for it's their name) whilst we scraped the earth with our pawes, for to make the wheat grow for to maintaine our wives, not thinking that the deare shall leape over the lake to kill the Beare that slept; but they found that the beare could scratch the stagge, for his head and leggs are small to oppose. Such speeches have they commonly together, in such that they ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... for his college and for the redemption of Thor. Timorous and shrinking by nature, whenever his Alma Mater, or a friend, needed him the Human Encyclopedia fought down his painful timidity and came up to scratch nobly. ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... these Mussulman cemeteries with his unholy presence; but to-day they are unsurrounded by protecting fence or the moral restrictions of dominant Mussulmans, and the sheep, cows, and goats of the "infidel giaour" graze among them; and oh, shade of Mohammed! hogs also scratch their backs against the tombstones and root around, at their own sweet will, sometimes unearthing skulls and bones, which it is the Turkish custom not to bury at any great depth. The great number and extent of these cemeteries seem to appeal to the unaccustomed ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Early in February, a party of Dutch and Indians came to Montreal with news that peace had been signed in Europe; and, at the end of May, Major Peter Schuyler, accompanied by Dellius, the minister of Albany, arrived with copies of the treaty in French and Latin. The scratch of a pen at Byswick had ended the conflict in America, so far at least as concerned the civilized combatants. It was not till July that Frontenac received the official announcement from Versailles, coupled with an address from the king ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... the house, which he observed was situated at about an equal distance from three different railway stations and surrounded by a piazza with pillars. He walked around it, examining the vines until his eye caught a torn creeper and a white scratch on the paint. It had been an outside job after all, and two weeks had already been lost. Deduction was responsible for a mistake which would not have occurred had a little knowledge been acquired first. That is the ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... of those, Harry, who find it easy to be good-natured, and who are soft by nature, as cats are—not from their heart, but through instinctive propensity to softness. When it suits them, they scratch, even though they have been ever so soft before. Count Pateroff is a cat. You, Harry, I think are a dog." She perhaps expected that he would promise to her that he would be her dog—a dog in constancy ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... saffron in a battle; then he is the first to run away, shaking his plumes like a great yellow prancing cock,[378] while I am left to watch the nets.[379] Once back again in Athens, these brave fellows behave abominably; they write down these, they scratch through others, and this backwards and forwards two or three times at random. The departure is set for to-morrow, and some citizen has brought no provisions, because he didn't know he had to go; he stops in front of the statue ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... could manage it. Let me look again. Hem, hem—the first phrase to alter is this: 'I know her enough to feel deep solicitude and anxiety for your happiness if centred in a nature so imperious and vain'—scratch out 'your,' and put 'my.' All the rest good, good—till we come to 'affections which you ascribe to her, and suppose devoted to yourself'—for 'yourself' write 'myself'—the rest will do. Now, then, the date—we must change it to the present month, and ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... porly. When Massa Jim goes, 'pears like takin' de light right out her eyes. Dat ar' boy trains roun' arter his mudder like a cosset, he does. Lor', de house seems so still widout him!—can't a fly scratch his ear but it starts a body. Missy Marvyn she sent down, an' says, would you an' de Doctor an' Miss Mary please come to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... not think it would look right on the stage. As Katherine she wanted me to wear steely silver and bronzy gold, but all the brocades had such insignificant designs. If they had a silver design on them it looked under the lights like a scratch in white cotton! At last Mrs. Carr found a black satin which on the right side was timorously and feebly patterned with a meandering rose and thistle. On the wrong side of it was a sheet of silver—just ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... exert a constant inhibitive influence on the excitability of those below. The reflexes of an animal with its hemispheres wholly or in part removed become exaggerated. You all know that common reflex in dogs, whereby, if you scratch the animal's side, the corresponding hind leg will begin to make scratching movements, usually in the air. Now in dogs with mutilated hemispheres this scratching reflex is so incessant that, as Goltz first described them, the hair gets ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... could make me; whereupon the huge creature trod short, and, looking round about under him for some time, at last espied me as I lay on the ground. He considered awhile, with the caution of one who endeavors to lay hold on a small dangerous animal in such a manner that it may not be able either to scratch or to bite him, as I myself have sometimes done with a weasel ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... hand throbbed with unbearable agony. The room began to spin slowly on its axis. There was no mist now, or even a shadow, and every sense was abnormally acute. The objects in the whirling room were phenomenally clear; even a scratch on the front of ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... egotism helped him to forget himself. She never asked him how he was, she never expected impossibilities. She let him come and go and act as he pleased, never demanding reasons. Like the kitten, she was charming and graceful and easily amused; it was possible that, also like the kitten, she could scratch and be spiteful on occasion, but that did not weigh with him. He sometimes expressed a vague envy of the late Lord Astrupp; but, even had circumstances permitted, it is doubtful whether he would have chosen to be his ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... or believed in the existence of any, that we may take his good opinion as almost final and without appeal. One author, for whose opinion I have already exprest a very high respect, says that he was but a wild man of the woods to the last; polished over skin-deep with Roman civilization; 'Scratch him, and you found the barbarian underneath {101}.' It may be true. If it be true, it is a very high compliment. It was not from his Roman civilization, but from his 'barbarian' mother and father, that he drew the 'vive intelligence ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... I didn't I should have to watch Sarah every minute to see she didn't put something hot on it or scratch the mahogany top. I can't afford to have everything I've got spoiled. No knowin' when I'll git anything more—dependent as I am ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... if occasion required, to lead the troops into action and always manifesting the most perfect indifference to the shot and shell or the whizzing minie balls that fell around her. She seemed entirely devoid of fear, and though so constantly exposed to the enemy's fire never received even a scratch. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... very trusty widow, who came to our house twice a week, and I remember finding her in tears, and asking what was the matter. "Ah! c'est Monsieur qui m'a grondee," she sobbed desperately. "But what has he said to put you in such a state?" "Oh! he did not say much; only, 'Lazarette, why will you scratch off the paint with the matches?' ... 'Mais quand Monsieur gronde,'" ... and ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... to twiddle my fingers, and scratch my head, and jump up and down every two minutes and a half," said Uncle Andy rather severely. "But, as I was going to say, they also got used to seeing me sitting on the bank, quiet and harmless, till they no longer felt so shy of ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... He is a thrifty dog; he thinks of the future. "You never know what may happen," he says; "suppose the Guv'nor dies, or goes mad, or bankrupt, I may be glad even of this biscuit; I'll put it under the door-mat—no, I won't, somebody will find it there. I'll scratch a hole in the tennis lawn, and bury it there. That's a good idea; perhaps it'll grow!" Once I caught him hiding it in my study, behind the shelf devoted to my own books. It offended me, his doing that; the argument was ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... "It only has four legs and a cunning little tail; and we know how to hold it so it can't scratch us, anyway; but it won't put out its head again until it thinks we've gone away, because this is an old one. See, the shell covers my hand all over. The littler ones are livelier and more willing to put out their heads. I don't believe we've had this one before, Ernest," added Faith, examining ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... neck he held the dog's head to the ground, so that Shiro began to scratch and dig in order to free himself from the horrid old ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... and rest with us." "Thank you," said Lizzie; "but one waits At home alone for me: So, without further parleying, If you will not sell me any Of your fruits though much and many, Give me back my silver penny I tossed you for a fee." They began to scratch their pates, No longer wagging, purring, But visibly demurring, Grunting and snarling. One called her proud, Cross-grained, uncivil; Their tones waxed loud, Their looks were evil. Lashing their tails They trod and hustled her, Elbowed and jostled her, Clawed with their nails, Barking, mewing, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... climate, it was the most perfect on earth. It was never too hot, and never too cold, but always warm and sunny. The soil was so fertile that one had but to scratch it to produce the finest crops. Delicious fruits grew everywhere, and might be gathered all the year round. The meadows were made beautiful, and the air scented, with the loveliest of flowers. In fact Louisiana was painted ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... with a great retinue, a whole village complete when they camped, and announced that he and his people had some fifty thousand dollars in sight to stake on the race; which, of course, was to be a scratch race for both. The soldiers, being very human, raised all they could—and much that they couldn't, really—to cover this handsome sum. Red Cloud then returned to ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... motions! There! one has reared herself half way out of the water; another stretches forth a delicate web foot to scratch her ear, as handily as a dog on dry land; and now the drake reflects his purple neck to preen his ruffled wing, and now—bad luck to you, Peacock, why did you snort and stamp?—they are off like a bullet, and out of sight in ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Sheridan deprecate the attempt to confuse moderate Reform with reckless innovation. Burke illogically but effectively dragged in the French spectre, and Windham declared that the public mind here, as in other lands, was in such a state that the slightest scratch might produce a ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... people who had no sheep, the sight was a very fine one (so far at least as the weather permitted any sight at all); yet for us, with our flock beneath it, this great mount had but little charm. Watch began to scratch at once, and to howl along the sides of it; he knew that his charge was buried there, and his business taken from him. But we four men set to in earnest, digging with all our might and main, shovelling away at the great white pile, and fetching it into the meadow. Each man made ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... fluke," said Sidney lightly. "His real influence is only superficial. Scratch the Christian ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the man at the fire. He had removed his tin cup and was engaged in stirring its grimy contents with a small stick. "That's a charm; some kind of hoodoo business that one o' them priests gave him to keep him out o' trouble. I know them Cath'lics. That's how come Frenchy got permoted an never got a scratch sence he's been in the ranks. Hey, French! aint I right?" Edmond looked ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... he stopped, as on the previous night, being overcome by a sudden sense of silence. There was not the faintest sound of gnaw, or scratch, or squeak. The silence was as of the grave. He remembered the odd occurrence of the previous night, and instinctively he looked at the chair standing close by the fireside. And then a very ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... whole game to the district attorney. That would be fun, wouldn't it? The district attorney wouldn't waste much time on Arthur P. Hawkins if he could land Gottlieb & Quibble in jail for subornation of perjury, would he—eh? We've got to scratch ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... coarse enough to scratch her skin off; not a thing can she use here," said Adele, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Drunkard! Out of her house!...It was the people's fault, for supporting such an infidel. She'd eat him up! Let them make way for her!... And she struggled violently with her friends, fighting to free herself and scratch out the doctor's eyes. To her vindictive cries were joined the weak bleating of Visanteta, protesting with the breath that was left her between her groans of pain. It was a lie! Let that wicked man be gone! What a nasty mouth he had! ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the ship inside planetary atmosphere, and arranging the lift engines so that they could be swung into line with the drive engines. There was a lot of cybernetic and robotic equipment, and astrogational equipment, that had to be made from scratch. Conn picked a couple of helpers and ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... mother," said the spirited lad, as he wiped the blood away; "at least only the scratch of an arrow while I was on the roof. Father wishes you to send all the women who are strong enough to help to carry water from the river. The well is dry, and the men cannot be spared from the embankment. We expect another attack, ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... a smooth and decent scholar, and when he was dreamy he would shove his scratch back from his forehead and shut his eyes and recite Homer or Virgil by the page together, while Lancelot and I listened open-mouthed, and I wondered what pleasure he got out of all that rigmarole. The heroes of Homer and of Virgil seemed to me very bloodless, boneless creatures ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the beds, the Squire busy writing to yourself, as it chances, and just at this moment somewhat bitten by mosquitoes. He has just set fire to the insect powder, and will be all right in no time; but just now he contemplates large white blisters, and would like to scratch them, but knows better. The house is not bare; it has been inhabited by Kanakas, and - you know what children are! - the bare wood walls are pasted over with pages from the GRAPHIC, HARPER'S WEEKLY, etc. The floor is matted, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... family, particularly Lady St. G. who I am truly rejoiced to hear is so much better. Say everything that is kind from me to her, and my apology for not writing is that my right hand is very weak, as you may see from my writing, from an inflammation I have had in it occasioned entirely by a slight scratch on the knuckle of the fore finger; but it is now quite ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... for them now. One of the worst symptoms in the man is his curt refusal to permit anybody else to admire one bright particular star of womanhood. If the girl hears another girl gushing over the young man, she's ready to scratch her eyes out. By Jove! It'll be many a day before you forget your visit to Roxton Park this morning, or yesterday morning, or whenever ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... term always opened with a scratch game against a mixed team of masters and old boys, and the school usually won without any great exertion. On this occasion the match had been rather more even than the average, and the team had only just pulled the thing off by a couple of tries to a goal. Otway expressed ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... favourite should be particularly discreet in all that he says: and next, he should have known that the Gallic shrug over matters political is volcanic—it is the heaving of the mountain, and, like the proverbial Russ, leaps up Tartarly at a scratch. Our newspapers also had been flea-biting M. Livret and his countrymen of late; and, to conclude, over in old England you may fly out against what you will, and there is little beyond a motherly smile, a nurse's rebuke, or a fool's rudeness to answer you. In quick-blooded France you have whip ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... who appeared was little Miss Jane, the mother's pet, because she was the youngest. She came squalling in to tell her mother that Dick had scratched her, though she could not show the scratch; and there was no peace until she was set on a high chair by her mother, and supplied with ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... council of war. What should we do—push on or go back? It seemed highly dangerous, but suddenly making up my mind, I cut short all deliberations and ordered an advance. To feel for the enemy, to get in touch with the enemy at all costs, and to scratch him if possible, is evidently the scout's duty, even when the scout is but a siege amateur, with broken trousers, a mud-stained shirt and a battered rifle. But we must make ourselves secure. We bolted the big gates behind us; we sweatily ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... rubbish. Fraulein von Vieradlers had attacked it before her astonished companion, also alighting, came to her aid. There was witchery in the creature, for her delicate, ungloved hands, covered with rings, tugged at the roughly hewn tree-trunks and misshapen blocks of stone without a scratch and, as her frame offered no suggestion of strength, the swiftness with which they were moved, confirmed the idea of the supernatural. As soon as he recovered from his amazement, he aided her energetically, and in an incredibly ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... let the monkey go, and rushed at the heavily-laden bushes. The monkey slipped away secretly, and climbed up a tree, where he could enjoy the discomfiture of his voracious friend. The crocodile began to cough, sneeze, and scratch his tongue. When he rushed to the river to cool his mouth, the monkey ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... That is not the sound of a scratch that you hear. It cannot be any insect nor any process of moving life in the stone or beneath it. Can you liken it to any thing but the equal motion of a rather ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... constant play told of full crops and no fear for the night, already softly gray across the white silent fields. The air was crisper; the snow began to crackle under foot; the twigs creaked and rattled as I brushed along; a brown beech leaf wavered down and skated with a thin scratch over the crust; and pure as the snow-wrapped crystal world, and sweet as the soft gray twilight, came ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... never been able to discover. As long as they are at play on their machines these whirr like the propeller of a Handley-Page. They get down millions of words a minute. But when they have got the job apparently done, they simmer away to nothing. They perform mysterious rites with ink-eraser. They scratch feebly with knives. They hold up to the light, they tittivate, they muse and they adorn. It is not the slightest use intimating that you do not care twopence whether there are typographic errors or not—the expert typist treats you with ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... Sir Claude Scratch was a very different person. He was proud of his high family, for his father was second cousin to Dick Whittington's Cat, and had seen a great deal of the world. Sir Claude was very proud of his ...
— A Apple Pie and Other Nursery Tales • Unknown
... object of our solicitude five hundred feet deep in its bosom. The sagacity of Mr. Bonflon relieved us from our dilemma. He hoisted out the small car or tender, and, letting it down with great care and precision, safely accomplished the object. In the space of half an hour, De Aery, without a scratch, and, like a gallant Gaul, rather proud of his adventure than frightened at it, was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... that in this regard we have discovered an essential characteristic of the Japanese nature. With reference to the reported savagery displayed by Japanese troops at Port Arthur, it has been said and repeated that you have only to scratch the Japanese skin to find the Tartar, as if the recent development of human feelings were superficial, and his real character were exhibited in his most cruel moments. To get a true view of the case let us look for a few moments at some other parts of the world, and ask ourselves ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... face of the paper and probably cause the ink to run. The less rubbing out the better the learner will progress, and the more satisfaction he will receive from the results. If it becomes necessary to scratch out it is best done with a penknife well sharpened, and not applied too forcibly to the paper but somewhat lightly, and moved in different and not all in one direction. After the penknife the rubber ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... incessant fighting among them," said the white-bearded peasant with the shining eyes. "The women will scratch each other's eyes out." ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... instead of finding his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks. 'Aha!' she cried mockingly, 'you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again.' The king's son was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... one trying to bite at the delicious morsel. Selfishness reigns everywhere. When she has eaten her fill, she makes way for another, who in her turn becomes intolerant. One after the other, all the inmates of the menagerie come and refresh themselves. After cramming their crops, they scratch the soles of their feet a little with their mandibles, polish up their forehead and eyes with a leg moistened with spittle and then, hanging to the trellis-work or lying on the sand in a posture of contemplation, blissfully they digest and slumber most of the day, especially during the ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... again after his accident and the subsequent operation. To any one who knows the climate, the reason will be easily understood. In that heated air of Central Equatorial Africa, tainted with all manner of harmful germs, a scratch will take a month to heal, and any considerable flesh wound may well prove a death warrant. Captain Kettle nursed his patient with a woman's tenderness, and Clay himself struggled gamely against his fate; but the ills of the place ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... serious mood his face was strong and rugged. His beard, cropped close, reminded me of scraps of wire, some of them rusted; and when he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand I wondered that he did not scratch the ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... the grass to be mown, And call all her children to follow; And scratch up the seeds that were sown, Then, lie in their ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... rather too innocently on this occasion. Miss Farrar was not dull, and had suspected from the beginning who was at the bottom of the mischief; indeed, it was easy enough by this time to trace the noise to the right spot, for the kitten had begun to scratch, and lifted up its voice in a series of emphatic wails, evidently protesting ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... for the Communists," Cuthbert said, "not one spark. They would not pull a trigger or risk a scratch for the defence of Paris against the Germans, now they are fighting like wild-cats against their countrymen. Look there," he exclaimed, suddenly, "there is a fire broken out close to the Place de la Concorde, ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... to them that I wanted to show, during my inquiries, both sides of the question, and should be glad if they would point out to me the name of a Gipsy whom they could look up to and consider as a good pattern for them to follow. Here they began to scratch their heads, and said I had put them "a nightcap on." "Upon my soul," said one, "I should not know where to begin to look for one," and then related to me the following story:—"The Devil sent word to some of his agents for them to send him the worst man they could find upon the face of the ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... acted," said Harry, with a laugh, "and old Scratch isn't half bad 'nough. Say! She wanted to have a wedding for her best doll the other day, and she cut a lace curtain off a yard from the floor to make a ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... scene immediately afterwards, and found them all lying unconscious as the result of the explosion, but they soon revived and took a stout part in rescuing the horses. The construction was completely wrecked, and the clothes they wore were stripped into ribbons, but only one of them had a scratch on him. ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... look danger in the face; face; meet, meet in front; brave, beard; defy &c 715. take courage, muster courage, summon up courage, pluck up courage; nerve oneself, take heart; take heart, pluck up heart of grace; hold up one's head, screw one's courage to the sticking place; come up to scratch; stick to one's guns, standfire^, stand against; bear up, bear up against; hold out &c (persevere) 604.1. put a bold face upon; show a bold front, present a bold front; show fight; face the music. bell the cat, take the bull by the horns, beard ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together), the old woman comes with a nutshell full of the matter of the best sort of smallpox, and asks what vein you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer with a large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and puts into the vein as much matter as can lie upon the head of her needle, and after that binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell; and in this manner opens four ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... a kind of right-whale; they get barnacles and a kind of marine lice on their backs, and come up and scratch them selves against a ship's keel, just like a ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... bridge. The son was the head of the family when I came in; and I found that he had it all arranged to leave thirty million dollars to one of his sons, and only ten million to my husband. I set to work to change that, I can tell you. I used to go around to see him, and scratch his back and tickle him and make him feel good. Of course the family went wild—my, how they hated me! They set old Ellis to work to keep me off—have ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. It is more handy than a label, as there is no risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case. Inference,—that ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... covering the bath served him for writing-table; an empty wooden box at his side bore an inkstand, some pens, sheets of paper, and two or three copies of L'Ami do Peuple. There was no sound in the room but the scratch and splutter of his quill. He was writing diligently, revising and editing a proof of the forthcoming issue ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... infantrymen who entered and held Bagwana, and covered him and the gunners during the long and arduous struggle to extricate the guns from their lair in the deep and rugged watercourse. This was at length accomplished, scratch teams were improvised, and the guns, which were uninjured although the ammunition boxes had been emptied, were brought into the ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... heart) 'There's your wage; all you deserve and all you'll get:' and pointed to the sunshine. The elder brothers were dumfoundered when they heard that; but the lad, who happened to have his knife with him, said, 'We accept, King, the gift.' With his knife he made a scratch around the sunstreak on the floor, took the shine of it three times into the fold of his kirtle"—his pocket, we should say nowadays—"and went his way." Eventually he became king of Macedonia, and ancestor of ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... a smile of deep pleasure; and turning to me he added, "I really called to play this over with the master. Shall you mind if I scratch it through?" ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... To Lydia, at this moment, it seemed as if every girl must be seeking what she sought. "And I call it very bold of her to come poking herself where she isn't wanted—running after a young man. I'd be ashamed." A longing to scratch Miss Lisle's face was mixed with a longing to have a good cry, for she was honestly suffering the pangs of unrequited love. It is true that it was not for the first time. The curl, the earrings, the songs, the Language of Flowers, had done duty more than once before. But wounds may be painful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... "You'll scratch my eyes out. I shan't see— anything!" His mouth apparently was full of earth. They watched the retreating soles of his heavy shooting-boots. Slowly the feet were dragged in after him. They disappeared from ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... Lady Delahaye said, smiling. "I want to relieve you and your conscience at the same time of a very awkward incubus. Listen! This is what I propose. Let Isobel come to me for a year! I shall treat her as my own daughter. She will have plenty of amusement. There are the theatres, and no end of scratch entertainments where one can take a girl of her age who is too young for society. She will mix with young people of her own age, she will have every advantage which, to speak frankly, must be denied to her in her present position. At the end of that year I shall tell her her history. ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... quite used to making ten thousand dollar bargains in a few seconds of time and without the scratch of a pen. I had risked more money than that on the fact that Slater looked worried and Bawker was very cross when at his office, and it had won immensely. But here, what a prospect, what a far-reaching, all-encircling ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... thus: "This little maid Of love shall always speak and write;" "And I pronounce," the Satyr said, "The world shall feel her scratch and bite." ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... after a pause and then went on. "The little stone church of her uncle, the holy man of the family, might have been round the corner of the next spur of the nearest hill. I dismounted to bandage the shoulder of my trooper. It was only a nasty long scratch. While I was busy about it a bell began to ring in the distance. The sound fell deliciously on the ear, clear like the morning light. But it stopped all at once. You know how a distant bell stops suddenly. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... with a crown of black lace. At the same time some serious cases came to the main hospital; one man seemed to have been shot the whole length of his body, the bullet entering at the shoulder and emerging behind the hip. A small boy sat scratching. Jo said to him, "Why dost thou scratch?" He answered with a shout of fatuous content, "I have lice, I have lice," and scratched ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... Registrar, don't say that," exclaimed Matilda. "If you don't go on now, he'll never marry me; I'll never be able to bring 'im to the scratch again. Indeed, sir, 'e's not so drunk as he looks. 'Tis mostly the effect of the morning hair ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... barrowful of gravel, or line their box with sand-paper, and you may leave them naked as they were born! But, bless thy five wits! did you never hear the proverb,'Diamond cut diamond'? They're all of a sort, you see! I'd as soon shut up a thousand game-cocks in the same cellar. If they don't scratch each other, they may, or they might, or they could, or they would, or at any rate they should scratch each other. It was all very well so long as they lay in the wall of this your old diamond-mine. But now you'll be for ever playing with them! ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... to give the strength of the respective crews. James says the Americans had 580, all "picked men." They were just as much picked men as Barclay's were, and no more; that is, the ships had "scratch" crews. Lieutenant Emmons gives Perry 490 men; and Lossing says he "had upon his muster-roll 490 names." In vol. xiv, p. 566, of the American State Papers, is a list of the prize-monies owing to each man (or to the survivors of the killed), which gives a grand total of 532 men, including ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... lock of the jewel-case had been very deftly repaired by an expert locksmith, who in executing his task was so unfortunate as to scratch a finger on the broken metal, whereupon blood poisoning set in, and although his life was saved, he was dismissed from the hospital with his right arm gone and ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... is only a scratch through my own clumsiness," he answered, nodding his good-mornings to us. "This case of yours, Mr. Phelps, is certainly one of the darkest which ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... see where he invested," Link said. "Wasn't a scratch of a pen to show that he invested anything while he was in the bank. Guess that's where our ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Mackerel Kit Is not like other cats a bit; She cannot mew or scratch or purr, She has no whiskers and no fur. Yet, like all cats, her dearest wish Is just to be filled up with fish; But (and this isn't so feline) She always takes them ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... asked with real concern. It ran into her mind that the conventional hero of romance makes his wound a scratch before his lady. If she expected that from Bertram Chester, he ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... had discovered that something about Badger's delivery bothered Ready. Badger himself saw this, and he tried a change of pace, but the batter caught it on the handle of his "wagon-tongue," and drove out a "scratch hit" that ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... here to tell you all this," she continued, offering me no opportunity of giving my opinions on the stars and moon. "I simply wanted to say that I am so glad and thankful to be walking about on the surface of the earth with whole bones and not a scratch from head to foot"—at this point my heart began to sink: I never do know what to say when people are grateful to me—"that I am going to show you my gratitude by treating you as I know you would like ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... Ritter struck me with a snowball, on the hand, and it left a deep scratch. Now, no ordinary snowball would do that. Besides that, I picked up a sharp stone ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... known have had presentiments of their approaching death. Some have been killed on the occasion they expected, while others who appeared equally certain of being summoned away have come out of action without scratch. Others, again, whom I have seen laughing and jesting as if they had a long lease of life before them, have, within a few hours perhaps, been stretched lifeless on the deck. I have come to the conclusion, therefore, that no one can tell when his last ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... till the time for going. Never in my life up to that time had desire been so strong in me. When I knew she must go I insisted on again doing it, but could not come up to the scratch, until with a sharp frig it stiffened and again it was put up her. What a long hard poke it was, what a test of my manhood, how proud was I when with a sharp and sudden pleasure I felt my spunk squirting up her dear quim, and a spasmodic clutch, a sharp sob and "dear Walter," ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... this little seat, I never now poor puss will beat, So let me feel how soft your feet, Since you don't scratch. ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... there are no temptations on the mountains. And during my absence you may pay a visit to Staningley, if you like: your uncle and aunt have long been wanting us to go there, you know; but somehow there's such a repulsion between the good lady and me, that I never could bring myself up to the scratch.' ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... G'-yovernor and K'-yunnel George Washington! Well, you must know, we marched up the g'yully that runs from the river; and bang went the savages' g'-yuns, and smash went their hatchets; and it came to close quarters, a regular rough-and-tumble, hard scratch! And so I war a-head of the Major, and the Major war behind, and the fight had made him as vicious as a wild cat, and he war hungry for a shot; and so says he to me, for I war right afore him, 'Git out of my way, you damned big rascal, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... windmill vainly yearns To pause, and scratch its swallow-haunted head, Yet at the wind's relentless urging turns Its flying arms in wild appeal outspread; So am I vex'd by vain desire, that burns These barren places whence the hair hath fled, To wander far amid the woodland ferns, Where dewdrops shine along the gossamer thread; Where ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... if I didn't I should have to watch Sarah every minute to see she didn't put something hot on it or scratch the mahogany top. I can't afford to have everything I've got spoiled. No knowin' when I'll git anything more—dependent as ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... pity. "In the first place, we takes care to keep the vork-shop almost impregnable; so that, if they attempts a surprise, we has lots o' time to get the things out o' the way. In the next, if it comes to the scratch—which is a matter of almost life and death to us—we stands ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... received a dangerous hurt under the right arm, in consequence of which his friends insisted on his remaining in camp during the action of the next day, but his spirit was too great to comply with this remonstrance. He declared it should never be said that a scratch, received in a private rencounter, had prevented him from doing his duty, when his country required his service; and he took the field with a fusil in his hand, though he was hardly able to carry his arms. In leading up his men to the enemy's intrenchment, he was shot through the lungs with a musquet ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... to be a match on Saturday, and I'll ask Miss Latimer to let you be in it. It's a scratch team from the Lower School against prefects and monitresses. I've no doubt we shall be badly beaten, but it really doesn't matter. ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the front of his men, "G'wan," he would yell. "Whatddye think you're doin'! Tickling 'em with a straw! That's a bayonet you got there, not a tennis rackit. You couldn't scratch your initials on a Fritz that way. Put a little guts into ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... going to come up to the scratch," said Ned M'Gill to the other honourable gent—as they passed the Clydesdale Cricket Ground a few minutes to four o'clock on that memorable morning. Ned, however, was wrong. Through the grey dawn a muffled figure ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... are excellent dancers—every one of them—and when you are gliding around, your chin, or perhaps your nose, getting a scratch now and then from a gorgeous gold epaulet, you feel as light as a feather, and imagine yourself with a fairy prince. Of course the officers were in full-dress uniform Friday night, so I know just what I am talking about, scratches and all. Every woman appeared ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... of some very soft material such as nainsook, batiste, pearline, or sheer lawn cloth. Twenty-seven inches is the length that will be found both comfortable and convenient. All laces, ruffles, and heavy bands which will scratch or irritate should be avoided as eczema is often ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what veins you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her with a large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and puts into the vein as much venom as can lie upon the head of her needle, and after that binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell; and in this manner opens four or five veins. The Grecians have commonly the superstition of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... fairly stood up when the brute was discovered stark and dead without a scratch upon him. Recourse was again had to the jug, and ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... at Germantown, of Jack, he was raging in a furious mob of redcoats, with no hat, and that sword my aunt presented cutting and parrying. I gave him up for lost, but he never got a scratch. I like him best in camp with starving, half-naked men. I have seen him give his last loaf away. You should hear Mr. Hamilton—that is his Excellency's aide—talk of Jack; how like a tender woman he was among men ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... I says to it, as I flipped over the pages, "you ain't ever lied to me yet, and you ain't ever throwed me down at a scratch yet. Tell me what, old boy, tell me ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... and bending a little, began to scratch with her nail the patterns of ice that covered the window-pane. I went hastily into the next room, and sending my servant away, came back at once and lighted another candle. I had no clear idea why I was doing all this.... I was greatly overcome. ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... be well received, you must also pay some attention to your behaviour at table, where it is exceedingly rude to scratch any part of your body; to spit, or blow your nose, if you can possibly avoid it, to eat greedily, to lean your elbows on the table, to pick your teeth before the dishes are removed, or to leave the table ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... quite unforeseen turns up it will come off. I told Simpkins that she had a large fortune and was the niece of an earl. Those facts, in addition to her personal charm, will, I imagine, bring him rapidly up to the scratch. I can do no more for the present. That's why I said I was like the blacksmith and had ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... pinning up the queen's hair, there was a sudden rap-tap at the dressing-room door. Extremely surprised, I looked at the queen, to see what should be done; she did not speak. I had never heard such a sound before, for at the royal doors there Is always a peculiar kind of scratch used, instead of tapping. I heard it, however, again,—and the queen called out, "What is that?" I Was really startled, not conceiving who could take so strange a liberty as to come to the queen's apartment without the announcing of a page - and no page, I was very sure, would make ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Studies. But he had not been reared in a literary atmosphere. He had been brought up among horses and dogs, with grooms and keepers, on the moors and the sea. He describes it himself as "the old wild scratch way, when the keeper was the rabbit-catcher, and sporting was enjoyed more for the adventure than for the bag." He never lost his love of sport, and he gave his own son the same training he had himself. Even in his last illness he liked the young man to go out shooting, and always asked what ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... took off his boots and tunic; all around him, the others were doing the same. Sleep-gas didn't have to be breathed; it could enter the nervous system by any orifice or lesion, even a pore or a scratch. A spacesuit was the only protection. One of the detectives helped him on with his metal and plastic armor; before sealing his gauntlets, he reciprocated the assistance, then checked the needler and blaster and the long batonlike ultrasonic paralyzer on his ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... deep cut on his cheek, he finished the run—fortunately for him a very fast and long one—with imperturbable pluck and with no further misadventure. "Nasty cut that," I said to him as we trained back together, "you'd better get it properly looked to in town." "Pooh," said JOHNNIE, "it's a mere scratch. Did you see the brute take me into the tree? By Jove, it must have been a comic sight!" and with that he set off again on another burst ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... man was rounded up, among others a body of American engineers. Laborers, sappers, raw recruits as well as soldiers of every arm. There were plenty of machine guns, but few men knew how to handle them. With this scratch army in temporary trenches, he lay for six days, and as Lloyd George said, "They held the German army and closed that gap on ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... produced by electrolysis a kind of antimony which exhibits an action strikingly analogous to that of nervous propagation. A rod of this antimony is in such a molecular condition that when you scratch or heat one end of the rod, the disturbance propagates itself before your eyes to the other end, the onward march of the disturbance being announced by the development of heat and fumes along the line of propagation. In some such ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... just what had occurred, saw the tall man—he must have been tall for his boot toes to scratch the earth yonder while his rifle-barrel lay for support across the boulder in front—resting his gun and firing down into the canon—Lee was back ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... handed to the bride to hold and rolled up his sleeves. He knew quite well who had thrown the missile. A ring was at once formed, and the fight began. It only lasted, however, for three rounds. The bridegroom was victorious; he escaped without a scratch. The other man was, as he richly deserved to be, severely punished. It was, however, just as well for him that this was the case, otherwise we would have ducked him in the muddiest tail race within reach. As the victor marched off with his ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... he reached the rear window, and swung himself upon the fire escape. There was no one in sight. The gray surface of the ironwork showed not the slightest scratch, save those made by his own heels earlier in the day. The steps of the ladder leading up to the next floor were glistening, immaculate. Those of the one to the floor below were equally so. He re-entered the room, and going to the opposite window, ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... then treated as copper. On brass, copper, German silver, nickel and such metals, silver can be plated direct. The deposit of silver will be dull and must be polished. The best method is to use a revolving scratch brush; if one does not possess a buffing machine, a hand scratch brush is good. Take quick, light strokes. Polish the articles ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... suffering patience. They always spoke as if they felt where their words were going—as if they were hearing them arrive—as if the mind they addressed were a bright silver table on which they must not set down even the cup of the water of life roughly: it must make no scratch, no jar, no sound beyond a faint sweet salutation. Pain had taught them not sensitiveness but delicacy. A hundred are sensitive for one that is delicate. Sensitiveness is a miserable, a cheap thing in itself, but invaluable if it be used for the nurture of delicacy. ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... and while she continued to search out objects in the darkness she saw the stranger reappear around the corner of the cabin and approach the door. He fumbled at it for a moment and threw it open. He disappeared within and an instant later Sheila heard the scratch of a match and saw a feeble glimmer of light shoot out through the doorway. Then the ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... in my life was "church," with a heavy sea on, in the saloon of the Cunard steamer coming out. The officiating minister, an extremely modest young man, was brought in between two big stewards, exactly as if he were coming up to the scratch in a prize-fight. The ship was rolling and pitching so, that the two big stewards had to stop and watch their opportunity of making a dart at the reading-desk with their reverend charge, during ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... darker than ever. Is this the way to the little court? Surely those are not the steps that lead down toward the bath? Oh yes! we are right; I smell the lemon-blossoms. Beware of the old wilding that bears them; it may catch your veil; it may scratch your fingers! Pray, take care: it has many thorns about it. And now, Leonora! you shall hear my last verses! Lean your ear a little toward me; for I must repeat them softly under this low archway, else others may hear them ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... saw the face, they were struck dumb by its beauty, and I think tears sprang into the eyes of some of them. No such perfect piece of marble had ever been found before. There was not a scratch. The skin still glowed with the polishing that Praxiteles' own hands had given it. There was even a hint of color on the lips. The soft clay bed had saved the falling statue. Here was a statue that the whole world would love. It would make ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... Monte-Cristo and Captain Morrel performed prodigies of valor, animating and encouraging their troops both by word and example. Finally the outlaws were completely subdued, such of them as had not been slain having been made prisoners. The Count escaped without a scratch, but Maximilian was slightly wounded in the ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... slender lawyer with the brown coat worn shiny, the scratch wig tied with its black wisp of silk, and the black bag in his hand. He had been taking a survey of the room, and started round quickly at the entrance of my grandmother. Then he made a deep bow, and grandmother, who ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... look of doubt in her companion's face, and correctly surmised what she was thinking. "Perhaps he will, but I don't believe so. He is quick to understand things. Now we will skip back to the post-office and I'll scratch him a letter of explanation, so it will go out with to-day's mail. Then if he shouldn't translate the telegram correctly—well, the letter will get there as ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... killed me to bring him to the boat, and surely I never would have succeeded had it not been for the record Captain Dan coveted. That was the strangest feature in all my wonderful Clemente experience—to see that superb swordfish looped in a noose of my long leader. He was without a scratch. It may serve to give some faint idea of the bewildering possibilities in the pursuit of this royal purple game ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... chatting, and then Monsieur the Viscount bids his friend good-night, and holds him towards Madame that she may do the same. But Madame (who did not enjoy Monsieur Crapaud's society in prison) cannot be induced to do more than scratch his head delicately with the tip of her white finger. But she respects him greatly, at a distance, she says. Then they go back along the terrace, and are met by a man-servant in Monsieur the ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... business to the guides. They did not gossip; they shuffled the thick greasy cards with a deft ferocity menacing to the "sports;" and Joe Paradise, king of guides, was sarcastic to loiterers who halted the game even to scratch. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... that drew ill drew not at all. He did well. Then either there were no pictures in his book, or (if there were any) they were done by some other man that loved him not a groat and would not have walked half a mile to see him hanged. But now it is so easy for a man to scratch down what he sees and put it in his book that any fool may do it and be none the worse—many others shall follow. This ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... inert thing. His nose, however, which was hooked like a vulture's beak, was violently dilated to breathe in the air, and his little eyes, with their gummed lashes, shone with a hard and metallic lustre. He held a spatula of aloe-wood in his hand wherewith to scratch ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... from a squire of Lot With whom he used to play at tourney once, When both were children, and in lonely haunts Would scratch a ragged oval on the sand, And each at either dash from either end— Shame never made girl redder than Gareth joy. He laughed; he sprang. 'Out of the smoke, at once I leap from Satan's foot to Peter's knee— These news be mine, none other's—nay, the King's— Descend ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... the Communists," Cuthbert said, "not one spark. They would not pull a trigger or risk a scratch for the defence of Paris against the Germans, now they are fighting like wild-cats against their countrymen. Look there," he exclaimed, suddenly, "there is a fire broken out close to the Place de la Concorde, ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... post, to put his mark to it, and when he was gone, Jacob came to me (I'm the only man in the parish who can make him hear) to ask what it was about. So upon my explaining the matter, Jacob found he had got into the wrong box. But as the chap had taken away his petition, and Jacob could not scratch out his name, what does he do but set his mark to ours o' t'other side; and we've wrote all about it to Sir Robert to explain to the Parliament, lest seeing Jacob's name both ways like, they should think 'twas he, poor fellow, that meant to humbug 'em. A pretty ...
— Aunt Deborah • Mary Russell Mitford
... and sets his pegs to stir up a revolution and upset the administration. It's one of my little chores as private secretary to smell out these revolutions and affix the kibosh before they break out and scratch the paint off the government property. That's why I'm down here now in this mildewed coast town. The governor of the district and his crew are plotting to uprise. I've got every one of their names, and they're invited to listen to the phonograph to-night, ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... by a fever for two or three days before the eruption, which is liable to appear in some places, as it declines in others; and seems frequently to arise from a previous scratch or injury of the skin; and is attended sometimes with inflammation of the cellular membrane beneath the skin; whence a real phlegmon and collection of matter becomes joined to the erysipelas, and either occasions or increases the irritated fever, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... through all the campaigns in which the regiment was engaged without a scratch, except a close call from a minie ball at Sabine's Cross Roads, which took the skin off the back of her left hand, voted with the other members of the regiment for president in 1864, and was finally mustered out with her comrades at the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... placed all her hope, expecting to have a fine brood of chickens, and to make a good profit of them. And having one day to go out on some business, she called her son, and said to him, "My pretty son of your own mother, listen to what I say: keep your eye upon the hen, and if she should get up to scratch and pick, look sharp and drive her back to the nest; for otherwise the eggs will grow cold, and then we shall ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... much, more talkative than any of the others; they certainly did appear to chatter to her when she fed them. She gave them clean, comfortable quarters, warm bran mash on cold winter mornings, alternating with cracked corn and "scratch feed" composed of a mixture of cracked corn, wheat and buckwheat, scattered over a litter of dried leaves on the floor of the chicken house, so they were obliged to ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... for that, neither." Suddenly she burst into a hysterical wail. "Oh, dear!" she sobbed. "Oh, dear! Here I've worked early an' late. Here I've got up in the mornin' before light an' worked till most dawn, an' me none too strong, never was, and always havin' to scratch for myself, a poor, lone woman, an' here I am in debt, an' they sendin' out for the money; an' I've worked so hard to build up my business, an' tried to make things nice, an' please, an' here I've ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... continued his low importunate whine, and began to scratch against the door. The lad threw it open—the dog brushed past him in an instant, and his quick, short, continuous yelping, expressed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... blackmailing letter. You remember old Mother Hubbard in our house at school? He's a little solicitor somewhere in the City; he'll throw the whole thing into legal shape for us, and ask no questions and tell no tales. You leave Mr. Shylock to me and Mother, and we'll bring him up to the scratch ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... cemeteries with his unholy presence; but to-day they are unsurrounded by protecting fence or the moral restrictions of dominant Mussulmans, and the sheep, cows, and goats of the "infidel giaour" graze among them; and oh, shade of Mohammed! hogs also scratch their backs against the tombstones and root around, at their own sweet will, sometimes unearthing skulls and bones, which it is the Turkish custom not to bury at any great depth. The great number and extent of these cemeteries seem to appeal ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the lords and ladies of honor Were plagued, awake and in bed; The queen she got them upon her, The maids were bitten and bled. And they did not dare to brush them, Or scratch them, day or night: We crack them and we crush them, ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... said, with a sigh, "What becomes of old people being better than young ones, now? Are you and I bears and lions? Do we scratch out each other's eyes? It is all puzzle, puzzle, puzzle. I wish I was dead! Nurse says, when I'm dead I shall understand it all. But I don't know; I saw a dead cat once, and she didn't seem to know as much as ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... peered up into his mother's sightless face. Mercy was all tears in an instant. She had borne yesterday's operation without a groan, but now the scratch on her child's hand went to ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... he invested," Link said. "Wasn't a scratch of a pen to show that he invested anything while he was in the bank. Guess ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... sure that Harry meant to come up to the scratch, but I suppose he's had plenty to keep him going lately without bothering his head about a youngster in short frocks and a pigtail," remarked uncle Jay-Jay ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... very neer as hard as a Flint; and in some places of it also resembling the grain of a Flint: and, like it, it would very readily cut Glass, and would not without difficulty, especially in some parts of it, be scratch'd by a black hard Flint: It would also as readily strike fire against a Steel, or against a Flint, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... it, sir?" and that was all. Old Widger was not indifferent or without imagination ... but he had self-respect, and he could not squeal like a frantic rabbit even when he was in pain. He could hit, and he could hit hard, but he did not care to claw and scratch and bite!... ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... young. The kitten already knows, through inheritance, about mice. So when the hen leads her brood forth and scratches for them, she has but one purpose—to provide them with food. If she is confined to the coop, the chickens go forth and soon scratch for themselves and snap up ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... back on his cot with a sort of "Mark Antony" "Now let it work!" chuckle. "Getting their goats" he termed it. Usually though, when the storm of bad language and boots had subsided, his dupes, too, like those of "Silver Street" were wont to scratch their heads ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... opinion that there was a change. "She was always uncertain, you know, and would scratch like a ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... massive walls of granite, ghastly grim and desolately gray, we wrestled in a stifling stillness, while hell stood umpire at the game. No sound of trumpet, no warlike cry, no strains of martial music were there to thrill the nerves and taunt men on to glory. We fought to the scrape and scratch of shuffling feet, the labored gasp, the rattle in the throat, while echo hushed in silence and ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... be any more affected by anything he might say than by the mewing of yonder kitten.' So vigorous was Tupper's speech that a bystander muttered that 'it was possible Joe would find the little doctor a cat that would scratch his eyes out.' In 1855 the prophecy was fulfilled. In his own county of Cumberland Howe was defeated by Tupper, and throughout the province the Conservatives obtained a decisive majority. In the next year Howe was elected for the county of Hants, but before he took his seat events ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... should be specially made for the occasion, and they deck the corpse with valuable cloths. A cock, u'iar krad lynti (literally the cock that scratches the way), is sacrificed, the idea being that a cock will scratch a path for the spirit to the next world. A sacrifice of a bull, or of a cow in case the deceased is a woman, (u or ka masi pynsum,) follows. Portions of the left leg of the fowl and the lower part of the jaw of the bull or cow are kept, to ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... barrator, but sovereign. With him frequents Don Michael Zanche of Logodoro,[2] and in talking of Sardinia their tongues feel not weary. O me! see ye that other who is grinning: I would say more, but I fear lest he is making ready to scratch my itch." And the grand provost, turning to Farfarello, who was rolling his eyes as if to strike, said, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... prosperity to you! God bless your hanner and your Orange face. Ah, the Orange boys are the boys for keeping faith. They never served me as Dan O'Connell and his dirty gang of repalers and emancipators did. Farewell, your hanner, once more; and here's another scratch of the illigant tune your hanner is so fond of, to cheer up your hanner's ears ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... whimpering and growling through the walls. My mother spoke to her, and there was silence for a moment, and then, when mother spoke again, the poor little thing recognized her voice and squealed with delight. But what could we do? We talked to her for awhile, and tried to scratch away the earth from round the wall, in the hope of getting at her; but it was all useless, and as the day began to dawn nothing remained but to make off before the men arose, and to crawl away to hide ourselves in ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... with the constable behind him and his father at his left, and studied the man in whose hands he thought that his fate rested. He watched the squire's pen go from paper to ink, ink to paper, and listened to its scratch, scratch, and to the buzz of a big fly against the dirty window-pane. Ashamed to look at any one, he looked at the lawyer's big ink-well—a great, circular affair of mottled brown wood. It had several openings, each one with ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... to judge. If you engage to do my work and take my money, you're swindling me when you go about another job as you are now. You needn't scratch your head. You understand it all ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... your heart Here is a wound that never will heal, I know What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word! Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... utterly cold and unfeeling, and therefore utterly worthless. Has the benighted world ever caused us as much pain as some trivial pecuniary loss has done? Have we ever felt the smart of the gaping wounds through which our brothers' blood is pouring forth as much as we do the tiniest scratch on our own fingers? Does it sound to us like exaggerated rhetoric when a prophet breaks out, 'Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep night and day!' or when an Apostle ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... the mind must do in connection with the disposition. Concentrating the thoughts is one of these things,—very hard for young or old to acquire. Persons resort to very queer methods to obtain it,—some scratch their heads, others rub their chins. I have seen a public speaker try to wreak thoughts out of a watch-chain. Another jerked at the rear pockets of his swallow-tailed coat to pick out a thought ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... said that when Sir Burne Jones' little daughter was once in such a specially angry mood as to scratch and bite and spit, her father somewhat roughly shook the child and said, "I do not see what has got into you, Millicent; the devil must teach you these things." Whereupon, the little one indignantly flashed back this reply:—"Well the devil may have taught me to scratch and bite, but the spitting ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... Still holding the wad of tissue to his nose with one hand, Kellogg pulled up his trouser leg with the other and showed a scar on his shin. It looked like a briar scratch. "You ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... avoid matches being scratched on the wall-paper almost as much as on the match-scratch, try the idea of removing the glass from a small oval or square picture frame and framing a piece of sandpaper just as one would a picture. Put a small screw-eye on top of the frame, thus allowing it to hang perfectly flat against the wall. The frame prevents the match from being carried over the ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... the days when, to earn money for a thin soup, a bit of dry bread, a small piece of cheap cow beef, or to protect herself from the importunity of an unpaid tradesman, she had washed laces with her own delicate hands and seen her nobly born, heroic father scratch crooked letters and scrawling ornaments upon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to her, she shook her head sceptically. "But I suppose you have to say it." He dropped back into a corner of one of the benches; they were a jumble of skirts and reclining heads and elevated pumps. The victrola, at the end of a record and unattended, ran on with a shrill scratch. Cytherea had the appearance of floating in the restrained light; her smile was not now so mocking as it was satirical; from her detached attention she might have been regarding an extraordinary and unpredictable spectacle ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... snake- hunting in so prolific a field as Cyprus. Since that time all the dogs hunted the countless lizards which ran across the path during the march, and Shot was most determined in his endeavours to scratch ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... a small boy tearing paper Without knowing why, And like students who kill gas lamps, And like children who turn so red When they tear the wings of captured flies, So I would like to do the same, As if it were a slip, To make a scratch with my knife on such a chin. I would too gladly watch the ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... jaws; but the prince received him on the point of his third spear, which he forced into his throat. Then, at one leap, springing across his body, he cut open his throat with his dagger. In this contest, the Moor's skill was such, that he received only a slight scratch on the thigh. ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... intending to stop at Boston and get a new clearance, so it'll be no trouble at all to set you all ashore, for Don Pedro and his sister will not wish to go to Sweden; and my second mate, I suppose, will want to get married and leave me. Now, Ben, my boy, that's what I call a XX plan; no scratch brand about that; superfine, and no mistake, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... nor likely to prove so. The guide and hunter, like most of his calling, is a rough practical surgeon; and after giving the wound a hurried examination, pronounces it "only a scratch," ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... from the rock pile long enough to scratch his ear. Then he replaced it, and replied, "Of course," in an ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse
... a Paul, and promised to make it a crown if he would go to Centino to bear witness against his comrade, and he immediately began to speak up for the count, much to Betty's amusement. He said the man's wound in the face was a mere scratch, and that he had brought it on himself, as he had no business to oppose a traveller as he had done. By way of comfort he told us that the Frenchman had only been hit by two or three stones. Betty did not ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... they do,' said the chaplain, not able to forego giving the girl a scratch of his claws. 'Mr Pendle's visits here must be delightful ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... straightened out circumstances, whatever they be, but he's come back here to spend his declinin' days—that's what Joe Macomber says he called 'em, his declinin' days—in Bayport, 'cause he loves the old place, 'count of Lobelia, his wife, lovin' it so, and he can maybe scratch along here on ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch Turn, and return, indenting with the way; Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch, Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay: For misery is trodden on by many, And being low never ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... correction. You must, therefore, receive it with all its imperfections, accompanied with this assurance, that, though there may be inaccuracies in the letter, there is not a single defect in the friendship." Occasionally there was, as here, an apology: "I am persuaded you will excuse this scratch'd scrawl, when I assure you it is with difficulty I write at all," he ended a letter in 1777, and in 1792 of another said, "You must receive it blotted and scratched as you find it for I have not time to copy it. It is now ten o'clock at night, after my usual hour for retiring to rest, and the ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... but he was kept to the scratch. And so, early in October the place was ready, and Woodhouse was plastered with placards announcing "Houghton's Pleasure Palace." Poor Mr. May could not but see an irony in the Palace part of the phrase. "We can guarantee the pleasure," ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... was, oldest of all. When I was bound to old Lowe, it went hard, ef I couldn't scratch together enough for a bit of ribbon-bow or a ring for Nell, come Christmas. She used to sell the old flour-barrels an' rags, an' have her gift all ready by my plate that mornin': never missed. I never hed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... makings of a wonderful nation. They are keen as mustard and without silly antique prejudices inherited from the middle ages. It is true, as a nation, they have something of a swelled head. But give them a chance; they will come up to the scratch some ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... merely a scratch of my pencil. Your la'ship's sensible—just to give you an idea of the shape, the form of the thing. You fill up your angles here with encoinieres—round your walls with the Turkish tent drapery—a fancy of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... battle a fan in one hand and an umbrella in the other (a very sensible way too, with an occasional mint julip this warm weather); but, however all that may be, I adopt the saying; and, lazily resting my head, propose, pen in hand, to scratch down for you a chapter of anecdotes. I would rather sit near you, O MEISTER KARL, this sunny day of the waning June, in some forest nook; and when you had grown weary of talking (not I of listening) and had lit your old time meerschaum, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the Fort with a great retinue, a whole village complete when they camped, and announced that he and his people had some fifty thousand dollars in sight to stake on the race; which, of course, was to be a scratch race for both. The soldiers, being very human, raised all they could—and much that they couldn't, really—to cover this handsome sum. Red Cloud then ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... some of the causes we have stated is the extreme idleness of the Irish labourer. There is nothing of the value of which the Irish seem to have so little notion as that of time. They scratch, pick, dawdle, stare, gape, and do anything but strive and wrestle with the task before them. The most ludicrous of all human objects is an Irishman ploughing. A gigantic figure—a seven-foot machine for turning potatoes in human nature—wrapt ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... question, and while she continued to search out objects in the darkness she saw the stranger reappear around the corner of the cabin and approach the door. He fumbled at it for a moment and threw it open. He disappeared within and an instant later Sheila heard the scratch of a match and saw a feeble glimmer of light shoot out through the doorway. Then the ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... I perceived, armed with a knitting-needle; and as she raised her hand her intention seemed to be to throw it at me like a dart. But she only used it to scratch her head with, examining me the while at close range, one eye nearly shut and her face distorted by a whimsical, ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... and one of his ancestors die miserably by the throw of a hog? AEschylus, fore-threatened by the fall of a house, when he was most on his guard, was struck dead by the fall of a tortoise-shell from the talons of a flying eagle. Another was choked by a grape-pip. An emperor died from the scratch of a comb, AEmilius Lepidus from hitting his foot against a door-sill, Anfidius from stumbling against the door as he was entering the council chamber. Caius Julius, a physician, while anointing a patient's eyes had his own closed by death. And if among these examples I may add one ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... it will be the last bear you ever scratch; look at those paws! did you ever see such nails? didn't you hear them rattle against the ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... and intrudes itself on the eye. The men are civil fellows enough, if you will, as in duty bound, be civil to them. If you are not, ugly capacities will flash out fast enough, and too fast. If any one says of the Negro, as of the Russian, 'He is but a savage polished over: you have only to scratch him, and the barbarian shows underneath:' the only answer to be made is—Then do not scratch him. It will be better for you, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... great knave, but so like the other as not to be distinguished, at least by my unphysiognomical discernment. He acknowledged that there was resemblance to an ignorant eye; but, said he, triumphantly, this (latter) could never have made that scratch, which sybilistic scratch was the mere prolongation of the last letter of the last word in a sentence. Now it occurs to me that one of A.B.A.'s scratches is exactly in the line of genius according to Schweitzer; and surely more may be presumed from the instinctive effort of untutored infancy ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... at half past six; a good night with only one scratch, though a good deal of inflammation most of the morning. After breakfast played some of the psalm tunes. At 9 set off with J. D. to the end of the island, a very pleasant drive and beautiful opening into the Hudson. Bathed in a rather muddy creek. Pulled an apple on going ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... circumstances, whatever they be, but he's come back here to spend his declinin' days—that's what Joe Macomber says he called 'em, his declinin' days—in Bayport, 'cause he loves the old place, 'count of Lobelia, his wife, lovin' it so, and he can maybe scratch along here on ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... very narrow collar; a light drugget waistcoat, with pockets reaching to the knees; black plush breeches; grey worsted hose; and shoes with round toes, wooden heels, and high quarters, fastened by small silver buckles. He wore a three-cornered hat, a sandy-coloured scratch wig, and had a thick woollen wrapper folded round his throat. His clothes had evidently seen some service, and were plentifully begrimed with the dust of the workshop. Still he had a decent look, and decidedly the air of one well-to-do in the world. In stature, he was ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... she gasped, as, on opening her eyes a second time, she found only a few drops of blood trickling from a mere scratch in the sheep's neck; "I—I can't ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... his horse. Instantly the boy seized the bridle and sprang upon the steed's back, and the next moment he had dashed into the thickest part of the fray. Bullets and blows rained upon him from all sides, but the Garment of Repulsion saved him from a single scratch. ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... to give a special warning against putting any trust in the epigram which has long done duty as a piece of politico-ethnological wisdom: "Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar." It would be quite as correct to say, "Scratch an American and you will find an Indian." The simple fact is that the Russian officials with whom foreigners have to do are men of experience, and, as a rule, much like those whom ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... be in Fashion, or out of Fashion. I remember there was a Fashion, not many years since, for Women in their Apparel to be so Pent up by the Straitness, and Stiffness of their Gown-Shoulder-Sleeves, that They could not so much as Scratch Their Heads, for the Necessary Remove of a Biting Louse; nor Elevate their Arms scarcely to feed themselves Handsomly; nor Carve a Dish of Meat at a Table, but their whole Body must needs Bend towards the Dish. This must needs be concluded by Reason, a most ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... snarled Quilp, 'I'll beat you with an iron rod, I'll scratch you with a rusty nail, I'll pinch your eyes, if you talk to ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... great rocks that seemed to block the channel completely, the ship sailed majestically into the harbor, and Herve Riel had kept his promise. Not once had the great Formidable touched her keel to a rock; not a scratch, except the battle scars, marred her ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... mouth waters. An extra can of hot water happens to stand at the door; and therein he deposits his treasure (mine, I mean), and retires saying nothing. The consequence is, when I open three minutes after his scratch, I find you all ungummed and swimming, your beautiful handwriting bleared and smeared, so that no eye but mine could have read it. Benjy's shame when I showed him what he had done ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... were making night giddy with their ghostly fires, while underground and from the labyrinths of matted roots came quaint sounds of rustling snakes and forest pigs, and all the lesser things that dig and scratch ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... Sheridan?" The answer was in the negative. "Then I will tell you just what kind of a chap he is: One of those long-armed fellows, with short legs, that can scratch their shins without having to stoop over ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... "Only a scratch," she whispered, but Harkness saw her eyes glazing. He dropped to his knees and caught her swaying body in ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... "Scratch a professor and you find a Tartar," said West, laughing too. "When I finally caught you, laggard that I was, you looked as if he were ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... sorry figure on the platform. His old khaki jacket and trousers were almost in shreds. Bloodstains were all over his shirt. A great bloody scratch was visible upon his cheek. His hands were cut by brambles. There was a grim look on his dirty, scarred face. I am not so sure that he would have looked any nobler if he had been in the first-line ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... under you four campaigns, fought under you in ten battles or engagements; have received in your service seven wounds, and am not a member of your Legion of Honour; whilst many who served under Moreau, and are not able to show a scratch from an enemy, have ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... a guardian spirit, I am sure that to numberless other good qualities he adds the skill of an accomplished motorist; for if he did not get the car to Madrid, without a single scratch upon her brilliant body, I do not know who did. I have no distinct memories, after the first, yet when we arrived at our destination, Gotteland generously complimented, and as I did not care to go into psychological explanations, I accepted his eulogium. ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... little scratch?" demanded Rutter scornfully. "Don't count me as a wounded man, Reade. There are some firearms in this camp. I want to get the men armed, as far as the weapons will go, and then I want to go back and smoke out ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... but once. I thought I was in love but I wasn't. Love is a itchin' 'round the heart you can't get at to scratch. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... him a Paul, and promised to make it a crown if he would go to Centino to bear witness against his comrade, and he immediately began to speak up for the count, much to Betty's amusement. He said the man's wound in the face was a mere scratch, and that he had brought it on himself, as he had no business to oppose a traveller as he had done. By way of comfort he told us that the Frenchman had only been hit by two or three stones. Betty did not find this very consoling, but I saw that the affair was more comic ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a fortnight in advance. "On this occasion they upset the tables and the furniture; they scattered twenty caraffes of water about the room; I finally got away at half-past one, wearied out, pelted with handkerchiefs, and leaving Madame de Clarence hoarse, with her dress torn to shreds, a scratch on her arm, and a bruise on her forehead, but delighted that she had given such a gay supper and flattered with the idea of its being the talk the next day."—This is the result of a craving for amusement. Under its pressure, as under the sculptor's thumb, the face of the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... I forgave it long ago," said Miss Phoebe, graciously. "I was about to remark that though the other table has no dent, it has a scratch, made by Jocko in his youth, which years of labor have failed to efface. To my mind, the scratch is more noticeable than the dent, though both are to be regretted. Mr. Bliss, you are eating nothing. I beg you will allow me to give you ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... lie down and place the name of the new man on the ticket. The reformer thought the gang beaten and that his own election was sure, so he didn't make a hard campaign. But the gang quietly passed around word to scratch the name of the reformer and to write in the name of a gang candidate in the secrecy of the ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... Mangeysterne hounds wanted that great ingredient of prosperity, a large nest-egg subscriber, to whom all others could be tributary—paying or not as might be convenient. The consequence was they were always up the spout. They were neither a scratch pack nor a regular pack, but something betwixt and between. They were hunted by a saddler, who found his own horses, and sometimes he had a whip and sometimes he hadn't. The establishment died as often ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... his mouth and see?" jeered Chunky. "He can scratch, too. But we got him, didn't we? We're the original lion tamers from the wild ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... perchance, this fellow can give you some information," and suddenly stooping, he seized one of the seeming dead men by the neck and jerked him to his feet. "Answer the Knight, rogue," he said. "Raynor Royk has seen too many dead bodies to be fooled by one that has not a scratch upon it." ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... judge passed nimbly around the desk and shook the Scratch Hiller warmly by the hand. "Where's my nevvy, sir—what's all this about him and Miss Betty?" Yancy's ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... conditions. Experiments were made periodically throughout the trapping period to determine which bait was most attractive to cottontails and least attractive to birds, rodents, skunks, raccoons, and opossums. All of these animals hindered operations by stealing bait and springing traps. Corn, scratch-feed, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes, lettuce, apple, cabbage, raisins, sorghum, sugar candy, and onions were used as bait. Corn and scratch-feed attracted cottontails best in all seasons. Corn was superior to scratch-feed, which was quickly ...
— Home Range and Movements of the Eastern Cottontail in Kansas • Donald W. Janes
... made a scratch or two, and the letter now expresses my genuine sentiments on the matter. But should you not see Rogers? It is evident that Lord Byron is a little awkward about this matter, and his officious friends ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... too, and I don't grudge you the money. Cut her out—that's the best advice I can give you. Make your husband see you're the better woman of the two. Cut her out, I'm saying, and don't come whining here like a cry-baby, who runs to her grandmother's apron-strings at the first scratch she gets outside." ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the staircase, and rushed into the corridor that led to Angela's chamber. At the moment he reached it, the unfortunate girl was mechanically guarding her face with both hands against Ciboule, who, furious as the hyena over its prey, was trying to scratch and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... her head quickly; a sound had reached her ear,—a sound so slight that none but a high-strung ear could have caught it. It was like a mouse giving a single scratch against a stone wall. ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... in his chair, as was his habit when in high spirits. "It is a little off the beaten track, isn't it?" said he. "And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch, and tell us all about yourself, your household, and the effect which this advertisement had upon your fortunes. You will first make a note, doctor, of ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... carried in a litter, or," he added threateningly, "you can abide here with the vultures. The Inkosazana is merciful, but why should I not avenge her wrongs upon you, white dog, who have dared to scratch at the kraal ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... impetuous answer, and then came the recommendation to sell all that he had and give to the poor—"and, Come! Follow me!" At this, we read in a fragment of the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" (preserved by Origen), "the rich man began to scratch his head, and it did not please him. And the Lord said to him, 'How sayest thou, "The law I have kept and the prophets?" For it is written in the law, "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"; and behold! many who are thy brethren, ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... owes its long neck to its continued habit of browsing upon trees, whence also the great length of its fore legs as compared with its hinder ones. Carnivorous animals, in like manner, have had their organs modified in correlation with their desires and habits. Some climb, some scratch in order to burrow in the earth, some tear their prey; they therefore have need of toes, and we find their toes separated and armed with claws. Some of them are great hunters, and also plunge their claws deeply into the bodies of their victims, trying to tear out ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... face, they were struck dumb by its beauty, and I think tears sprang into the eyes of some of them. No such perfect piece of marble had ever been found before. There was not a scratch. The skin still glowed with the polishing that Praxiteles' own hands had given it. There was even a hint of color on the lips. The soft clay bed had saved the falling statue. Here was a statue that the whole world would ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... in his pocket, and soon a scratch and a flare painted gold the whole flat side of the monument. On it was cut in black letters the well-known words which so many Americans had reverently read: "Sacred to the Memory of General Sir Arthur St. Clare, Hero and Martyr, who Always Vanquished his Enemies and Always ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... right-whale; they get barnacles and a kind of marine lice on their backs, and come up and scratch them selves against a ship's keel, just like a ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... of the boys had a scratch or a bruise. The only discomfort was that, in spite of big mittens and capotes, so much snow had found its way where it was, to say the least, not very welcome. But it was light and feathery, and was soon dusted off or shaken out, and then the work was to get out and disentangle the dogs. This ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... was a crocodile! Pinocchio saw it and shuddered, but there was no time to cry out. Down, down he went into that open mouth! But wooden marionettes are always fortunate. The crocodile's throat was so wide that Pinocchio slipped into the stomach of the creature with great ease. Not even a scratch! As he was accustomed to being under water and inside the bodies of animals, he was not at all frightened. In fact, when he noticed that he was being carried down to the bottom of the river, where it was cool and refreshing, he uttered no word of complaint, but ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... open road, until broad sunlight warned him to a safer path across the fields. He had been too much of a rambler during those long Saturday afternoons at Ashfield, to have any dread of a tramp through swamp-land or briers. "Who cared for wet feet or a scratch? Who cared for a rough scramble through the bush, or a wade (if it came to that) through ever so big a brook? Who cared for old Brummem and his white-faced nag?" In fact, he had the pleasure of seeing the parson's venerable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... young Scott called together his retainers, and addressing them, said—"Look ye, friends, is it not a crying sin and a national shame to see things going aglee as they are doing? There seems hardly such a thing as manhood left upon the Borders. A bit scratch with a pen upon parchment is becoming of more effect than a stroke with the sword. A bairn now stands as good a chance to hold and to have, as an armed man that has a hand to take and to defend. Such a state o' things was only made for those who are ower lazy to ride by night, and ower cowardly to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... observed Bob carelessly, but his face flushed at Frank's honest compliment. "I've had a wild stallion drag me all around a forty-foot lot, and never got a scratch." ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... delivered their message and bade the convention disperse; and the delegates, when they had heard, seized them and their clerk and threw them out of the window "in good old Bohemian fashion." They fell seventy feet and escaped almost without a scratch, which fact was accepted by the Catholics of that strenuous day as proof of their miraculous preservation; by the Protestants as evidence that the devil ever takes care of ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... one more is all you want.' And making an extra scratch with a pencil, the female model surveyed the new-comers with a triumphant air, plainly saying: 'See there! I can write, but I ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... something far more tenacious in these microscopic Harvest-mites. If he has obtained a good supply of them, he will in a few hours begin to suffer from severe itching, and for the next two or three days will be likely to scratch until his limbs ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... began, directly she saw him, "last night you did not see my family, you must admire them, we are all here together for tea; this is our second, holiday tea. You can make friends with them all; only Shurotchka won't let you, and the cat will scratch. Are ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... is a very soft metal, with so strong an affinity for oxygen that it burns in water. Manganese, which belongs to the 'iron group,' is hard enough to scratch glass; and, like iron, is decidedly ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... front er de fireplace," she said, "cookin' me some meat, w'en all of a sudden I year sumpin at de do'—scratch, scratch. I tuck'n tu'n de meat over, en make out I ain't year it. Bimeby it come dar 'gin—scratch, scratch. I up en open de do', I did, en, bless de Lord! dar wuz little Dan, en it look like ter me dat his ribs done grow terge'er. I gin 'im some bread, en den, w'en he start out, I tuck'n ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... through it all that I loved Margaret as dearly as ever. Yet there were moments, and they seemed to come more frequently as the days went on, when I found myself wondering. Did I really want to give up all this? The untidiness, the scratch meals, the nights with Julian? And, when I was honest, ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... the Bird family in the feed-room with their guest, all happily at scratch in the hay for the wheat and corn thrown to them by the Corn-tassels while Matthew and I went in to bid the paternal twins good-by, we all rode merrily and joltily down the long avenue under the old elms to ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... even realise the idea of equality, and here in England we have been taught to hate the word by the evil effects of those absurd attempts which have been made elsewhere to proclaim it as a fact accomplished by the scratch of a pen or by a chisel on a stone. We have been injured in that, because a good word signifying a grand idea has been driven out of the vocabulary of good men. Equality would be a heaven, if we could attain it. How can we to whom so much ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... is chosen to be cat, and hides behind or under the teacher's desk. After the cat is hidden, the teacher beckons to five or six other players, who creep softly up to the desk, and when all are assembled, scratch on it with their fingers, to represent the nibbling of mice. As soon as the cat hears this, she scrambles out from under the desk and gives chase to the mice, who may save themselves only by getting back to their holes (seats). If a mouse be caught, the cat ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... profitable business, but its risks and losses are greater, owing to storms, while the outlay for labor, dipping materials, etc., is considerably larger, and owing to the comparative inability of sheep to scratch away the snow from the grass, hay has to be provided to meet the emergency of very severe snow-storms. The flocks are made up mostly of pure and graded Mexicans; but though some flocks which have been graded carefully for some years show considerable merit, the average ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... he would not expect salary for the time he spent in the chase. He ended by saying tersely, "My reputation and standing of company here at stake," and signed his name in a hasty scrawl that made the operator scratch his ear reflectively with his pencil when he had counted the words down to the signature. After that, Luck gave every ounce of his energy and every bit of his brain to the ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... good strong woman coming next week for the kitchen work. Oh, it's all right," assured Alma, quickly, in response to the look on her mother's face. "Why, I'm rich! Only think of those orders! And then you shall dress in silk or velvet, or calico—anything you like, so long as it doesn't scratch nor prick," she added merrily, bending forward and fastening the lace ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... * * "To return to my own moonshiny Romance; its fate will soon be settled, for Smith and Elder mean to publish on the 28th of this month. Poor Ticknor will have a tight scratch to get his edition out contemporaneously; they having sent him the third volume only a week ago. I think, however, there will be no danger of piracy in America. Perhaps nobody will think it worth stealing. Give my best regards to William Story, and look well ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... tooth—sure disaster if we ever struck it. As soon as we had decided on a channel we would lose no time in getting back to our boats and running it for we could feel our courage oozing from our finger tips with each second's delay. Time and again we got through just by a scratch. Success bred confidence; I distinctly remember feeling that water alone would not upset the boat; that it would take a collision with a rock to do it. And each time we got through. Twice I almost had reason to reverse my impression of the power of water. First ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... up the little back parlor with anxiety, the tension of two doctors in consultation, and a sense of hysteria that was always just a scratch beneath the surface of Mrs. Becker. She would break suddenly into loud and unexpected fits of crying, crushing her palms up against her mouth; would waken from a light doze beside the bed, on the shriek of a nightmare, and have literally to be dragged from the room. She harassed the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... for me together, and though like a young tiger I struggled with scratch and bite and kick, they had me ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... now," said the widow. And Charlie was good-natured. "It's to be as soon as ever we come back from our trip," said Mrs Greenow to Kate, the next day, "and I'm lending her money to get all her things at once. He shall come to the scratch, though I go all the way to Norfolk by myself and fetch him by his ears. He shall come, as sure as my name's Greenow,—or Bellfield, as it will be then, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... scratched with some of the old mysterious patterns that, in almost every part of the world, remain inscribed on slabs and faces of rock? Who incised similar patterns on the oyster-shells, some old and local, some fresh—and American! Why did any one scratch them? What is the meaning, if meaning there be, of the broken figurines or stone "dolls"? They have been styled "totems" by persons who do not know the meaning of the word "totem," which merely denotes the natural object,—usually a plant or animal,—after which sets of kinsfolk are ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... signs upon bits of paper, or sometimes pieces of wood. Far too poor to buy even the commonest kind of writing paper, John was in the habit of picking up shreds of the same material, such as used by grocers and other village shopkeepers, and to scratch thereon his signs and figures, sometimes with a pencil, but oftener with a piece of charcoal. Perhaps there never was a more unfavourable study ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... stick about five feet long and held it in an inclined position. The old man then took two sticks and hit them together, and stood right by the door singing. He told me to whistle; then he walked toward the point where he had held the sticks. He then lay down by the stick and began to scratch on the ground as though he were caught in a trap. Then he said: 'You are going to catch one now.' By this time it was pretty late in the night. We gave a signal to the other boys and girls to come out and we all went to see our traps. I had a robe made out of a yearling calfskin that ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... of papers. A search is really a marvellous experience. The imagination flies with lightning rapidity from one world of things to another and another as the papers rustle between the fingers. John Ploughman used to say that, even if the fowls got nothing by it, it did them good to scratch. I am not a poultry expert, as I am frequently reminded, but I dare say that there is a wealth of wisdom in the observation. At any rate, I know that, in my own case, the success or failure of my search expeditions stand in no ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my head. Prr. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... last bandage). It's a stout heart you have in you, Phelimy Driscoll—you to be crying out for a scratch. It's better you would have been, you and the like of you, to be stopping ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... guides. Poker was a serious business to the guides. They did not gossip; they shuffled the thick greasy cards with a deft ferocity menacing to the "sports;" and Joe Paradise, king of guides, was sarcastic to loiterers who halted the game even to scratch. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... familiarity with controversy, to which Mr. Gladstone alludes, will have accustomed him to the misadventures which arise when, as sometimes will happen in the heat of fence, the buttons come off the foils. I trust that any scratch which he may have received will heal as quickly as my ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... still looking the way she had gone and wondering at the adventure; and he pondered her words and held debate with himself whether he should take the road she bade him. And he said within himself: "Hitherto have I been safe and have got no scratch of a weapon upon me, and this is a place by seeming for all adventures; and little way moreover shall I make in the night if I must needs go to Hampton under Scaur, where dwell those peaceable people; and it is now growing dusk already. So I will abide the morning hereby; but I will be ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... I think she is, but then she wouldn't know when to wake me, and even if I could teach her to wake me the moment Agnes cried, I don't think she would be a nice one to do it; for if I didn't come awake with a pat of her velvety pin-cushions, she might turn out the points of the pins in them, and scratch me awake. There's the clock; it's always awake; but it can't tell you the time till you go and ask it. I think it might be made to wind up a string that should pull me when the right time came; but I don't think I could teach it. And when it came to the pull, the pull might stop the clock, and what ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... of every tongue. Hedges were taken in their flight, and cleared in a style that occasioned the country people to turn up their eyes, and scratch their heads in wonder. Dogs of all degrees bit the dust, and were caught up dead in stupid amazement by their owners, who began to doubt whether or not these extraordinary animals were swine at all. The depredators in the meantime had adopted the Horatian ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... victory of which I am so sure. Cheer up. I think my hour has not yet come. I had three horses killed under me in Belgium. At Charleroi a bomb exploded in a staircase as I was coming down. I jumped—not a scratch to show. Things like that make a man ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... since then. The social whirlpool has engulfed the boys; Robb'd of their simple, hardy, rowdy joys, They start from scratch as men. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... it can often take longer to edit a poor-copy OCR than to key it from scratch. NAL has also experimented with partial editing of text, whereby project workers go into and clean up the format, removing stray characters but not running a spell-check. NAL corrects typos in the title and authors' names, which provides a foothold ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... are not going to come up to the scratch," said Ned M'Gill to the other honourable gent—as they passed the Clydesdale Cricket Ground a few minutes to four o'clock on that memorable morning. Ned, however, was wrong. Through the grey dawn a muffled figure was observed crossing ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... was disreputable and unkempt. My hair was ruffled, my collar torn open from its stud, and one sleeve of my coat had been torn out, so that the lining showed through. I had a nasty scratch across the neck, too, inflicted by the fingernails of one of the blackguards, and from the abrasion blood had flowed and made a ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... is tiger. The questions may be, "Do you scratch?" "Are your claws sharp?" "Do you howl at night?" etc. The player thinking they have named him a cat answers, "Yes," and says, "Am I a cat?" When answered in the negative, the players still question him until he finally guesses tiger. ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... our eyes we see, in all conditions of life, a deluge of terrible examples of ingratitude for the precious Gospel. We see how kings, princes and lords scratch and bite; how they envy and hate one another, oppressing their own people and destroying their own countries; how they tax themselves with not so much as a single Christian thought about ameliorating the wretchedness of Germany and securing for the oppressed Church somewhere a shelter of ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... the first anniversary of our wedding day," he said to Mme. Vauquer, as he put away a little silver posset dish, with two turtle-doves billing on the cover. "Poor dear! she spent on it all the money she had saved before we were married. Do you know, I would sooner scratch the earth with my nails for a living, madame, than part with that. But I shall be able to take my coffee out of it every morning for the rest of my days, thank the Lord! I am not to be pitied. There's not much fear of my starving for some ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... afraid of getting a sword scratch, monsieur?" interrupted the Colonel impatiently, whilst M. de Quettare elevated a pair of aristocratic eyebrows in bewilderment at such an ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... minutes I was up and dressed, and so perfectly transformed by the addition of a brown scratch-wig and large green spectacles, and a deep-flapped waistcoat, that my servant, on re-entering my room, could not recognise me. I followed him now across the barrack-yard, as, with my pistol-case under one arm and a lantern in his hand, he proceeded ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... say, escaped with only one scratch on the side. It was a deep one, but not dangerous, and gave him but little pain at the time, although it caused him many a smart for ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... degree and not of kind. Among reflexes, some are simpler than others, but even the simplest is compound in the sense of being a cooerdinated movement. The knee jerk is simpler than the flexion reflex, and this is simpler than the scratch {108} reflex, which consists of a rapid alternation of flexion and extension by one leg, while the other is stiffly extended and supports the trunk. Coughing, which would be called a reflex rather than an instinct, consists of a similar alternation of inspiration and forced ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... perceive that her caress had left behind it a trace of blood. One could not touch the boy's skin without the red dew exuding from it; the tissues had become so lax through extreme degeneration that the slightest scratch brought on a hemorrhage. The doctor became at once uneasy, and asked him if he still bled at the nose as frequently as formerly. Charles hardly knew what to answer; first saying no, then, recollecting himself, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... climbing such slopes and benches and ledges as Lucy had not yet encountered. The grasping spikes of dead cedar tore her dress to shreds, and many a scratch burned her flesh. About the middle of the afternoon Creech led up over the last declivity, a yellow slope of cedar, to a flat upland covered with pine and ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... young man who fills his pockets with a handful of cigars, giving a sly wink at the others. But this freedom from any sense of obligation is often the first step downward to the position where he is willing to sell his vote to both parties, and then scratch his ticket as he pleases. The writer recalls a conversation with a man in which he complained quite openly, and with no sense of shame, that his vote had "sold for only two dollars this year," and that he was "awfully disappointed." The writer happened to know that his income ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... here where such trenches are possible, and where they exist; but I have not seen them. It must be remembered that in many places in France there are stretches of line where it is impossible to dig a trench at all in winter, because you meet water as soon as you scratch the surface; and therefore both our line and the German are a breastwork built up instead of a trench dug down. The curious thing is that in the trenches themselves you scarcely realise the difference. Your outlook there is bounded in either case by two ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... and did you scratch, and pinch, and struggle, pretty mistress?' he cried, as he grasped a little hand that sought in vain to free itself from his grip: 'you, so bright-eyed, and cherry-lipped, and daintily made? But I love you better for it, mistress. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... in full to the local authorities; and, in respect to the States farther South, and wholly committed to the institution, it is certain that Slavery has hardly received what would prove a serious scratch upon its epidermis, if such changes were now to ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... reluctant to show his boasted wound; but being pressed to do so by both his friends (from different motives) he exhibited something which looked like a severe scratch from a cat. ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... line, the first and last, generally the best of lines, is that which you have elementary faculty of at your fingers' ends, and which kittens can draw as well as you—the scratch. ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... shall value it for the giver's sake. And I promise you that when next we meet—such care shall it receive—even you will be unable to discover a scratch on it." ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Virgil from an upper shelf, and his thoughts wandered away from surrounding things; he travelled in the past again. The book was a Delphin edition of 1798, which had followed him in all his wanderings; there was a great scratch on the sheep-skin cover that a thorn had made in a forest of Alabama. And then, in the twilight, as he shut the volume at last, oblivious of my presence, he began to murmur and to chant ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... fairly efficient body of men who formed the Town Guard; the Train Bands, some thousand strong, who knew no more than so many spinsters of the division of a battle; the small and undisciplined Edinburgh regiment; and a scratch collection of volunteers hurriedly raked together from among the humbler citizens of the town, and about as useful as so many puppets to oppose to the daring and the ferocity of the clans. Edinburgh opinion had changed very rapidly with ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... came and said to a Lion: "I do not the least fear you, nor are you stronger than I am. For in what does your strength consist? You can scratch with your claws, and bite with your teeth—so can a woman in her quarrels. I repeat that I am altogether more powerful than you; and if you doubt it, let us fight and see who will conquer." The Gnat, having sounded his horn, fastened ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... should be searched for, and when found, should be freely opened with a knife, and lunar caustic, caustic potash, or the permanganate of potash at once applied to all parts of the wound, care being taken not to suffer a single scratch to escape. This, if attended to in time, will save ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... why quiver'st thou at this decree? Honour thyself to rid me of this shame; For if I die, my honour lives in thee; But if I live, thou livest in my defame: Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame, And wast afear'd to scratch her wicked foe, Kill both thyself and her ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... slightest impression on the body of Hiranyakashipu's son Mandara, that appeared like an evil planet in the three worlds. Hundreds of Chakras like thine and thunderbolts like that of Sakra, could not inflict a scratch on the body of that evil planet endued with great might, who had obtained a boon from Mahadeva. Afflicted by the mighty Mandara, the deities fought hard against him and his associates, all of whom had obtained boons from Mahadeva. Gratified with another ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... however, who was thus hastily dispossessed of his charge, began to stare hard, and scratch his head, as if seized with some qualms of conscience for delivering up the animal on such brief explanation. "I be right zure thou be'st the party," said he, muttering to himself, "but thou shouldst ha zaid BEANS, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... out at length to Bates, "they intend to come up to the scratch after all;" and he pointed to the strangers, which had now formed in two divisions, the two larger frigates in one, the third and two smaller vessels in another. As they carried together more than twice as many guns as the ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... uncharacteristic. There were no signs of disease either local or general, no indications of injuries either old or recent, no departures of any kind from the normal or usual; and the dismemberment had been effected with such care that there was not a single scratch on any of the separated surfaces. Of adipocere (the peculiar waxy or soapy substance that is commonly found in bodies that have slowly decayed in damp situations) there was not a trace; and the only ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... reached out his hand, the skipper revolved his head under it until the itchy place was scratched. Most men itch instantly they are unable to scratch. The skipper's space gloves were sprouting whiskers ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... to select one's own forebears than to allow them all the responsibility, and said it would save a world of trouble if the method could be universally adopted. He added that he should be glad to part with a good many of his, but doubted whether I would accept them, as they were 'rather a scratch lot.' (I use his own language, which I thought delightfully easy for a belted earl.) He was charmed with the story of Francesca and the lamiter, and offered to drive me to Kildonan House, Helmsdale, on the first fine day. I told him he was quite safe in making the proposition, ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and pulled a pad of scratch paper towards him and brought out a pen to make rough sketches. Troy swung his feet off the desk and leaned ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... time there was a very religious Camel; at least, he was religious after the fashion of his country, that is, he used to mortify his flesh by fasting, and scratch himself with thorns, and lie awake all night meditating upon the emptiness of the world. That is what men used to do in that country, in order to please their gods. One of these gods was very much ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... all now, if you please, but if the rose bush in our back yard doesn't come into the house and scratch the frosting off the chocolate cake I'll tell you next about ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... Turkey Proudfoot. Beginning with the days of her chickenhood he had always ordered her about, telling her not to do this and not to do that. Even after she was grown up and had a family of her own, Turkey Proudfoot treated her as if she had just begun to scratch ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to be had, young gals sprinkle the hair with corn-meel, and then let the chickens scratch it out. This gets up a snarl which a Filadephy lawyer ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... And the plump little penguin round and sleek, Have set us laughing—Ha, ha! Ho! ho! And you'll laugh too, if you look below. To the monkey-house then we make our way, Where the monkeys chatter, and climb, and play; At the snakes we peep, then onward stroll, To talk to the parrots, and "scratch a poll," And after all that, there will still be time On the patient ...
— London Town • Felix Leigh
... and taking a pipe under each arm goes to the tin shop to have it fixed. When he gets back, he steps upon one of the best parlor chairs to see if the pipe fits, and his wife makes him get down for fear he will scratch the varnish off from the chairs with the nails in his boot heel. In getting down he will surely step on the cat, and may thank his stars that it is not the baby. Then he gets an old chair and climbs up to the chimney again, to find that in cutting the pipe off, the end has ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... sound of voices, raced back along the passage and flung himself at the door. He then proceeded to scratch at the panels in the persevering way of one who feels that he is engaged upon a business at ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... an incision made along the skin of the stomach. This was a mistake, for the smaller snakes may be skinned through the mouth, in this wise: Open the jaws of the snake to their fullest extent, taking care, if a venomous one, not to scratch the fingers with the fangs, which, in the adder or viper, lie folded backward along the roof of the mouth. If the fangs are not required to be shown, the safest plan will be to cut them away with a pointed pair ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... deal of difficulty and grumbling on Mr. Bullock's part. George being dead and cut out of his father's will, Frederick insisted that the half of the old gentleman's property should be settled upon his Maria, and indeed, for a long time, refused, "to come to the scratch" (it was Mr. Frederick's own expression) on any other terms. Osborne said Fred had agreed to take his daughter with twenty thousand, and he should bind himself to no more. "Fred might take it, and welcome, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... simple villagers still cultivated their strips in the common fields in the time-honored way, working hard for meager returns. A third of the land stood idle every year; it often took a whole day merely to scratch the surface of a single acre with the rude wooden plow then in use; cattle were killed off in the autumn for want of good hay; fertilizers were only crudely applied, if at all; many a humble peasant was content ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... now, Josh," said Raffles, affecting to scratch his head and wrinkle his brows upward as if he were nonplussed. "I'm very fond of you; by Jove, I am! There's nothing I like better than plaguing you—you're so like your mother, and I must do without it. But the brandy and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... believe he'll play it. That's why," Miss Barrace kindly went on, "we take such an interest in you. We feel you'll come up to the scratch." And then as he seemed perhaps not quite to take fire: "Don't ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... rage.) You lie, Dugan! Billy said you'd frame him, but you won't this time—(GOLDIE flies at DUGAN as though to scratch his eyes out, but he struggles with her and throws her to the floor L.) No, Dugan, not murder, that would mean the chair! (GOLDIE on knees pleading to DUGAN. Bell rings three times, they both start. DUGAN puzzled ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... any bones, I ate them," replied the kitten, composedly, as it washed its face after the meal. "But I don't think that fish had any bones, because I didn't feel them scratch my throat." ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... Gilbert's dissertation on the occupations and amusements of the ghosts came very opportunely to my aid, and immediately I put into execution what now appeared my only hope of its safety. Just as a corner of the paper was entering the flame I gave a pretty loud scratch, at the same time anxiously observing the effect it might produce. I was overjoyed to find the enemy intimidated at least by the first fire. Another volley, and another succeeded, until even the sceptical Gilbert was dismayed. My uncle seemed ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... body is broken, and the way laid open for the entrance of microbes in various ways. A slight scratch, abrasion, or even "chapping" is enough. Thus, a mere breaking of the skin of the knuckles by a fall on to dirty ground lets in the deadly bacterium of lock-jaw (tetanus), which is lurking in the ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... again, I fancy that partizan prejudice had something to do with the dislike. Hunt was a radical in politics and religion. Moreover there was a feline strain in his character, which made it necessary for him to scratch somebody now and then, as ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... we had a sale the other day of cheap jewelry, salesmen's samples, and the women swarmed and snatched and glared like savages. I declare, when I saw them like that, so indecently eager for their trumpery ornaments, I said to myself that you'd only to scratch the civilized woman to get ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... more or less in the face of a peasant woman matters little, or not at all, but it is quite different in a celebrated beauty. If you scrawl all over the face with which the coarse finger of the potter has decorated a water-jar, the injury to the wretched pot is but small, but if you scratch, only with a needle's point, that gem with the portraits of Ptolemy and Arsinoe, which clasps Cleopatra's robe round her fair throat, the richest queen will grieve as though she had suffered ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... occurred. I had got on a new pair of boots. Foolishly, I had omitted to take Carrie's advice; namely, to scratch the soles of them with the points of the scissors or to put a little wet on them. I had scarcely started when, like lightning, my left foot slipped away and I came down, the side of my head striking the floor with such violence that for a second or two I did not know what had happened. I needly hardly ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... the pocket the best guide," said Sir Hugo, laughingly. "And as for most of your new-old building, you had need to hire men to scratch and chip it all over artistically to give it an elderly-looking surface; which at the present rate of labor ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... possible that our troops could effect their escape back to the camp, and considered that the next morning would be soon enough to return and finish the business. The General, however, determined to get back, and scratch teams of such mules, riding-horses, and oxen as had lived through the day being harnessed to the guns, the dispirited and exhausted survivors of the force managed to ford the Ingogo, now swollen by rain which had fallen in the afternoon, poor Lieutenant Wilkinson, ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... Kaw-be-naw received a little scratch on his nose which drew a few drops of his blood, and therefore when he saw a flag of truce he disarmed himself and went to the Wenebagoes, saying, "O, you have killed me." The Wenebagoes said, "How and where?" "Don't you see the blood on my nose?" "Pshaw, ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... himself. He grimly remarked to Melissa one day that "it isn't safe to count chickens even after they are hatched, especially when your eyes are smarting. I thought I knew more than God, Melissa, and if there was a bramble bush handy I'd jump into it in the hope that I might scratch my eyes back in again, as the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Brandenburger, but so far outdid him in strength and swiftness that the Junker fell into the arms of his friends with wounds in the head and breast, while Herdegen came forth from the fray with no more hurt than a slight scratch on the arm. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... turned sick within me. On the boy's cheek was a faint red scratch, just as might have been caused by a slight, very slight contact ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... for the decision; but Peck tells me confidentially that they were unanimous in the opinion that even if the Gov'r had signed the bill purposely, he had the right to scratch his name off so long as the bill remained ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... badly once as the stones turned underfoot; but he reached the bottom untouched and the shelter of the bluff where he had left his pony, jumped on and dashed out into the plain and under the Boer fire again, and got clean away without a scratch, him and his ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... iniquity that cleaveth to men that profess, if they cast it not away, but countenance it, will a11 prove nettles and briars to them; and I will assure thee, yea, thou knowest, that nettles and thorns will sting and scratch but ill-favouredly. 'I went,' saith Solomon, 'by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding. And lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to you! God bless your hanner and your Orange face. Ah, the Orange boys are the boys for keeping faith. They never served me as Dan O'Connell and his dirty gang of repalers and emancipators did. Farewell, your hanner, once more; and here's another scratch of the illigant tune your hanner is so fond of, to cheer up your hanner's ears upon ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... great extent, and I regard it as a very hopeful sign for the future. The people still want two things, capital and scientific agricultural knowledge. The native implements are of the rudest kind—their hoes little more than sufficient to scratch the ground, and their only other implement a cutlass to cut down the bush. Ploughs are unknown, and spades very little used. Wheelbarrows are detested, although they are not quite unknown; the people would sooner "tote" the soil in a box on their heads, and instances are on record where ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... lamp-posts to argue the different points more definitely, they proceeded home quarrelling. But on arriving at the door, Kate experienced a moment of revolt that surprised herself. The palms of her hands itched, and consumed with a childish desire to scratch and beat this big man, she beat her little feet against the pavement. Dick fumbled at the lock. The delay still further irritated her, and it seemed impossible that she could enter ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... Licinia roughly, "and staunch thy scratch elsewhere, away from my lady's sight. Hark at the baggage! One would think she is really hurt. Get thee gone, I say, ere I give thee ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... calf or morocco care should be taken not to let them rub together. The best bound books are soonest injured, and quickly deteriorate in bad company. Certain volumes, indeed, have evil tempers, and will scratch the faces of all their neighbours who are too familiar with them. Such are books with metal clasps and rivets on their edges; and such, again, are those abominable old rascals, chiefly born in the ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... surface. One of these Nanea caught with her hand, and by the help of it she dragged herself from the River of Death whence none had escaped before. Now she stood upon the bank gasping but quite unharmed; there was not a scratch on her body; even her white garment was still ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... looked like, till she got through her education. All through the fights he had and the scrapes he run into the last ten years he never got a scratch. Bullets used to hum around that man like bees, and he'd ride through 'em like they was bees, but none of 'em ever notched ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... tagged to join the Worry Club, To chase the fleeting rhino through the gloom, To bag the boodle, trap the wild mazume And scratch for corn when Pansy hollers "Grub!" They say I'll turn as sickly as a chub When on the First, with dull and deadly boom, The Rent comes round and walks into the room, Remarking, "Peel or else file out, ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin
... truest pal a man ever had. You and me has seen some tough times, old pard; but you've allus brought me through without a scratch; allus brought me through." There was a sob in the speaker's voice, but he manfully recovered a clear tone of pathos. "And now, old pal, they're a-takin' ye from me—yes, we got to part, you an' me. I'm never goin' to set eyes on ye agin. But ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... regret to say I do. It doesn't seem probable that a strong, hearty man would allow another man to disarm him, gag him, tie him hand and foot, get away with $100,000, and all that without a desperate struggle, and he hasn't the sign of a scratch or ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
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